Day 207 - Rima

Just as nearly any group can be subdivided into two categories, there were two categories of Palestinian employees at the embassy. There were the Palestinians whose families left the area of the Palestinian mandate when Israel declared itself as a sovereign nation, settling in Lebanon, Jordan, or other Arab countries, and there were those who remained within the land that Israel claimed or the disputed territories surrounding the 1948 boundaries of Israel.

Of course, it was also possible to subdivide those who left the land into two categories, those whose claim to land was in the disputed territories and those whose claim to land was smack in the middle of the land known in 1948 as Israel. The former were considered as having abandoned their land. The latter were expelled.

And then there was the religious division between the Palestinians who were Muslim and the Palestinians who were Christian.

All of the above is just to make the point that lumping any group of people together to ascribe to them the same motives, the same objectives, the same emotions is likely going to lead to some mistakes.

Rima (standing in the middle) with American and
locally hired employees of the embassy

Rima was one of the Palestinian employees at the embassy, one of a very small number of Christian employees. Rima's family left the land previously referred to as Palestine because their home was within the disputed territories - not within the 1948 borders of Israel. Rima's family settled in Lebanon initially, but like so many Palestinians, they had almost no prospects for the future there, so they moved to Qatar, one of the newly independent Gulf states where there were economic possibilities they would never have in Lebanon. Other Palestinians went to Kuwait, Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Saudi Arabia, and Oman.  Rima went to school in Doha and when she finished high school and then college at Qatar University, she began working at the embassy. So long as Rima's father remained in Doha, he was her sponsor, a requirement for Qatari residence. The Gulf countries considered the father or husband of each family to be the head of household or the primary support for all the women and children. Employers sponsored the head of household, their employee. Then the head of household would sponsor his family members, provided the Qatari government considered he earned enough.

Before I arrived in Doha, Rima's father reached the mandatory retirement age after which he could no longer work in Qatar. And that meant he could no longer live in Qatar. And that meant he could no longer sponsor Rima. Rima's family had previously taken a very common route to address the end of residence rights in Qatar: one of Rima's brothers had gone to the U.S. as a student, had applied for permanent residence and been approved, had become a U.S. citizen and then applied for the rest of the family to join him. The rest of Rima's family had already moved to the U.S.  Rima remained behind because she was engaged to a Philippine tennis pro she had met in Doha. Her family wasn't all that happy with the engagement, so Rima decided to remain in Doha to give herself some distance and time to consider her future.

The embassy made an exception for Rima and sponsored her. But with her family gone, she had to find a place to live and landlords were not eager to rent an apartment to a single woman. Rima found someone who was willing to work as a maid and live in the apartment with her. But the Qatari government would not accept an application from Rima to sponsor an employee. Rima asked if the embassy would sponsor her maid. The ambassador said he wouldn't allow the embassy to sponsor a personal employee of an embassy employee which meant that Rima had to find another solution. For a few months, she shared the apartment of the ambassador's secretary at that time, Marge. But that wasn't ideal for a number of reasons.

By the time I arrived in Doha, I think Rima was staying with friends, but it was just another stop-gap step. She had broken off her engagement as the time and distance from her family made her realize how important their approval was. By December, barely two months after I arrived, Rima decided she wanted to travel to the U.S. to spend Christmas with her family. And while she was there, she decided she wanted to leave Qatar and join her family in California.

Rima returned to Qatar to turn in her resignation and make arrangements to leave Qatar permanently. She brought with her a copy of a Los Angeles Times editorial with a title along the lines of The Most Dangerous Man In the Middle East. It wasn't about Saddam Hussein or Ayatollah Khomeini. It was about two U.S. ambassadors to two small countries most people had never heard of - the ambassadors to Bahrain and Qatar. The article pointed out that both ambassadors were political appointees, not career diplomats. And the two were the first political appointees to either of the countries. Political appointments are more typically made to large ally countries where the cost of maintaining a diplomatic residence and the representational entertaining required someone of independent means or to small countries that are considered safe and out of the way of political turmoil. But in this case, neither of the ambassadors were independently wealthy. And the journalist's point was that there is no insignificant country in the middle east.

Rima, the ambassador, and Sandra, with Rima's award

As Rima's departure date approached, we arranged a farewell party for her at the embassy. I nominated her for an award which the ambassador approved. And he decided he would give her a special gift, one he was sure she would appreciate since he was the final ambassador she would work for. His gift: an autographed photo of himself. I could hardly supress my laughter at this suggestion.

I decided I had to warn Rima so that she wouldn't find herself in an embarrassing position as the ambassador handed her his photograph. But the rest of those around the table didn't know what was coming. Most of them knew how Rima had struggled with finding a way to remain in Doha and about the ambassador's decision not to allow the embassy to sponsor a maid. Some even knew that the embassy was already sponsoring the personal employees of other embassy staff, making the ambassador's decision look like he had singled Rima out for different treatment.

And maybe he had. For the next two years, much of what the ambassador said or did remained a mystery to me.