Local Palestinians Remember Their Catastrophe

Community News - Community News

Written by Administrator

Saturday, 24 May 2008 14:00

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By Farkhunda Ali
Muslim Link Staff Writer

Holding an enlarged 11x14 framed picture of her parents’ house in Jerusalem, Manal A. Dajani sits down in her living room in Alexandria, Virginia to retell the story of her family’s eviction from what was once her home, her dear land, but now the state of Israel.

Dajani, 74, said her grandchildren did not learn about the event from history textbooks, but from stories of her childhood. She utilizes every moment of her life reminding the second and third generations about her family of Palestine.

“They can take everything from us, but Palestine will always remain alive in my heart and my mind,” said Dajani, as she pointed to some pictures from the Old City and Jerusalem, reflecting back to the good times she had with her eight uncles and several cousins during Eid celebrations.

While her daughter is at work, and grandchildren in school, she can’t help but to day dream about her past as she watches Al-Jazeerah lying on her couch.

“I can remember everything. Every street, every alley, all of the short cuts to my house,” said Dajani.

May 15th, 2008 marks the 60th Anniversary of the creation of the state of Israel. For the Palestinians, this is Al-Nakba, which marks the expulsion of several hundred thousand Palestinians and their families.

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Many Palestinians still hold onto their pictures, diaries, videos, rugs, plants uprooted from their gardens, stems of the dates and olive trees, and other artifacts with hope to return to their towns and villages in Palestine.

These Palestinians share a dream. This is a dream of returning to their homes that they were forced to leave and now are restricted to.

The Real News Network estimates there are 4.5 million Palestinians in refugee camps with over 9.5 million Palestinian refugees around the world.

Al-Nakba is the name Palestinians have given to May 15th, 1948 when the State of Israel established itself on the lands, towns, villages, cities, homes and the lives of the Palestinians.

Al-Nakba translates into the English language as “catastrophe” or “disaster.”

When Palestinians think of this day, it brings them back the painful memories of how they were bulldozed, gunned down, and forced to evacuate their happy living conditions.

Al-Nakba reminds them of the hysteria which was created by the Israeli soldiers during the war in 1948.

While Israel celebrates its 60th anniversary, Palestinians remember the day when their agony began.

Many Palestinians shared similar stories with TML about becoming lonely and homesick, encountering problems with survival and starting all over again, and becoming a stateless population.

Dajani remembers it was cloudy when her father, mother, and four siblings flee to Cairo, Egypt for their safety. They left behind property, land, business, and extended family.

Dajani’s father told her they will be returning to their house in two weeks, but that day never came. “We lost everything and became displaced,” said Dajani.

In Egypt, every day her father said to the Dajanis, “we’re going back tomorrow.”

Dajani traveled to Saudi Arabia after getting married, then to Lebanon, Greece, and lastly to the United States of America (U.S.). She said after six years, the countries ask them to leave due to their stateless status with no citizenship to any nation.

She traveled to five different countries, started all over again in her life each different time, made friends, and lost friends.

“I’m just like my mother you know who was never stable in one place. I miss my family just as my mother was homesick missing her family when we moved from place to place,” said Dajani.

When she visited Jerusalem in 1994, she traveled from Amman, Jordan by road to her hometown which used to be called “German Colony” in Jerusalem. Nobody could travel through the Israeli occupied territories due to the barbed wire after the war of 1967, according to Dajani.

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She said the travel is humiliating for Arab women. “They make us take off our clothes and check all of our bags and belongings.”

In 1994, she visited her parents’ house, which was now occupied by three Israelis.

“The garden was not there. The exterior appeared neglected. I remembered the tiles with red flowers and green leaves,” said Dajani.

Dajani has one brother who is a surgeon in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. Her other brother is a banker in Jordan. Another brother is a civil engineer in Saudi Arabia, and the last one is a CPA in California.

Her three children attended Georgetown University and American University in Washington, DC, and Duke University in North Carolina.

According to Palestinians, not much has changed since Al-Nakba. The only difference now is their living conditions in Israel are much worse. There is more harassment, more checkpoints, and Palestinians treated “less than human beings.”

Mosa Sayad, 33, of Laurel, Maryland visited Jerusalem six months ago. It is easier for Sayad to travel because he is one of the few fortunate ones who has an Israeli passport.

His grandfather left all of his farming land to the British mandate and flew to Jordan when the Israelis arrived. Other Palestinians from their village refused to leave and died there.

“The Palestinians don’t have equal rights to education, healthcare, water, and other resources,” said Sayad. “It is making the Palestinians backwards with no growth.”

Sayad said some Palestinians from his hometown still hold onto the keys to their homes hoping to return back soon.

Al-Nakba was the exact moment when the Palestinian people, in a matter of hours, became a nation of refugees.

“The people in camps don’t have a passport. They have no identity,” said Dajani.

These people left their money, lands, businesses, gold, schools, religious organizations, and closest family members. Some flee with nothing more than the one pair of clothing on their bodies.

Samira Hussein, 53, a resident of Gaithersburg, Maryland came to the United States in 1972. Her family was forced out of Al-Ramla from a small village called Bayt Nuba during the Six-Day War.

A very hot day on June 5th, 1967 reminds Hussein of the suffering she said she will never forget. The Israelis entered their home at midnight and asked everyone to leave at gunpoint so there won’t be any resistance while they entered her village.

Hussein’s family walked for three days with no water and two weeks with no food. They thought they would be able to return in a few days.

“The more they occupied, the more we got pushed further and further. We walked from village to village. We lost all of our friends during the time of war. Our impression as refugees was that we were problems for people,” said Hussein.

Hussein’s father was a volunteer Mayor who owned a flour mill, properties, and gas stations. Over night, they lost everything except for the one piece of cloth on their bodies. They even misplaced their shoes, but continued walking miles after miles bare feet.

When they heard the United Nations (UN) is giving out flour in Ramallah, one family member went there after walking all day to bring large 10 lbs bags of flour. “The Israeli soldiers ripped it open before it reached us.”

Hussein said Palestinians who refused to leave the village witnessed their houses burnt into flames right in front of their eyes. Others got killed trying to get out of town.

At age 12, Hussein grounded her feet deep in the sand by the Dead Sea thinking to herself time is the last time she will see Palestine. She was jerked out by the Israeli soldier.

“I can still feel that pain now,” said Hussein.

Al-Nakba remains in the Palestinians’ recollection as the time when their “good days” remained buried in their soil, with the aspiration to return. The fortunate ones were able to escape, while several hundred thousands were massacred.

One Palestinian family went from Ramla to Ramallah, and then to Jordan.

Summer El-Hayek, 27, of Gaithersburg, Maryland, said Al-Nakba reminds her of the story of her grandparents losing everything while others were killed.

She said “Zionists’ went into small villages, took the women and young girls out of their homes and shot the men from their families in front of them.

El-Hayek’s grandfather owned several acres of orange field which was bulldozed by Israeli soldiers. They went from being a middle class family which owned properties, land, cars, living a comfortable life, to having nothing.

“My grandparents had to start from ground zero,” said El-Hayek.

The Palestinians close to GAZA flew to Egypt, and others near the West Bank went to Jordan, according to El-Hayek.

El-Hayek’s father, born in 1952, a Jordanian citizen, to this day tells her stories about the Six-Day War in 1967.

“During the Six-Day War, there were so many dead bodies on the street that dogs were going around and eating people,” heard El-Hayek from her father.

From the many stories that were told to El-Hayek, she believes Palestinians were living happily before 1948. When she visited Palestine in 2000, she said Palestinians had no control over the water sources. They had to pay triple the price to Israelis to get water everyday.

“Times are much harder now. There are many checkpoints and daily oppression,” added El-Hayek.

Among the many Al-Nakba events is one story of a Palestinian born on the ocean while his mother took an American boat from Lebanon to the U.S.

Imad ad-Dean Ahmed, 59, was in his mother’s womb when she unwillingly left Jerusalem after her husband’s village Bir Nabala was taken over by the Israeli soldiers.

Ahmed, who is now the director of the Minaret Freedom Foundation and the Islamic American Zakat Foundation, both non-profit organizations in Bethesda, Maryland, remembers his mother crying for no apparent reason as a child.

When Ahmed would ask his mother the reason for her sadness, she told him she was homesick.

Ahmed returned to Jerusalem in 1962 at age 14 with his mother to sell some of her properties. He witnessed his mother’s home occupied by refugees and the family did not have the heart to throw them out of their home.

In 1967, Ahmed was informed the Israelis took the refugees out and destroyed the property.

According to www.palestineremembered.org, there are refugee camps in Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria.

These refugee camps were only supposed to be served as a “temporary” solution by the UN to over 750,000 thousand displaced from their homes in Palestine until they are permitted to return to their homes and families.

Resolution 194 (Right to Return) declared by the UN recognizes the natural and ancestral right of the Palestinians to return back to the land of their forefathers.

Now after six decades, Palestinian refugees still live in camps while Israel continues to ignore countless UN Resolutions.

Like every year since 1948, Palestinians and civil rights organizations held rallies in May opposing the establishment of the state of Israel.

On May 16th, 2008, the Muslim American Society (MAS) Freedom Foundation, together with American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), and the ANSWER Coalition held a Solidarity Rally for a “Free Palestine” in Washington, DC in Lafayette Park in front of the White House from 4PM-6PM.

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Approximately 100 people of conscience waved their “End Occupation Now” banners and the red, green, black and white Palestinian flag to remind the American President the Palestinian right and the want to return to their homeland still exists after sixty years of oppression.

They opposed the several million dollars of American tax dollars that are funding the six decades of Israeli occupation of the Palestinian land.

“Justice is not a matter of one religion over another, but it is about the freedom of one’s natural right to self-determination,” said Mahdi Bray, executive director of MAS Freedom.

Bray said people all over the world need to express their solidarity to the Palestinians. Palestinians are the largest refugee population in the world, and “it is not by choice, but by someone else’s desire.”

“Al-Nakba is the catastrophe that we, the Americans have funded with our tax dollars,” added Bray.

Another demonstration was held on May 17th in front of the Congress. The event was organized and sponsored by the Vineeta Foundation, the Washington Interfaith Alliance for Middle East Peace (WIAMEF), Sharing Jerusalem, the American Palestinian Women’s Association (APWA), and the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC).

On the west lawn reflecting the pool in front of the Capitol Building, the organizers laid a symbolic quilt with the name of each village, the number of residents destroyed, and the year they were demolished on each square.

One of the organizers read a statement sent by Fadia Khaddasi, who was four years old in 1948. Khaddasi did not attend the demonstration due to fears of retribution from the Israelis.

The statement reads: “When I remember Haifa, I remember walking, and walking, and walking until our feet bled hoping to return in one week. We buried our gold and money in a box, but never went back to retrieve it. We walked from Haifa to Damascus, Syria and I am still a refugee.”

Talking about the peace process, Hussein commented, “There is no peace process.” Hussein believes all parties including the Israelis, the Palestinian officials, and the UN need to sit together and negotiate.

“I’m very pessimistic about the current situation. Palestinians are being divided. Israelis are still not recognizing the rights of Palestinians under the International Law,” said Ahmed.

Ahmed said one thing he is optimistic about is that no matter what the Israeli’s do, they can never wipe out the entire Palestinian nation because they have a higher birth rate than the Israelis.

“I don’t think the world would tolerate it if there were increased blood shed to ethnically cleanse majority of the Palestinians,” added Ahmed.

“Like Germany apologized to the Jews, the world needs to apologize to the Palestinians,” said Dajani.

Dajani concluded her interview by saying she always wonders how their lives would be if Al-Nakba did not happen. “I will never forget how my parents suffered.”

Palestine will never be forgotten, “not by me, not by my children, and not by my grandchildren,” she said.