A Palestinian narrative: then and now

BY NADIA HIJAB

HEN ASKED TO

describe what their cause is all about, most Palestinians will begin with the Balfour Declaration of November 2, 1917, when Britain promised the still small Zionist movement a national home in Palestine. Some will go farther back to 1897 and the Basel conference, where Zionism was born. Palestinians start in the past because they have lived the history of their dispossession every day since 1917. And they can never forget the original sin, the agrant injustice of an imperial power promising their country to another people. The Palestinians always ask: Why should we pay for what the Europeans did to the Jews? In 1917 the number of Arabs in PalestineMuslims, Christians, and Jewswas about 650,000. A few A Palestinian Arab family gathers hastily-packed boxes, bundles, chickens, and ducks on the dock in Haifa, Palthousand Zionist Jews had emigrated estine, April 1948. Thousands of Palestinians from Haifa ed the advancing Zionist army and were evacuated on to Palestine since the end of the 19th British military ships. As refugees, they believed they were leaving their lives, homes, and possessions temporarily; they were never permitted to return, and what they left behind was appropriated by Zionist statebuilders. century. The Palestinians resisted British rule and plans for their country. They urged Palestinians to ee, to rememThe Palestinians who stayed on have always seen Israel as both a ber Deir Yassin. My grandmother, their land began the life of Arabs in result and a continuation of 19th cena widow, had eight children; she and a Jewish state. Although they were tury colonialism. And, indeed, Israels her four grown children got jobs to granted citizenship, they lived under colonization continues to this day sustain the younger ones. Israeli military orders between 1949 through the settlements it is building As a result of the creation of Israel and 1966including curfews, detenin the Palestinian territories occupied in 1948, over 750,000 Palestinians tions, and expulsions. The 1.5 million in 1967. ed or were forced to ee. They were Palestinians now in Israel experience Richard Schlobohm My mothers famnever allowed back to inequality and discrimination. ily left their home and their land and homes, It is sometimes hard for people to their lands on April 28, in violation of internaunderstand the Palestinian attachment 1948, seeking shelter in tional law. Palestinians to their homes and their land. It is Syria from the clashes in struggled to survive their partly because this was an agricultural Palestine and planning dispossession. The masociety rooted in the soil. But it is to return when quiet jority hailed from farms also because our society and country was restored. A few days and villages and lived in are so much part of how we Palestinearlier, on April 9, two refugee camps in Jordan, ians dene ourselves. Being homeless terrorist Jewish groups Lebanon, Syria, and means being rootless, living without a (whose leaders both later Egypt, where millions sense of belonging, always exposed to Nadia Hijab is a senior fellow at the live to this day. The ones became Israeli prime threat. Institute for Palestine Studies, an ministers) had massawith education found Perhaps the hardest part of the author, and a development consulcred Palestinians at Deir tant to international organizations. work and re-settled Palestinian struggle was to counter She co-founded the US Campaign Yassin and a Zionist in Arab countries and the myths the Zionist movement had to End the Israeli Occupation and whispering campaign around the world. spread to justify taking the land. One serves on its advisory board.

T H E PA L E S T I N I A N Q U E S T F O R J U S T P E A C E

LIFE Magazine | palestineremembered.com

In pre-1948 Palestine, the Nashif family earned a comfortable livelihood from agriculture and shopkeeping. The authors grandmother carried all the familys land deeds with her when she left Palestine, taking the box with her from country to countrybut she died without ever going back home. The deed below shows family ownership of land around the village (now town) of Taybeh; the family also lost land between Taybeh and the Mediterranean Sea in 1948.

Above: The authors grandparents with their rst ve children; three more would follow by 1945. The authors mother, Abla, is at far right. The Nashif family ed Palestine in 1948, settling as exiles in Syria; from there, descendants have become part of the Palestinian global diaspora.

such myth was a land without a people for a people without a land. But Palestine was settled and had been for millennia one of the oldest continuously inhabited parts of the world. Another Zionist myth was making the desert bloom. In reality, the Palestinians were such good farmers of the country known in Biblical times as the land of milk and honey that in the late 1800s a US consul wrote back home and said Florida orange producers could learn from the Palestinian farmers techniques. Even though the Palestinians have dreamed of turning the clock back to 1917, the earliest PLO political programs recognized that the Jewish community in Palestine was there to stay. In the 1960s, the PLO advocated a secular, democratic state in all of Palestine for Muslims, Christians, and Jews.

The second PLO program, developed by 1974, was for two states living side by side, Israel constituting 78% of the country and Palestine the remaining 22% (lands occupied by Israel in the 1967 war). This has since been the basis of many peace plansnone implemented. injustice. Most Palestinian resistance is nonviolent, but that fact rarely makes G E R believe that Israel it into the American media. The rst wants peace or that it Palestinian uprising against the Israeli will recognize that they occupation in late 1987 was an almost have rights in Palescompletely nonviolent movement by tine. If Israel does want civil society. peace, then why has the number of More recently, given the failure of Israeli settlers doubled since 1993 to the peace process and the weakness some 527,000 today? of the PLO, Palestinian civil society Israel always expresses fears about has taken the lead in advancing nonits security, but how does the coloniviolent strategies to bring an end to zation of Palestinian land contribute Israels occupation. All who believe in to Israels security? On the contrary, justice are called to support boycott, the violence of the occupation, the divestment, and sanctions (BDS) endless injustice, and the hopelessness against Israel until it upholds internaof life without rights have escalated tional law. the violence. The rst suicide bombing For Palestinians, a major source against Israel took place in 1994, after of hope is that many Jews, in Israel 27 years of Israeli occupation. and around the world, are active in Besides, Israel is one of the strongest campaigning for Palestinian human states in the world, in military terms, rights. The involvement of Jews is an and is a nuclear power believed to have important expression of solidarity that between 200 and 400 warheads. greatly contributes to future peace Oppressed people will always resist among Palestinians and Jews.
ALESTINIANS NO LON-

My grandmother always said the Palestinians never had a problem with the Jews as people. When her father would take her with him from Taybeh to Jaffa on one of his trips to market their produce, We would share a meal with a Jewish family and spend the night with a Christian family.

S T E A D FA S T H O P E