In My Mother's Footsteps: A Palestinian Refugee Returns Home

by Mona Hajjar Halaby

How could it be easier for a US passport holder to travel around this land, than someone whose whole family has lived here for generations?

Against all odds the Palestinians have survived the Occupation, and over seventy years of displacement and dispossession. They are not thriving, for who could thrive economically and emotionally when a twenty-five-foot concrete Wall is erected outside your window, separating you from your crops and your family, let alone blocking your share of sunlight? And who could thrive when turned back from a checkpoint to enter Jerusalem for medical treatment? And who could thrive when your home is demolished in the middle of the night and you are only given a half an hour’s notice to carry your sleeping children out of bed?

“I have finally figured out why so many people here have become more religious.” She was eager to hear my reasoning. “Because no one can control the degree of devotion they have to their faith. No one can stop them from believing, or from practicing their faith. It is the most intimate relationship there is. No checkpoint, and no Wall, can come in the way of your relationship with God. It is personal; it is private; it is intimate. And Israel certainly cannot control it.”

What also made me angry at the checkpoints was the ignorance of the soldiers. I was bewildered by their youth and inexperience, combined with the inordinate amount of power at their disposal, including holding at all times one finger on the trigger of their M16 weapons.

Kalandia is an imposing Israeli military checkpoint, much like an international border crossing, where only foreigners with valid Israeli visas, Palestinians with Jerusalem IDs, or West Bank residents with special permits can leave Ramallah, or the West Bank, to enter Jerusalem and Israel for work, medical care, education, or religious reasons.

How insane that this young Israeli soldier of European descent has the power of letting me in or denying me entry into my own country, my ancestors’ homeland!

In traditional cultures, and especially Islamic societies, women are valued and respected in a different way than they are in Western societies. Every man I met in Palestine talked to me about his mother with love and admiration. Every man relished his mother’s good cooking and admired how hard she worked, whether it was in the home—washing, ironing, cleaning, and cooking—or working outside the home.

Another student talked about how the Israeli forces cut off the water supply and electricity, and that because of the curfew the Palestinians ran out of food.

He saw many people bleed to death in the streets because the Israeli soldiers didn’t allow ambulances to save them.

The Israeli Occupation and its countless military incursions must have had an impact on young children. They would have witnessed violence, humiliation, and separation from loved ones.

Research suggests that people do not change in isolation, that in fact they need their community to believe in them in order to change.

We took our picnics with us and walked to Wadi Qilt, Deir as-Sheikh, Bethlehem, and Jericho.

Before 1948, Jaffa was the largest and most prosperous Arab city in Palestine with a population of around 70,000. After the UN Partition Plan of 1947, however, Zionist forces terrified Jaffa’s civilian population into fleeing. By May of 1948 only 3,650 Palestinians remained in Jaffa. Jewish immigrants moved into the vacated Palestinian homes and the remaining Palestinians are now boxed into the old ‘Ajami neighborhood. Most of Jaffa now stands derelict, unkempt, and in ruins.

The first landmark to greet us was the famous clock tower. A plaque in Hebrew hung on one side of the tower. I knew from my extensive readings that the tower had been built during the late Ottoman period to honor the twenty-fifth anniversary of Sultan Abdel Hamid II’s reign. I explained it to our friends. However, a young Israeli man, who was standing nearby, corrected me. No, he claimed, it was built in 1948 in the memory of the Israeli soldiers who were under attack. When I tried to contradict him with the blatant evidence that the tower was old and Ottoman in design he replied as he walked away that everything is old in Israel.

On the boardwalk a poster, hung from a lamppost, listed the chronological history of the town. Not once did it mention that Jaffa has been an Arab city. Erasure is a form of oppression.

Thickets of prickly pear cacti, originally brought from Andalusia after 1492, were often planted by Palestinian farmers and herders as fences to keep their crops and animals safe. Even after the destruction and depopulation of more than 500 Palestinian villages by the Israeli forces during the war of 1948, the cactus plants keep sprouting again and again, encircling the ruins of Palestinian villages. In Palestine, the cactus, sabir, stands for patience and resilience.

found our village on a map of all the Palestinian villages destroyed in 1948 by Israeli forces. Its name was Qula, spelled also as Cola, or Chola, a Palestinian village dating from the time of the Crusades. By the twentieth century Qula had about 1,200 inhabitants. It had been a substantial village. It had a mosque, several small shops, and a school. The village grew grains and the land that was irrigated was used for orchards. On July 10, 1948, in a systematic campaign to depopulate the villages of Palestine to achieve the Zionist dream, Israeli armed forces drove out the villagers of Qula. In September of the same year the Israeli forces bulldozed the village, leaving it in ruins, and planted a forest of European pines to conceal its existence.

At the checkpoint Israeli soldiers climbed onto our bus. The first soldier was carrying his M-16 weapon aiming it straight at the children who sat still, almost frozen.

Rima, a teacher, argued with one of the soldiers. “But why are you keeping us? We have permits. It’s all legal.” “It’s legal,” replied the soldier, “but you should have a special coordination permit because your students are from the West Bank.” Something we had never heard of before.

Our friend, George Bisharat, who lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, has repeatedly tried to claim his grandfather’s home with house deed in hand but to no avail. During the 1960s Golda Meir, the fourth prime minister of Israel, occupied the upper flat. Before UN secretary-general Dag Hammerskjöld made a visit to Jerusalem, it is said that she ordered the sandblasting of the tiles in the front of the house to erase the sign, “Villa Harun ar-Rashid,” and thereby conceal that she was living in an Arab home. However, you can still see traces of the name in faint letters.

A sticker on the back door of the ambulance had a rifle crossed out and the words “Don’t shoot” printed below it. A reminder of the Occupation.

Every time I stay in Jerusalem, I experience a wide range of emotions. Seething with rage is one of them. How can the Israelis live in Palestinian homes that were unlawfully confiscated in 1948? Does Tikvah ever wonder to whom her house had belonged?

That’s when I realized I had spent most of my adult life trying to make Jews comfortable, not wanting to make waves or upset them with my thoughts and feelings about Palestine.

When we sat down to talk, I shared my story and my hurt, but she blasted me with all the misdeeds the Arabs had committed against the Israelis. It was a one-sided conversation, a one-sided victimhood. My reality and the reality of my people were never acknowledged. I had made her uncomfortable with my story and I paid the price for it.

Shortly after my return to Palestine, Israel imposed a very drastic blockade on Gaza. The Gazan people were deprived of electricity, medical care, and the most basics of needs. Israeli and Palestinian peace activists and protest groups from all over the area organized a long convoy to bring humanitarian supplies to the Gazan people. I wanted to be a part of it.

Hundreds of commodities needed for maintaining daily life are not allowed into Gaza by orders of the government of Israel—building and plumbing supplies, water filters—the latter vital for purifying the water drawn from Gazan wells, which are heavily polluted by brine, oil, sewage, and more.

thought of the Warsaw Ghetto during the Second World War and how the Jews fought for their liberation. Isn’t Gaza allowed to do the same? Why is fighting back in desperation when inhumane measures are inflicted upon you considered immoral? I’m a peaceful person with values that are based on saving lives, not destroying them; yet, what would I do if I were threatened personally? What would I do if I had to protect my children from imminent threat? I’ve never been placed in this situation and I hope I never will be, yet I was disturbed by these thoughts.

During that time, I saw Esther, my Jewish German friend, at one of our choir rehearsals at the YMCA. She asked me, “If your side wins, will you take me in and protect me?” I immediately answered, “But of course, Esther, you don’t need to worry; you’re my friend.” At dinner time that evening, I repeated for my family Esther’s question and my answer. My calm and deliberate father asked me, “And did you ask her the same question if their side wins?” “No, Papa, I didn’t think to ask her, but I will.” When I saw Esther again at choir, I asked her, “Esther, and if your side wins, will you hide me and protect me?” “Oh, no,” she said, looking sheepish, “I couldn’t take the risk of endangering my family.” For a long time, I stared at her in disbelief. What I had believed was a mutual friendship had its limits. That night I came home heartbroken and cynical.

Nighttime was the most dangerous time, as the Haganah and Irgun were planting bombs in the residential neighborhoods of West Jerusalem, with the justification that Palestinian guerrilla fighters were holding their meetings in those homes. Baloney! The real reason was to create fear in us and drive us out of our homes. And that’s exactly what happened.

With her chin jutted out and her eyes twinkling with keenness, she asked, “Amos, where do you come from?” When he answered, “Tel Aviv,” she didn’t let him get away with it. “But before that, where did your family come from?” He reluctantly offered that his father came from Germany and his mother from Russia.

In fact, in September 1943, when Hanneh laid on her deathbed in her son Amin’s house in Ramallah, she opened an eye and with her crooked bony pointer finger motioned to my mother to approach the bed. My mother, who expected to hear a secret or a last-minute wish, should have known how impish her grandmother was. Hanneh said to Mama, but loud enough for everyone in the room to hear, “Kull hayati biddi a’raf laysh Amin itjawaz hadi al-habla Victoria (All my life, I’ve wanted to know why Amin married this stupid Victoria),” at which the family that had gathered around her (including Victoria), standing silently with somber faces and handkerchiefs in hand, began to laugh uncontrollably.

When it was my turn to introduce myself, I told the ladies that first and foremost, I’m a Palestinian. Even though we do not have a recognized state, I proudly stand as a Christian Palestinian from Jerusalem. That’s who I am. You should have seen the faces of some of the women when they heard me say Christian Palestinian! They asked me, “When did you convert?” I always have my answer ready, “We never converted. You did. We’re the original Christians. Where was Christ born after all?” And then they smiled sheepishly.

Any property could be purchased, but did it make it morally a legitimate sale? Wasn’t the colonial ideology based on taking the land away from the native people to build a colonial empire? Was Elan using the point of purchasing land in Palestine for a kibbutz as a way to get around the ethical issue of taking someone else’s land, someone’s home, identity, and future?

He wasn’t curious about how I felt as a Palestinian, or about my thoughts concerning Israel. This kind of interaction mirrored to me the existing lack of parity in our relationship. Even though Elan was critical of Israel’s politics, the way he treated me, almost dismissively, was reminiscent of the old colonial rule.

When we passed Sinjil, Siham pointed out the boulders deliberately placed by the Israeli soldiers at the entrance of the village to block the road and make it impossible to enter or exit Sinjil from the main road. Consequently, the villagers are forced to drive a long way around to enter and exit their own village.

They gave me the food off their plates and the shirts off their backs. This is what it means to be Palestinian!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And then I asked the question that had been burning inside me for a while. “So, what’s being planned in Jerusalem in May to celebrate the sixtieth anniversary of the Nakba?” They immediately launched in to explain that there would be no commemorative event. “Israel will not allow it,” said Amal. “You must be crazy to even suggest it! Don’t you know they could arrest you?”

One of the women refused to continue planning our march because she didn’t believe in working in tandem with an Israeli organization, despite the fact that Zochrot is progressive.

CORRECT!!!!

Do we always have to have parity with Israelis when talking about our loss? Why can’t our Palestinian story of loss and displacement stand alone? I didn’t interpret her comment as a bridge of empathy that linked my story to hers; on the contrary, it felt like a justification, an excuse for Israel’s actions against the Palestinians, and a competition between two suffering people.

“When again did your family live in this house?” he asked in an interrogatory tone. I explained calmly, but he continued to worry. “But the house was paid in full when it was sold by Arabs in 1948.” Ah, that convenient story many Israelis hold onto of Arabs selling their houses, when in fact they were confiscated, stolen.