The attachment to land – and landscapes, villages and homes – is most strongly felt by refugees from the first generation, who often still have vivid memories of their lives in Palestine. “I still remember every moment,” Fatmeh Kassim, 81, said. “No matter how long I spend here, I still feel that it is only temporary and that we will one day return.”
In 1948, Fatmeh Kassim, known to her family as Umm Kaamel, was a 21-year-old mother of three, living in the village of Lubieh near the Sea of Galilee with her husband Mohammed.16 May 2012
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A Place of One’s Own
Words Francesca de Châtel & Waseem Abdo Israel’s first Prime Minister David Ben Gurion once said about the Palestinians: “The old will die and the young will forget.” Sixty years on, as millions of Palestinians around the world marked the Nekbeh or Catastrophe – the anniversary of the creation of Israel – on May 15, he was proved wrong. “I can’t forget, even if I never lived there and don’t know much about it,” Obada Ali, a 29-year-old Palestinian living in Damascus, said. “I grew up listening to my grandparents talking about the events of 1948, remembering their land there, their home, their neighbours – their whole life. I grew up with their memories, so there is no way I can forget.” Ali, who grew up in Yarmuk refugee camp south of Damascus, now lives outside the camp and is a successful accountant in a Syrian company. While he is ostensibly fully integrated into Syrian society and enjoys all the rights that Syrians do, he strongly identifies with his Palestinian roots and has an even stronger belief that his people will one day return to their homeland. “Maybe I won’t live to see a free Palestine, but my children will,” he said. “This land was mine, my grandmother lived there. She walked out of there on her bare feet to reach Syria, with my mother, my uncles and my aunt. I have papers to show that I have land there. Of course I won’t forget. It’s my right, I want it back.” Frustration Yet despite such strong statements, Ali is not involved in any resistance movement. “In the past, young people believed that if they joined organisations they could liberate Palestine,” he said. “But gradually we have seen that all these organisations are more about politics than about achieving any real results.” Many of Ali’s peers share his frustration with the situation and their incapacity to determine their own fate. Ali’s friend, Mohammed Mohsen, 30, who works as a journalist in Damascus, said: “Even if I have a strong desire to go back, what can I do? It’s all in the hands of the politicians. “They are playing the cards and we have nothing to play. We are just waiting. Sixty years have gone by and what has changed, what has been achieved? Nothing. We are still here; we are living the same lives.” Abdellatif Muhanna, the director of the Palestinian Studies Centre in Damascus, agreed that there has been a clear shift away from the revolutionary verve of 30 years ago. “On the one hand, young people have not experienced the suffering their parents and grandparents did, and they often lead relatively comfortable lives,” he said. “But more importantly, there is a great sense of frustration at the stagnant situation, not just of the Palestinian case, but in the Arab world in general.” However, he believes that the current state of inactivity is only temporary and that under the surface the majority of Palestinian refugees in Syria still strongly identify with Palestine and the land that was lost. Land and rights
Kassim, who was at the time a young mother of three and pregnant with a fourth child, lost her husband during the Nekbeh after he joined the resistance against the Zionist armed militias. She buried her one-year-old daughter during the five-day walk to Damascus, on the same day as she had a miscarriage and lost her fourth child. “Those who weren’t there will never know how we feel now,” she said. “It’s like yesterday, I can’t forget my life there, and the days with my husband.” For refugees from the younger generation like Ali and Mohsen the descriptions of the land and the stories of the elders play an important role in their image of Palestine. However, for them it is no longer just an issue of land, but also of national rights and a sense of belonging to a nation. Many of the younger refugees say they would not necessarily go and live in Palestine if it was liberated. For them, that’s not the point. The point is to have the choice: to be able to go there, see the land, maybe settle there, but maybe also just claim the nationality and live elsewhere. “Today, when we travel to any country in the world, we get stopped at the border and are told to step aside,” Ali said. “Everywhere you go, you are reminded that you are a refugee. Even if you want to forget, the world won’t let you.” Mohsen added: “Being special can be beautiful, but being special for a long time is tiresome. I don’t want to be special.” He talked about the dozens of small ways in which the refugees are constantly reminded that they don’t have a nationality and says it has a great psychological impact. “For instance, we would really like to have a national team to support in the Olympics, but we don’t have one,” he said. “We don’t have a factory that is Palestinian. No single glass says ‘Made in Palestine’ on it. Minor things, it’s true, but it leaves a big mark inside you.” Each refugee handles the absence of a homeland and a national identity in his own way. Some deal with it by totally dissociating themselves from the Palestinian cause and their Palestinian identity: as soon as they have a chance, they take another nationality and tend not to mention their origin.
Source: Palestinian Statistics Bureau in Damascus, UNRWA But for the majority, the land of Palestine and the right of return remain key issues. “You will never find a Palestinian refugee who will say: ‘I concede Palestine’,” Muhanna said. “But many of them also know that the circumstances for going back are not good.” Ali and Mohsen remain quietly determined though. “I belong to that place,” Ali said, adding that if Palestine were liberated, he would go and live there, even if just for a short time. As for the Israeli population and where they should go if Palestinians return home, he is unequivocal. “Just as they said it was a country without people, I say that they weren’t there,” he said. “Go back to your country. You wanted to make a country, we were living there, you kicked people out. “If they had just wanted to live beside us, it wouldn’t have been a problem. I don’t have a problem with living with anyone in the world, but you mustn’t kill me to live without me. We can live together, or if you want to kill me, then I’ll have to kill you to live alone.”
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16 May 2012
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