59 years of continuous Nakba

I was born 5 years after the Nakba. But I was nursed the Nakba with the milk of my mother. I mean that literally, my mother was the first and the most reliable source of what really happened during the year which shocked every Palestinian and influence their life until today. I only regret that I didn’t write down all the stories which she told me, and I have to rely on my weakened memory. My mother was married when she was 14 years old in the beginning of 1947 in the end of the year she had her first baby, Mohammad ( one of 15 children) so when the Nakba erupted she had a baby in her arms of few months old. She was actually a child with a child. My father with my grand father were working in Haifa, in end April 1948 the Zionist force with the help of the English army occupied Haifa, about one month before the declaration on the establishment of Israel. The Zionist forces continued to the north. The way home was closed and dangerous. The Zionistic forces occupied Berwe on the high way Akka-Safad and they marched towards Sakhnin. My mother was alone with her child waiting for the return of my father to decide what to do. 2 families neighbors of as told her that they are leaving to the north and ask her to join them and my father will come later. She took the child and some light things and joined the neighbors. Meanwhile the Zionists arrived to Miar, a village nearby, only 5 km faraway from Sakhnin and destroyed it, more families from Sakhnin flew away. They arrived to Wadi Salame, about 5 km to the north. The child in the arms of my mother was sick, he had fever he was hungry and cried the whole time. The other families said that they have to leave very fast towards the border before the Zionists arrive. My mother said no, I’ll stay here, I’ll wait for my husband and then I’ll see. The others left and they never came back, my mother stayed. Meanwhile, after the battle of Miar the Mokhtar of Sakhnin with other notable elderly from the village decided to surrender. And so the Zionists didn’t enter the village and continued to the north. In the same time my father and my grandfather could find a donkey and return via all kind of bypass ways, late in the night through the mountains to Sakhnin. When he arrived home he found it empty, the houses around were empty too, somebody told him that his wife with the child left to the north. He left immediately and arrived wadi Salame, my mother was still there. And they returned home to Sakhnin. So because of my mother we didn’t become refugees. Only few families from Sakhnin arrived to the border and became refugees. Many people from Miar found shelter in Sakhnin where they live until now. On the land of their village new settlements were built: Ya’ad and Atzmon.
I grew up on the stories of my mother from that year. She knew many things. She never went to school. She couldn’t write or read, but I had the idea that she knows everything, more that professors and the doctors of these days who wrote many books about the Nakba. She told me many stories about the Arab Salvation army which was sent to rescue Palestine and prevent the Zionists to establish their state. How this army was bad equipped, suffering of hunger: they were eating the cactus (saber) with its thorns, their heads were full of louses. They were lost like the Palestinians themselves, while the Zionists propaganda still claims that 7 Arab armies launched a war to eliminate them. She told me many stories about the British Mandate, were her uncle served in the English police and about their role helping the Zionists, and how they lied to the Arabs who believed them.
Apparently seems that we survived and overcame the Nakba. After all we stayed in our home; we didn’t lose any land simply because we didn’t have any. My father was very poor and worked in the land of the Mokhtar for his food only. Later on he became a construction worker, together with other fellow workers they built the new state which the Zionists claim falsely that they built it. The rulers of the new state took the lands of the Arabs, and the Arab cheap workers and built beautiful towns and villages for the new immigrants, and they said: we changed the desert to paradise and the whole world believed them and clapped the hands for them. Maybe they’re right, after all who built the great pyramids? Pharaoh he thousands of the workers who perished??
In 1967 I was 14 years old, the same age of my mother during the Nakba. I was student of high school in Haifa, because in that time there was no high school in Sakhnin. We were sitting in the class room making one of the end examinations before the summer holiday. The principal of the school entered the class and shouted: leave everything on the table, don’t continue solving any question, take your bags and go home immediately.
The six day war broke out. The younger sister of the Nakba, the Naksa was borne. In 1948 Israel occupied 80% of Palestine, now it occupied all of it beside parts of Syria and Egypt. Ironically, Palestine was united again, under occupation, that’s true, but who says that occupation will continue for ever? At least we can visit Jenin, Nablus, Jerusalem, and Beit Lehem. We can talk with the people; we can talk about the Nakba of 1948. It’s true, most the refugees of the Galilee went to Lebanon a Syria and not to the West Bank, but it’s a step forward. Way say: maybe you hate something which is good for you.
After this war the Palestinian armed struggle to liberate Palestine, all Palestine, began. Most people felt that this struggle is the best way and the only way to get rid of the Nakba and the Naksa. The Fedayeen occupied our day and night dreams. No more the weeping, poor Palestinian, but now there’s the fighter who will liberate Palestine and bring the refugees back home.
Unfortunately, this dream didn’t continue for a long time. After the war of 1973, Egypt the biggest Arab country decided to quit the struggle, and President Sadat decided to sign a peace agreement with Israel. Without Egypt the Arabs looked like orphans. The Palestinian organizations stopped slowly talking about liberation, and began to talk more and more about kind of solution through negotiations. It seems that the nightmares of the Nakba will never disappear. after more than 30 years of negotiations, (since 1974 until today) all what we have this lousy authority where every city and every village lives between military checkpoints, or behind a high wall, where the best land was confiscated and new settlement were built, people are killed or arrested indiscriminately every morning, where brothers kill each other to get some crumbs.
The Nakba is not only a Nakba (disaster) it’s also occupation of the land and minds, its defeat military and spiritually, its loss and despair but also its hate and anger, its holy fire which one day will burn the whole region.
The Nakba will never disappear so long the victim is treated as criminal and the criminal treated as victim. The Nakba will never disappear so long this awful injustice exists, so long there’s one refugee can’t return to his home.