Explaining Max Fisher's Missing Maps

Over at Vox, blogger Max Fisher has a post up entitled "40 Maps That Explain the Middle East." If such a title makes you cringe, you are not alone. Often these types of posts which attempt to provide context do more to obscure reality and explain the creator's biases more than anything else. I am not going to dwell on each map. I won't claim to know enough about the nuanced political and historical geography in every one of these maps to offer a detailed critique here. However, one thing I do know very well is the nuanced political and historical geography of Palestine and particularly the events around the Nakba. These events are supposedly represented by map number 16 on Max's "explanatory" list entitled "Israel's 1947 founding and the 1948 Israeli-Arab War." Here is the narrative and graphic Fisher provides:

The first thing worth pointing out, and it may not be clear at the initial glance, is that the three panel image is not an original image from a singular source. Rather it is a combination of two sources. The map on the left is from PASSIA and it is a fairly standard representation of the 1947 partition plan. The two panels to the right of that come from Le Monde Diplomatique by Philippe Rekacewicz. These are the original maps which Fisher seems to have borrowed from. How he uses them and what he changes are enlightening. The original maps have a legend in French which Fisher omits and replaces with a heading he created. The first of the two Le Monde maps have the caption "Territory still held by the Israelis after the Arab attack in June 1948." Fisher changes this to simply "June 1948: Arab armies invade."

There is so much wrong here in Fisher's presentation that it is hard to know where to start. Let's try chronologically. First, we are presented with three maps, one from November 1947 and then we jump to June 1948. What happened in the months in between? What were the positions of the sides during that time and why is Fisher not explaining that? Second, in his attempt to simplify (or obfuscate depending on how much credit you want to give him) by jettisoning the French legend and providing his own heading, Fisher gets a very basic historical fact wrong. Arab army movement into Palestine did not happen in June of 1948, it happened in May.

You may be wondering why the French legend refers to "territory still held" by the Israelis. That is because Israeli conquest operations to extend their positions and grab as much land as possible began well before the Arab armies invaded. But it seems Max doesn't want you to know that or failed remarkably to explain it.

The narrative the Max adds to the spliced map is also misleading and reveals his biases. He writes:

...these are the borders that the United Nations demarcated in 1947 for a Jewish state and an Arab state, in what had been British-controlled territory. The Palestinians fought the deal, and in 1948 the Arab states of Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, and Syria invaded. The middle map shows, in green, how far they pushed back the Jewish armies. The right-hand map shows how the war ended: with an Israeli counterattack that pushed into the orange territory, and with Israel claiming that as its new national borders. The green is what was left for Palestinians.

We've shown before how this common Nakba narrative simply doesn't jive with history. The same thing is going on here. Max has boiled down the events of this period to a few sentences & key facts he thinks the reader really needs to know. He tells you the Palestinians "fought" the partition plan but doesn't tell you why. Apparently, all you need to know about this is that the Palestinians are rejectionists. Then he tells you the Arab states invaded (which happened in May 1948 though he gets it wrong and says June) but doesn't tell you anything about what happened between the partition plan and the Arab armies entering Palestine. Apparently, all you need to know about this is that the Arabs are a war-like people. Then he tells you the Arabs "pushed back" the Jewish armies, after which Israel launched a "counterattack." Apparently, all you need to know about this is that the Zionists were on the defensive here. To "push back" the Jewish armies, as Max claims, would require the Arab regular forces to actually take back from the Jewish armies land that they had come to hold. But what Max doesn't tell you is that in the vast majority of the land, the Arab armies entered parts of Palestine that had yet to be conquered by the Zionist forces. They overwhelmingly filled vacuums. Most interaction was at the margins. The notion that they "pushed back" the Jewish armies just isn't true. In fact, in many areas, the Zionist forces continued conquest operations into areas the Arab armies had filled. The overall trajectory of this war from the beginning, was a largely uninterrupted Zionist pushing of Arabs out of Palestine, not the other way around.

Perhaps the most important point here is what happened between the partition plan and the Arab invasion. This is what Fisher doesn't tell the reader at all. What happened during this period is the creation of a massive number of Palestinian refugees. All the major cities of Palestine including Yaffa and Haifa were depopulated of their Palestinian Arab inhabitants PRIOR to May 15th, 1948. By excluding this information, misrepresenting other information, and just getting basic facts wrong Fisher provides more propaganda than actual context.

The best maps that I have come across of these events are presented below (click to enlarge and zoom in, there is lots of detail). This eight-panel map set by Salman Abu Sitta details the stage-by-stage progression of Israeli military operations from November 1947 through April 1949. It also helpfully lists the total number of refugees created, the number of depopulated villages and the number of dunams occupied at each stage of the war.

Needless to say, it shows us something Fisher either can't or doesn't want to. Perhaps many of the other maps in his list are accurate and helpful but if he approached those representations with the same sloppiness or outright bias involved with map number 16, then they are probably equally worthless.

Seriously Max, you've got some explaining to do. Actually, never mind, you've explained enough.

read more...

Picking Apart the NYT/Zionist Narrative on the Nakba

Yesterday's deaths at various demonstrations commemorating the Nakba remind us of one all-important fact: without a just resolution to the Palestinian refugee issue, the state of Israel will never be welcome or accepted in the region. Those killed highlight the importance of a 63 year-old issue which has yet to be resolved or properly addressed. But it is impossible for there to be any just solution to this issue without a candid discussion of history that many "pro-Israel" types do not want to have. (Image right: AP photo of Israeli soldiers yesterday making sure people inconvenient to an ethno-centric majoritarian state stay out. Kind of like what NY Times editors do to facts inconvenient to the Zionist narrative.)

The Zionist narrative on the Nakba goes something like this: New born and defenseless Israel was attacked by 5 Arab armies the day after it's birth, and refugees may have been created during the fighting, but tough luck since the Arabs started the war and David defeated Goliath.

You can see this narrative uncritically repeated in the mainstream American press. Take for example this recent article by Ethan Bronner in the New York Times:

After Israel declared independence on May 14, 1948, armies from neighboring Arab states attacked the new nation; during the war that followed, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled or were driven from their homes by Israeli forces. Hundreds of Palestinian villages were also destroyed. The refugees and their descendants remain a central issue of contention in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The timeline begins at May 14th, 1948. There are a few rather significant historical facts which are inconvenient for this narrative that go unmentioned in the New York Times. Well, at least today's New York Times. You see, had Ethan Bronner or the editors of the Times actually read their own newspaper's reporting on this issue at the time, they likely would not have presented such a distorted representation of the facts. (This certainly isn't the first time the NYT contradicts itself either)

Two facts which torpedo the Zionist narrative are corroborated by reporting from the New York Times during this period.

1. Masses of Palestinian refugees were created before one Arab soldier 'attacked' the new state of Israel. In one story from March, 20th, 1947, the New York Times actually addressed the pre-1948 situation as one of colonization and describes it rather appropriately. Imagining such characterization in the NY Times today is fantasy. I urge you to read the whole article, titled "Palestine Jews Minimize Arabs: Sure of Superiority, Settlers Feel They Can Win Natives By Reason or Force," but here's an excerpt:

Whatever the degree of their superiority complex, however, the Jews are certainly confident of their ability to bring the Arabs to terms - by persuasion if possible, by might if necessary. The program of the largest terrorist group, the Irgun Zvai Leumi, is to evacuate the British forces from Palestine and declare a Zionist state west of the Jordan, and "we will take care of the Arabs."

Despite this, the New York Times today repeats the ridiculous assertion commonplace in the Zionist narrative that the creation of the state was an innocent act that drew unprovoked and barbaric reaction from the Goliath Arab states. Here is another article, this one from April 16, 1948 and titled "Jews Press Arabs in Pitched Battle in North Palestine":

[Villages] taken yesterday were Dabiat er Ruha, Rihania and Kuteinat. Previously they had occupied Kufrin, Abu Sureik, Abu Shusha, Zerain, Naamieh, Ghubyat at Tahta and Ghubyat al Fauqha. Several bridges blown up by Haganah squads between Jenin and Lajjun are hampering Arabs [sic] communication.

But today's New York Times wants you to believe that the refugees created during the Nakba period, which is actually from 1947-1949, started only after Arab states attacked the newborn and sinless Israel. In reality, Zionist operations against Palestinian villages began well before the Arab armies crossed any borders. Half the total refugees created during the Nakba were created BEFORE May 15th, 1948.

Again, another New York Times story from May 2nd, 1948 titled "Dispair is Voiced by Arab Refugees: Evacuees from Palestine say Jews Crash Through Weak Resistance by Volunteers":

A stream of Arab refugees is moving eastward across the Jordan river. Many of the refugees passing Jericho en route to Trans-Jordan, a few miles away, are from Jerusalem and Jaffa. They say they fear that Jewish offensives are crashing through weakened Arab volunteer resistance. Haifa was described as almost a ghost town, with its population having dwindled to less than 20,000 from a normal figure at least five times that.

Another article appearing in the New York Times titled "Palestine Strife Creates DP Issue" is dated May 3rd, 1948 stating "200,000 Arabs are now listed as homeless":

It is believed that possibly 50,000 Arabs left Jaffa, thousands of them by sea. Other thousands have fled inland, large numbers of them to become cave dwellers in the historic caves of Beit Jibrin, northwest of Hebron...at least 40,000 Arabs left Haifa when the combined Haganah and Irgun Zvai Leumi force stormed the Arab market place and conquered all of the city except the British-held waterfront. From Jerusalem wealthy Arabs have fled to near-by countries, the poorer ones into the hills and villages.

Another New York Times story, this one from April 18th, 1948, tells of horror among refugees and massacres in the Galilee:

According to reports telephoned from Nablus, that town and Jenin are crowded with refugees, among whom the rumor is circulating that the Jews are driving on Jenin. The Haganah said it had killed 130 Druse [sic] tribesmen yesterday when it seized Usha, a village east of Haifa.

This information is important not simply because it illustrates how poorly the New York Times' current day reporting is on an issue it reported on thoroughly at the time (They can't even copy and paste), but also because it clearly rebuts the Zionist narrative people like Jeffery Goldberg incessantly repeat despite mounds of historic evidence to the contrary. In this post, Goldberg argues that the Nakba was "self-inflicted" because the Arabs "attacked the just-born Jewish state and then managed to lose on the battlefield." Setting aside the already morally corrupt notion that ethnic cleansing during war is somehow acceptable, history simply proves Goldberg wrong. For a detailed account of the patterns of depopulation, you can see this video of Salman Abu Sitta's recent lecture at the Palestine Center, starting around the 10 minute mark.

2. The pre-state Israeli forces were far greater in number and far better equipped than the combined forces of the "Goliath" Arab armies. This is another myth in the Zionist narrative. They want you to believe that the 5 Arab armies had genocidal intentions and wanted to destroy Israel. Why else would you send 5 armies against one? But if the 13 nation-states of the Caribbean attacked the United States we'd hardly consider the United States the 'David' facing a Caribbean Goliath. But the Zionist narrative wants to trick you with a faulty numbers game. In reality, the pre-state Israel forces were greater in numbers and far superior in training than the combined forces of the infamous 5 Arab Armies. Conveniently, the New York Times reported in an article from Feb. 29th, 1948 titled "The Army Called 'Haganah'" :

Nobody knows its full strength, let alone its membership rolls. But it is no amateur army. It has a nucleus of 30,000 men who served in the British forces. Three thousand of them served in the RAF, including more than forty pilots. More than 300 served in the Commandos and 4,000 in the Jewish Brigade in action in Italy. The British estimate Haganah's active membership at anywhere from 60,000 to 80,000.

David Ben Gurion's war diary notes that at every stage of the war Zionist troops outnumbered combined Arab armies. The Arab armies where disorganized having little combat experience prior to this with the exception of some of the Jordanian forces. Most Arab soldiers were using outdated arms from WWI or earlier which were inferior to the Zionist armies WWII arms and artillery. But even though these are facts the New York Times told us back then, they don't want to remind you about it now. It makes you wonder; do the people that write the New York Times read the New York Times?

The depopulation of Palestine of its native inhabitants which took place from 1947-49 was commemorated this weekend and it was marked by Israel with the enforcement of ethnic cleansing. Palestinians seeking to return were shot down in the process. One reason that the Nakba is marked when the state of Israel was created is because the creation of this state meant that a political force would exist to enforce the exile of Palestinian refugees. 63 years later, we are reminded that that fear was very well founded.

Ironically, Israel is complaining to the United Nations that states like Syria and Lebanon would allow Palestinian refugees to come back to their native lands even though it is the UN which in General Assembly Resolution 194 required Israel to do just that.

Peace in the region will not come without an honest discussion of the events of this period, but it's a discussion the mainstream media doesn't seem to want to have.

read more...

Visualizing the Changing Nakba Narrative

We often hear about the changing narrative over Israel/Palestine and specifically the events of 1948. For decades, the generic story about 1948 accepted by most Americans was the fictitious tale of the "immaculate conception" of the State of Israel: a vacant land promised by God to a people without a land. In this version there were no native Arabs or Palestinians, and if there were any, people like Joan Peters were there to fabricate claims about them only recently having arrived. Then there were people like Alan Derschowitz who merely repeated Joan Peters' fabricated claims.

In reality, hundreds of thousands of native Palestinian-Arabs lived on that land for millennia. Still, the effort to distort the history continues today. Jeffery Goldberg commented on the Tony Kushner episode and Kushner's comments about ethnic cleansing recently. He wrote:

There were instances in which Arab villages in what is now Israel were forcibly cleared of their inhabitants by Israeli forces. On the other hand, these episodes occurred during a war initiated by Arabs, after they rejected the United Nations partition of Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab states.

So, according to this, ethnic cleansing is justifiable so long as it occurs during war. And, basically Goldberg is saying "Heck, war is messy, and just because the outcome of the war conveniently resulted in favor of a minority movement that hoped to establish an ethno-centric majoritarian state in this territory doesn't mean it was planned and calculated. Just a lucky break, I guess." (Image Right: Palestinians refugees 'pushed into the sea' fleeing Yaffa in 1948)

Well, you don't have to spend time in the Haganah Archives pouring over village files to realize that argument doesn't make any sense, but I spent a good amount of time doing that anyway. Village files were an extensive series of documents collected by the Zionists a decade prior to 1948 detailing everything about every village in Palestine. The level of detail is consistent with a first-world military intelligence operation. They knew everything from the names of the villagers, how much land they owned, their salaries, the status of relations they had with each other, other villages and Jews, the names of their leaders, the number and types of weapons they had, if any, the principle sources of livelihood for the village, their political affiliations and the names and addresses of those in the village that were active in the Arab revolt from 1936-39.

I doubt the Zionists were keeping this information to send annual holiday greeting cards to Palestinian villagers. In reality, this military intelligence informed depopulation operations that started well before May 15th, 1948. Goldberg also repeats the myth that Arab states started the war in 1948 after Israel declared statehood on May 15th. This is part of the "David and Goliath" myth that comes along with the "immaculate conception" story. We are supposed to believe that newly born Israel was attacked by 5 Arab armies, and it is only by the grace of God that little Israel miraculously survived.

What most people don't know, even though Israel's first Prime Minister David Ben Gurion noted this in his diary, is that the combined forces of the five Arab armies were significantly fewer in number at every stage of the war than the Israeli forces. Further, the Zionist narrative incessantly repeats the notion that the barbaric Arabs attacked as soon as Israel was declared. This is important because it insinuates that newly formed Israel did not yet have the chance to err before it was condemned by its Arab neighbors. But the truth is that from Dec. 9th 1947 - May14th 1948 there were 76 massacres or atrocities committed by the Haganah or Palmach (pre-state Israeli armies) which led to the depopulation of 200 villages and 400,000 refugees -- over 50% of total refugees created -- BEFORE a single Arab army soldier crossed the border. Yet, as Goldberg notes above in comments which typify the pro-Zionist discourse on this issue, it was the Arabs that initiated the war.

The idea that the ethnic cleansing which took place once the war started is somehow excusable, or that the refugees who were created during that period forfeit their rights because it occurred during war, is abhorrent.

Still, we hear that the discourse is changing, and it is. Jeremiah Haber has an interesting discussion of this here. Joan Peters, Alan Dershowitz and Jeffery Goldberg and their ilk can not dominate the discussion about Israel/Palestine in the United States any more. While Americans have long relied on traditional publications, which always came with a heavy dose of Zionist narrative and a dearth of Palestinian voices, today we have the internet, the blogsphere, Twitter and diverse sources of information at our fingertips.

But while the Tony Kushner episode discussed by Goldberg and Haber both indicate the discourse is in fact changing, its hard to truly grasp the depth and scope of this change by referencing anecdotes alone. Could there be another way?

Well, this isn't a certainly scientific approach but it does lend evidence to suggest a change in the narrative. The graph below depicts use of the word Nakba over time on the internet. Nakba is the specific Arabic language word used to describe the Palestinian experience during the depopulation and ethnic cleansing of Palestine. It is important to note that this isn't a search for نكبة (the word Nakba in Arabic) which reveals different results. Rather, this is an indication of the increased prevalence of the word Nakba used in English. This means a steady and consistent increase in the number of conscience choices made by English speakers to include the the most significant word of the Palestinian narrative in their English language writing on the matter.

By simply Googling the word during annual search periods, the trend is revealed.

You may note that the prevalence of the word through just over 4 months of 2011 is already higher than the preceding year.

read more...

Oh, that Yitzhak Rabin

Last week, on the anniversary of the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, the New York Times published an op-ed by former-President Bill Clinton urging the parties to "Finish Rabin's Work." Part of the problem we face in achieving a solution to this conflict is the constant creation of new yesterdays - attempts, that is, to capture what seemed like hopeful moments a few years back because the situation today is so much more dismal. In retrospect, such moments seem much better than where we are now. The problem with this is that while they may seem better than where we are at the moment, those yesterdays were not successful because they were inherently flawed, unjust, and failed to address the root causes of the conflict.

Nostalgia for such moments are not helpful; they are in fact dangerous. That's why I wrote the letter below to the NYT regarding President Clinton's op-ed glorifying Yitzhak Rabin. The op-ed was nostalgia for a flawed yesterday which typified how regularly the root of the problem - 1948 - is marginalized in the discussion, instead of grappled with.

To the Editor:

I was amazed at how former President Bill Clinton perfectly captured everything that is wrong with the American approach toward mediating Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. Mr. Clinton urges the parties to finish Yitzhak Rabin’s work, but many, like me, whose families were ethnically cleansed from the Palestinian towns of Lydda and Ramla by then Lieutenant Colonel Rabin, know that Israel is today finishing the work Mr. Rabin started in 1948.

Through consistent expansion of illegal colonies on Palestinian land, the revocation of residencies of Palestinians in Jerusalem, home demolition and ethnically biased economic policies, Israel continues taking Palestinian land at the expense of the Palestinian people.

The fundamental flaw in Mr. Clinton’s argument is that simply talking in good faith will lead to a solution. Because of the great power imbalance between Israel and the Palestinians and the failure of American presidents, including Mr. Clinton himself, to press Israel to end its continuing colonization, Israel has been able to easily continue in the spirit of Mr. Rabin’s darker, underdiscussed work.

read more...

An Important Day for Palestinians in Lebanon

This past June, Palestinian refugees marched from the Bourj al-Barajneh refugee camp near Beirut to the steps of the Parliament. They united under the slogan, "Civil, Social and Economic Rights and Living in Dignity are an Essential Step in the Journey of Return."

As observed by Harry Hagopian, the Lebanese parliament began discussing the possibility of:

legislation that could grant Palestinian refugees born in Lebanon and registered with the Ministry of Interior a number of ‘basic civil rights’ including access to work or social services such as pensions and medical benefits as well as the demonstrable ability to file cases before labour courts. In addition, and if adopted later this month, the bill would crucially also amend inter alia a law that has banned Palestinians from owning or inheriting property.

Today, the Lebanese parliament passed legislation granting part of those rights under consideration -- the employment prohibitions have been legally overturned for the 400,000 Palestinians who descend from those forced to flee Palestine in the lead up to and during Israel's foundation, and wars since then.

The "Parliament approved a bill lifting former restrictions on employment for Palestinian refugees, who will now have the right to work in any field open to foreigners with benefits including social security from their own special fund," a Lebanese official told AFP.

The ban on property ownership was not repealed, however. Opposition came from Christian MPs who feared that granting refugees property ownership rights would lead to permanent refugee settlement and eventually full-fledged citizenship, thus impacting the precious ethno-religious demographic balance that serves as the basis for the Lebanese polity. The Lebanese constitution expressly bans the naturalization of the refugees for such reasons.

The legal overturning of employments bans was not completely unforeseen. It followed several amendments that decreased the list of banned occupations from 77 until 2005 when Labour Minister Trad Hamadeh decreased it to 25 categories. As Hagopian pointed out, this decision was not truly implemented, however, since bias in hiring was ingrained socially. A change in the law does not always result in a change in fact. Without legal protections against discrimination, not much can be done beyond parliamentary provisions or decrees that bring about actual enforcement.

This important change will require implementation mechanisms to guarantee that de facto discrimination does not continue to effectively bar Palestinians from certain occupations. However, this change could represent a significant step towards the betterment of their livelihood.

Granting further equality of rights is clearly politically explosive. Given the frail Lebanese national compromise under-girding its confessional system, full equality, or naturalization, it is not in political sight.

However, keeping Palestinian refugees in limbo for the unforeseeable future will eventually lead to more problems. A people can stay on the margins for only so long; and Lebanon's decision today is letting out some steam. But how long before it builds up again, especially if the legal changes do not effect what happens on the ground?

Like so much of the refugee experience, they can only wait and see. Though occasionally, they can protest and act, and maybe something good comes along.

------

Photo: Palestinian children play in Rashidiya camp, whose population was hard hit by the 34-day war between Israel and Hezbollah. (Serene Assir/IRIN/Electronic Lebanon)

read more...

Dear Kibbutz: Can You Give Us Our Land Back?

A young Palestinian-American student in the United States sent an email to members of a kibbutz who are living on land stolen from his grandparents in 1948. He politely asked for the land back. They are yet to reply.

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: My land
Date: Wed, 24 Mar 2010 00:41:10 -0400
From: Waleed ****
To: malkiyasite@malkiya.co.il

Hello,

I have come to ask you to return my family's land. I am a descendant of the Hussein and Ayad families who, together, inhabited the village of Malkiya before it was stolen from them by Zionist colonists in 1948. All of our fields, homes, and property were lost, and you and your families are currently residing on it in our stead.

I have come to peacefully request that you allow me to return to the land that the founders of your kibbutz stole from my family. I believe that this would be the humanitarian thing to do. Before my grandparents pass away, I would like for them to see the land that they were born on, the fields they cultivated, and the homes in which they lived one last time.

I have full legal documentation proving that my family once resided in Malkiya, and I am willing to produce these for you upon request.

Best wishes,

-Waleed

read more...

Israel is Still Displacing Palestinians

The al-Rayan refugee camp in northern Gaza [Electronic Intifada]

Israel's displacement of an estimated 750,000 Palestinians in 1947-48 was a foundational step in the formation of the state. The millions of Palestinian refugees who descend from those originally displaced persons have remained in limbo and pose a challenge for peacemakers given Israel's staunch opposition to granting them basic refugee rights.

A Scandinavian NGO now warns that Palestinian displacement is not merely a historical fact but is an on-going process. The Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre of the Norwegian Refugee Council issued a short paper (pdf) on current Israeli dispossessions, something the international community must attend to.

The focus on two main areas:

The three-week Israeli offensive in Gaza launched in December 2008 cost the lives of over 1,000 Palestini-ans and led to the displacement of over 100,000 people. In Gaza, the continued Israeli blockade has stalled reconstruction and limited the access to assistance of the tens of thou-sands of people still displaced. In the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) demolitions of houses by the Israeli authorities has continued to cause displacement, displacing close to 600 Palestinians in 2009.

Sadly, the vast majority of Gaza's currently displaced persons descend from 1948 refugees.

Israel's policies of continuing the usurpation of Palestinians only makes more difficult a peaceful settlement. Rather than causing it to slow, Israel has only accelerated these measures in the face of an American renewal of peace talks.

The Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, established in 1998 by the Norwegian Refugee Council, is the leading international body monitoring conflict-induced internal displacement worldwide. Hopefully, they can move this issue up in the international agenda.

read more...

A Palestinian Story

This personal testimony about the Palestinian experience is by Mohammad Alsaafin.

I'm writing to you as friends, colleagues, members of the media, acquaintances and activists. Some of have never met me; others have heard parts of the story I am about to tell. However, I do believe that all of you may have an interest in reading this-it is a story that needs to be told.

I am a Palestinian refugee, from the village of Fallujah which lies between Gaza, Hebron and Asqalan. I've never been allowed to visit Fallujah; my grandparents were exiled from there in 1949 (a year after the founding of Israel) and took refuge in the Gaza Strip. My father and I were both born in the Khan Younis refugee camp-he a few years before Gaza was occupied by Israel, and I a month after the outbreak of the first intifada. My dad married a woman from the West Bank-they had met and fallen in love while they were both studying at Birzeit University, and when I was two years old we emigrated to the UK where he received his Phd.

Fourteen years later, in 2004, we all returned to Palestine to live in Ramallah. Now British citizens, my parents were determined that my three siblings and I would forge a stronger connection to our homeland than we ever could living abroad. At first, the transition was made easier by the fact that our foreign passports gave us the freedom of movement that was denied to other Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. For me, this reality was shattered when in late 2005 I attempted to cross the River Jordan from the West Bank to visit my aunt in Amman. The Israeli border agents told me that I could not pass, because I had an Israeli issued Gaza ID. Under Israeli military rules, this meant that I could not 'legally' be present in the West Bank because the Israeli occupation had mandated that Palestinians from Gaza could not enter the West Bank, and Palestinians from the West Bank could not enter Gaza. This policy had been in force since the early 1990's, but was applied with increasing severity after the outbreak of the second intifada.

I lived the next four years under constant fear of arrest by the Israeli military, because that would have resulted in almost certain deportation to Gaza, and isolation from my family. For those four years, I never left the confines of Ramallah, so as to avoid the Israeli checkpoints on every one of the town's entrances-but even this couldn't give me a sense of security because I had to commute daily to Birzeit University, on a route frequently patrolled by Israeli forces from the nearby settlement of Bet El.

In July of this year, after many pleas for assistance from the hapless Palestinian Authority, I asked the Israeli NGO Gisha to help me obtain permission from the Israeli occupation to leave the West Bank. I wanted to take part in an internship in the United States, but I would only be granted the permission to exit on the condition that I only return to the Gaza Strip, which had been under siege and total closure for the better of two years then. I accepted this impossible choice-after four years of imprisonment in Ramallah, I wanted to see the outside world and look for a job abroad.

During this entire period, my family had more or less been saved the travel restrictions imposed on me. As a foreign journalist, my dad frequently traveled between the West Bank, Gaza and inside the Green Line, and my mother and siblings would join him on day trips to Jerusalem, Umm al-Fahem, Acca and Haifa. But that all changed this August when he was entering Gaza through the Erez crossing as he had done many times before. On this day however, he was arrested by the Israeli military and had his press credentials revoked. He was told his British passport was worthless, because they had made a frightening discovery: My dad had been born and raised in a refugee camp in Gaza, and had a Gaza ID. They told him he would henceforth be treated not as a foreigner, but as a Gazan-he was sent into Gaza and told he could never cross the Green Line or enter the West Bank again.

My mother and siblings back in Ramallah were also informed that their British passports were worthless and that they would be issued Palestinian IDs by Israel. Despite being raised in the West Bank and still owning a copy of her old West Bank ID, my mother was actually issued with a Gaza ID. We assume this is because she married a Gazan 22 years ago, but nobody has given us a clear answer. This has put her in the same quandary I was in for the last four years. She cannot leave Ramallah for fear of arrest and deportation to Gaza, away from her children, her sister's and the young children of her recently deceased brother. This situation was compounded by another perplexing development; my brother and sisters, all of whom were born in the UK, and whose parents and older brother had been issued Gaza ID's, were issued West Bank IDs.

My dad spent the last few months trying to get permission to go back to the West Bank to see his wife and kids-even for a day to pick up his clothes. But whether it was through the British consulate or Israeli NGO's, the Israeli occupation was adamant that he would not be allowed out of Gaza, unless it was to be deported from Ben Gurion airport. Eventually, in order to save his job, he left Gaza when Egypt opened the Rafah crossing in early December.

Now, my father is in one country and I am in another, while my mother is trapped in the West Bank, unable to travel for fear of never being allowed back. Thankfully, my brother and sisters are able to cross into Jordan, where we may see each other, but our family has been torn apart and separated under the most arbitrary occupation laws imaginable. Despite the continued attempts of Israeli and Palestinian NGO's, we have found no recourse with the Israeli authorities, and the British consulate has proved useless. We even sent a letter to Tony Blair, the representative of the Quartet, imploring him to intervene on our behalf as British citizens. Unsurprisingly, we were ignored, but I have attached a copy of that letter to this email.

I believe this story needs to be told not because our situation is so unique, but precisely because it isn't; this is the result of a deliberate Israeli policy, one that has been in place since the early days of the Nakba and has been evolving ever since. It is a policy that has led to the dispossession of millions of Palestinians, and the separation and breakup of tens of thousands of families. The forcibly imposed separation between the West Bank and Gaza is illegal under international law, and through it Israel is succeeding in separating the Palestinian people, one family at a time.

I am hoping that some of you will be able to spread this story through any platform you have, whether it is amongst your own friends and acquaintances, on blogs or perhaps by helping this get picked up in the media. My mother fears that if this story does become publicly known, she will suffer the same fate as Berlanty Azzam, the Bethlehem University senior who was arrested by Israeli soldiers and deported to Gaza. Despite the publicity her case received, an Israeli court unabashedly maintained that a Gazan cannot study in a West Bank university. The risk is real, but we have no other choice.

Views expressed on this post or on linked web pages do not represent the Palestine Center, the educational program of the Jerusalem Fund for Education and Community Development. All content is for educational purposes only.

read more...

Today: Online Documentary and Discussion on Palestinian Refugees

This evening, Thursday the 19th of November, the Palestine Center will webcast right here “Identity Without a Homeland,” one-part of the documentary series, "Chronicles of a Refugee."

The video starts at 6:30 PM.

The video unpacks the meaning and attributes of Palestinian identity today, given the experience of 60 years of dispossession and refugee status around the world. Taboo subjects, such as the role of refugee camps, the usefulness of citizenship, etc. are debated by those who live with the consequences of decisions taken about these matters.

The video will be followed by a webcast discussion with Adam Shapiro, one of the filmmakers (starting at 7:40 PM).

Adam Shapiro is human rights activist and documentary filmmaker. He was co-founder of the International Solidarity Movement in Palestine. He has made the documentaries About Baghdad (2005), Darfur Diaries: Message from Home (2006), Becoming Nadya (2007) and Nowhere to Flee (2007).

To participate in this event, come back to this website and tune in at 6:30PM EST on November 19th.

read more...

Tonight on PBS: Heart of Jenin

Documentary Film Tells the Story of a Palestinian Boy Killed by the IDF

8 July 2009 - Tonight, PBS will air a documentary film at 10:00 PM called, Heart of Jenin (Check Your Local Listings). The documentary tells the story of Ahmed Khatib's, a twelve-year-old Palestinian, death at the hands of the IDF. In 2005, Israeli soldiers shot and killed Ahmed believing his toy gun was real. After Ahmed's death, his family decided to donate his organs.

The documentary traces his father's journey to visit three of the organ recipients two years later. One of Ahmed's kidneys went to an Orthodox Jewish girl and his other kidney went to a Bedouin boy. While his parents hesitated to donate Ahmed's heart, it now beats in the chest of a Druze girl. "I see my son in these children," Khatib says.

Crossing from northern Israel to the Negev desert and ending up in Jerusalem, Khatib encounters every complexity of the conflict: deep-seated animosity, hardened judgments and heartfelt generosity. While laying bare the deep divisions between Israelis and Palestinians, Heart of Jenin offers a rare vision of common humanity and hope.

Views expressed on this post or on linked web pages do not represent the Palestine Center, the educational program of the Jerusalem Fund for Education and Community Development. All content is for educational purposes only.

read more...

Film Showing and Discussion: Palestinian Refugees: Identity Without a Homeland

As part of the Syrian Cultural Lecture Series, The Jerusalem Fund Gallery and Dr. Rafif Al-Sayed Moustapha invite you to a lecture and film discussion entitled:

"Palestinian Refugees: Identity Without a Homeland"

with

Director Adam Shapiro and Dr. Laurie King-Irani

Friday, 20 February 2009
The Jerusalem Fund

Dr. Laurie King-Irani and Adam Shapiro will discuss the global Palestinian refugee experience as portrayed in the new 6-part documentary film series Chronicles of a Refugee. Several segments chosen by Adam Shapiro will be screened.

Filmed in over 15 countries, with more than 250 interviews of Palestinian refugees who have lived in over 25 countries, Chronicles of a Refugee is the first documentary film to look at the global Palestinian refugee experience over the last 60 years. Produced by Perla Issa, Aseel Mansour and Adam Shapiro.

Adam Shapiro is a human rights activist, dedicated to fostering dialogue between Jewish and Palestinian youth through "Seeds of Peace". Together with his wife, Shapiro founded the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), an organization that attempts to bring civilians from around the world into non-violent resistance efforts in Palestine. His previous works include a documentary entitled About Baghdad.

Laurie King-Irani is an Adjunct Professor at the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, Georgetown University, and is a founding member of The Electronic Intifada. Currently, she serves as Managing Editor of The Journal for Palestine Studies. She is a frequent commentator on national and international news programs, including MSNBC and CNN, on political, cultural and military developments in the Middle East and U.S. foreign policy in the region.

read more...

Interview with Adam Shapiro, Filmmaker

The Palestine Center interviewed Adam Shapiro, an International Solidarity Movement founder and filmmaker, about the new documentary he produced. It is called 'Chronicles of a Refugee' and is the most complete overview of the Palestinian refugees. It is on sale at the Palestine Online Store.

The Jerusalem Fund Gallery will be hosting Sharpiro and showing parts of the series on 20 February 2009 [more information and registration].

read more...