During this ‘wave of revolution’ spreading across the Arab world, watching the youthful protests taking place from Tunisia to Yemen has been a powerful and heartening image for those of us, and I can only speak for Britain here, who sit in the comfort of our homes in the West.
Seeing the faces of thousands of teenagers and young men and women on our television screens has created an atmosphere of hope and, to some extent, camaraderie with our Middle Eastern and North African contemporaries. But with this hope comes a feeling of inadequacy.
In the West, my generation has been blessed with a stable and liberal political atmosphere that has allowed us to live our lives and pursue opportunities without the threat of violence, censorship and government restriction. We have been spoilt and protected from the seemingly distant world of dictators and oppressive regimes. While not everyone has financial freedom, we do have choices and, most importantly, a political voice.
In the last few months we have finally heard the strong voice of all those people, both young and old, who had been struggling under and silenced by their respective leaders. And what powerful voices they have.
With the fall of former Tunisian President Zein Al Abedeen Ben Ali, ousted Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and now, hopefully, Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi, these voices of the revolution have made their feelings known and changed their world by coming together and uniting against a common cause of freedom.
But this is what we in the West are jealous of. Yes, jealous. The romantic image of coming under one banner and moving forward as one body of people against a common enemy is something that we, in Britain, if not across the Western world in general, have not had for a long time.
To those who have been injured or lost loved ones in the recent wave of revolution, to those who have had their houses damaged by both government and ‘rebel’ crossfire, to those who have endured decades of oppression, this must be a ridiculous notion, if not insulting.
But it is the spirit of the protestors, especially those that are seemingly fresh out of school, which we admire and want to emulate. This spirit and passion for their country is something that is rarely seen in the west, where society is no longer about community but rather the individual. This sense of loyal unity is largely something that our grandparents look back on nostalgically.
This week, I was able to experience, first hand, the power of a united people with shared aspirations and the spirit of community, no matter how big or small. Palestinians across West Bank and Gaza have come together to demand unity from their separated governments. Men and women, most of them the same age as me if not younger, have organized and carried out their own form of protest, inspired by their contemporaries in Egypt and elsewhere. While Ramallah’s city center did not see the thousands that poured into Tahrir Square weeks before, there was a strong and passionate crowd who had come to show their support for the cause. As I came to view the protests, much like my friends and family would in front of the television at home, I was suddenly absorbed into the crowd of protestors. Despite my pathetic attempts at resistance, I found myself standing in the inner circle of this peaceful demonstration. Around me everyone was chanting and singing together, a select few young men sat on the floor holding candles and waving the Palestinian flag. Around this core was the circle of young women who acted as protection of the demonstration. It was this image that struck me most.
As I was pushed enthusiastically into this ring, my arms were immediately linked with those either side of me. The young woman to my right explained that it was this all female circle that deterred anyone from interfering with the protest. And we were to take our roles seriously. With the slightest push from any side, our arms would tighten their grip on each other and our resolve to maintain this peaceful demonstration strengthened. This human chain moved together to protect what they believed in.
That evening left me with a sense of accomplishment and belief in the strength of people power. I am certain that the young people in Ramallah, Bethlehem, Gaza and across the world, who are calling for Fateh and Hamas to come together for a united Palestine, will not stop in their protests until their demands are met, be it in a weeks’ time or a years’. These young people are an inspiration, not only to their older, more cynical countrymen, but also to the younger generation in the West who are struck by a wave of indifference thanks to their cushioned and often privileged existence.
Harriet Straughen is a Writer for the Media and Information Department at the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy (MIFTAH). She can be contacted at mid@miftah.org.
The people united will never be divided
Date posted: April 30, 2024
By Joharah Baker
I was born in the United States and lived there through early childhood, but since returning with my family to Palestine, I have never wanted to go back. The United States has always evoked mixed feelings in me. I have a certain nostalgia for the place of my birth but my overall sentiments always culminated in a sense of resentment for this so-called superpower that has systematically aided in my people’s oppression, occupation and dehumanization.
That is, until present day. The scenes of American university campuses breaming with students in kuffiyehs, waving Palestinian flags and resisting the brutality of the police and their own university administrations, has uplifted my spirit in ways I cannot fully articulate. In a word, what is happening on US campuses today is validation of our people, of Palestine and of our struggle. To those who live comfortable lives in free countries, this may sound like an exaggeration, but for my people, who have been denied their very right to exist, who have been demoralized, demonized and dehumanized, this is huge. We are seeing students of all races, creeds, backgrounds and religions, calling for an end to the genocide in the Gaza Strip and marching for a free Palestine and divestment from the Israeli occupation. We are hearing Jewish voices, debunking Zionist propaganda and its below-the-belt attempts to conflate anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism. We are being validated for our struggle, for our resistance against oppression, occupation and settler-colonialism and we are finally being heard and seen.
Students have always been the litmus test for social and political justice. Rallies and demonstrations on university campuses have been the driving force against imperialist wars throughout the ages, the Vietnam War being the best example. However, what is so incredible about this movement is that American students are not directly involved in Palestine. Students are not being drafted into an army to fight on foreign soil, so the stakes are not as high for them at the personal level. What is happening today is the direct result of the intersectionality of struggles and the belief that no one is free until all of us are free. This is a force far more powerful than a genocidal regime will ever be.
The scenes from university campuses in the United States and now in Europe, juxtaposed against the crushing images from the Gaza Strip, are a balm for our wounded hearts. We feel a kinship with these incredible Gen Zs who have put their very lives on the line for Palestine. We send them love, energy and solidarity as we watch them being thrown to the ground, handcuffed and arrested and we burst with pride as we hear them chant ‘Free Palestine”.
This is a moment in time that must not be squandered. May these American university protests spread like wildfire throughout campuses across the world, putting to shame both Zionism and American imperialism, which has allowed this racist ideology to survive. The Palestinians have never wavered in their determination to liberate their land from Israeli occupation and oppression, whether they do it alone or with the help of friends. Today, thanks to the beautiful people all over the world who have championed our cause alongside of us, a free Palestine is not only an inevitability, it is just around the corner.
Who will hear their screams?
Date posted: April 01, 2024
By Joharah Baker for MIFTAH
When Israel claimed women were sexually assaulted on a mass scale on October 7, the world exploded. Almost the entirety of Israel’s genocidal war was based on these and other allegations, many unsubstantiated. We all remember the infamous’40 beheaded babies” story, do we not?
This article is not about Israeli allegations per se, neither will it only focus on violations against Palestinian women. This is about a world that is immediately up in arms when one side merely alleges atrocities while it turns a blind eye to actual documented violations against the “other”.
In Gaza, it is painfully clear that we indeed, are ‘the other’. How else can anyone explain the muted cries of women being stripped, raped, starved and murdered practically in real time, on our phone screens, documented in UN reports and described in horrific detail in eyewitness testimonies? There is no other explanation than that Palestinians are what Arundhati Roy calls “Children of a lesser God”. We are the victims of deep-rooted colonialism, one whose geographic demarcations may have vanished but whose insidious, dehumanizing mentality still prevails and manifests in the ugliest of manners.
For nearly six months, Palestinians have endured unspeakable atrocities at the hands of Israel’s occupying army. Today, the Gaza Strip has been reduced to an emaciated shell of what it once was. As Gaza is being systematically decimated and ethnically cleansed, the world, for the most part, looks on. Barring sympathetic supporters and a few well-intended but timid political actors, nothing has been done to stop the carnage. Palestinians once believed there was no way the world would allow Israel to erase Gaza off the map, no way it could see a live-streamed genocide and do nothing. But that is exactly what is happening.
Then, when we thought things could not get any worse, something unfathomable emerged from the deathtrap of Gaza. When this happened, we were certain it would be the turning point in this hellish nightmare. Well-documented reports, corroborated by the UN and eyewitnesses on the ground, told of harrowing stories of sexual assault against Palestinian women in Gaza.
We were paralysed with horror when we heard of women being raped by Israeli soldiers in northern Gaza, assaulted and stripped in front of their families. What’s worse, we all know that in times like these, the undocumented atrocities will far outnumber those documented. Who knows what horrors will unfold once the dust settles in Gaza; no doubt they will be so horrific, our entire nation will be traumatized for years to come.
The real question here is not how Israel’s soldiers perpetrated such gross violations. I think by now we can all agree that this depraved military establishment and its political echelon to boot, has dehumanized and vilified Palestinians so much and for so long, they will justify just about anything. No, the question is more about the moral compass of the rest of the world. While alliances and political interests are always part of the equation, even when the issue pertains to basic human rights, nothing can better explain the blatant hypocrisy, double standards and loss of collective humanity than the deafening silence today.
Our women have not only been killed, starved and displaced, they have been exposed to the very violations that sparked global outrage and a genocidal war against an entire population under occupation, unprecedented in modern history. This is not only unacceptable, it is an indelible stain on humanity. Sexual violence is a crime so heinous it is imperative to condemn and prevent, no matter the perpetrator or the victim. That must always be the baseline in any argument.
Palestinians will never get past this genocide; it is not something you can come back from. However, be assured, this is not only about the Palestinians. The world’s women, the majority of so-called feminists who have remained disgustingly silent, must know this: when you do not stand up for women, all women, no one will stand up for you in your time of need.
A new day will come
Date posted: February 14, 2024
By Joharah Baker
I once heard that anger is not a real emotion, but a cover for other feelings such as sadness, disappointment or fear. You need to peel back that outer layer to understand what is really going on inside.
Strange how this has lately resurfaced for me, but I think I know why. Lately, I and surely, millions of other Palestinians, have been filled with a blinding rage -- at Israel, at the United States, and at the world overall. This is a rage that is all-encompassing, the depth of which is palpable at the cellular level, permeating every molecule and every atom of our being. The genocide in the Gaza Strip has grated our emotions raw and we are left stinging and burning from our head to our toes.
Our anger is like a huge magnetosphere and we are all trapped inside, but its walls are translucent and we can see the source of our rage mocking us from beyond. We Palestinians are angry because we are so disappointed and we are angry because we are disillusioned and we are angry because we are drowning in sorrow.
Our disappointment lies in the fact that the world has failed us in the worst possible way and has allowed the unspeakable to be committed against us. Genocide is the ‘mother of all crimes’ and, contrary to the promises, the conventions and the historical lessons the world was supposed to learn, it has been committed over and over again. The Palestinian genocide, however, is unique in at least one way: it is live-streamed, which means no one can claim ignorance and everyone has a responsibility in stopping it. Hence, our disappointment is not limited to countries, Arab or otherwise, or to international and human rights organizations. It has spread to everyone in our orbit; acquaintances and people we thought were friends, but whose silence towards our slaughter is a deafening betrayal. Our sense of disappointment has discolored every relationship it touches because every relationship for us is a dichotomy: you are either with or against genocide and either support Palestine in word and deed, or not.
Our anger is a thin veil concealing our disillusion with the international community and its institutions, supposedly established to protect people in situations precisely like ours. We have confirmed what we knew all along, that these organizations were constructed for some and not all, for colonial powers and not those who suffer beneath them. Even when the highest court in the land rules in our favor, the Global North ensures that its ruling will not be implemented to save us, the oppressed, indigenous brown people whose lives apparently do not matter.
And finally, our anger is a survival mechanism to shield us from our own grief. Our sorrow over the murdered men, women and children, defenseless, homeless, starving and shivering in the cold, is so deep, so immense, we ourselves cannot fathom it. If we dare peek behind this anger and truly feel a fraction of the aching in our hearts, it will paralyze us for sure, because no people can endure the magnitude and scale of such suffering and not lose their minds.
We Palestinians know we cannot let go and that a new day is near. We know we must hold on just a little bit longer, because Palestine depends on it. We are no strangers to oppression, suffering and sacrifice and we know the price of our freedom has and continues to be painfully high. Still, we also know that a life without shackles and the yoke of oppression around our weary necks is the only life worth living.
Image is Everything: The Importance of Public Diplomacy in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
Date posted: May 10, 2011
By Harriet Straughen for MIFTAH
The power of image is important to anyone who is concerned about how others view them. The way one is perceived, especially on first impression, is integral to the opinion of the outside world and their reaction/action towards them. This, it seems, is no different for a government or a whole nation. Politicians strive to perfect their image on behalf of their party in order to secure more votes, and whole countries put across a global image in order to attract people to their shores and boost their tourism industry. But the global image of a country is significant in other, more politically-driven, ways. This essay will look at how Israel understands the importance of its’ image in shaping other countries’ foreign policy towards it and how it manipulates the media in order to refine and justify the actions of the military in news reports, focusing particularly on the 2010 Gaza flotilla raid coverage.
Background: Propaganda, public diplomacy and soft power
In order to disseminate such an image, a government can employ what was originally labeled as propaganda. Following the harmful yet effective propaganda that was in circulation throughout the Second World War and the following Cold War, such image-shaping efforts have now been renamed in order to avoid the negative connotations. Governments now talk about ‘public diplomacy’.
Public diplomacy can affect the foreign policy of another country and thus influence their treatment towards one’s own country. While this can be done through diplomatic, economic and military means, it can also be achieved through ‘soft power’. Therefore governments target civilian audiences whose opinion has a bearing on the government’s policy. As the academic Manheim points out ‘public relations are more likely to have effect in foreign affairs than in domestic affairs because there is less knowledge and experience on part of the citizens’, therefore the coverage of foreign affairs becomes tantamount. In this way, outside governments began to realize that they can have a positive effect on the opinion of civilians and, in turn, on that country’s foreign policy through carefully grooming their public image and explaining their actions to the rest of the world through information.
As governments acknowledged the importance of such ‘information activities’, they began to devote more and more resources to the endeavor. The United States has the Office of Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs which is dedicated to ‘supporting the achievement of US foreign policy goals and objectives, advance national interests, and enhance national security by informing and influencing foreign publics…’ The British government also employs their own methods of public diplomacy through the Foreign and Commonwealth Office which undertakes ‘a process of achieving the UK’s international strategic priorities through engaging and forming partnerships with like-minded organizations and individuals in the public arena.’ According to the FCO, ‘it’s not just about delivering messages but holding a two-way dialogue, listening to and learning from audiences around the world, in order to get a better understanding of the changing perceptions of the UK and its policies.’
Following suit, the Israeli government takes the role of public diplomacy very seriously and as such devotes a number of resources to educating and influencing foreign audiences, particularly those in the United States. The Israeli government has its own word that has been used since the 1970s in relation to their own public diplomacy work. Hasbara is roughly translated as ‘explanation’ and is used under the context of Israeli policy and actions. Along with the work undertaken by the Ministry of Public Diplomacy and Diaspora Affairs, the government has created other ways in which the image of Israel can be explained and promoted around the world, from person to person.
Public diplomacy and hasbara are employed as tactics of ‘soft power’. When Hilary Clinton became Secretary of State, she remarked on the importance of a ‘smart power’ strategy, that being the attention to both hard and soft power. While hard power concerns military prowess and financial coercions, soft power deals more with development and education.
For example, the Hasbara fellowships bring young people from the US to Israel to learn more about the country so that they may become ‘effective pro-Israel advocates on their campuses’.
Perhaps, one of the most challenging obstacles to the image of Israel is the action of its military in respect of the occupation. For this reason, the Israeli Defense has its own department which deals with media relations concerning their own actions. The IF Spokesperson’s Unit is organized into a number of branches ranging from international media, strategies, public affairs and film. The last mentioned produces films and footage about the Israeli military and will be looked at more closely further on in this essay.
Such efforts of public diplomacy have been developed and stream lined so that, following Israeli military action, the appropriate process of ‘explanation’ and justification can be put into place. In order to show how the Israeli public diplomacy or ‘PR’ machine works, I will look at the media coverage following the Gaza flotilla incident in May 2010.
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Harriet Straughen is a Writer for the Media and Information Department at the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy (MIFTAH). She can be contacted at mid@miftah.org.
Freedom of Thought
Date posted: May 04, 2011
By Harriet Straughen for MIFTAH
Last night I introduced a friend from home to one of my new friends from Ramallah. As we chatted, we started to talk about the summer and the prospect for us in Britain to be able to venture outside, for camping, barbeques, festivals and the like. My Palestinian friend listened and nodded politely but I was sure he was holding back.
Further into the conversation, as everyone was more comfortable in speaking their mind, he admitted his frustration at hearing such things. As we freely talked about our summer plans, he had been thinking about the restrictions laid on him that prevents such summer time frivolity. For instance, when we talked about camping, he said he was thinking, ‘I am scared when I go camping. As my foreign friends enjoy the ‘freedom’ of sleeping in the great outdoors, I am nervous that a shot might fire over our heads at any time. I am worried that Israeli military could appear at any time and demand our ID, or even detain us for some unknown crime. My foreign friends do not think about this.’
This lack of freedom and the constant anxiety it instills is a fact of life that Palestinians, many of whom were born under occupation, must counter into their lives every day. As those of us who are lucky to come from a liberal, fair and free country, we are unaware of the constant stress caused by living under occupation. Whether this is about the length of a journey because of checkpoints along the way, or whether your family will get their permits in order to worship in Jerusalem during holy days, the occupation must always figure largely in the minds of Palestinians.
I am wary of talking too much about my holidays or the time I have spent travelling around Israel for fear of being insensitive towards those who can’t enjoy the same physical freedom as me. Since being here, I have learnt to be more aware of what Palestinians (particularly those restricted to the West Bank) are permitted and not permitted to do because of the situation and the way in which to ask questions. For instance, I am careful to ask about what plans they have for the summer or, for Christians, for Easter, because ultimately this decision is rarely just their own. They may plan to cross the border to visit family or enjoy a change of scene but this can only happen at the discretion of the Israeli authority which distributes permits. Regardless of holidays, families often find it impossible to visit each other between the West Bank and Jerusalem because of the travel restrictions laid down, resulting in months passing between family visits that would normally only take a 20-minute drive.
This restriction happens between West Bank towns also. Despite travelling from one Palestinian town to another, one could still be denied access by Israeli soldiers at a checkpoint, therefore plans can be made but obstacles and delays are always prepared for, if not expected.
With the constant pressure of second-guessing anything that might come between you and daily life, it must be exhausting to make plans far in advance. When it is uncertain whether there will be clear access for work in the morning, it must surely be a risk to plan something more long term.
I invited this same friend to come visit us in Britain so that he could experience the festivals and the barbeques for himself. The suggestion was met with a polite but cynical smile. In order to get to Britain, he explains, he would have to be formally invited and able to provide reasons for being there and contacts that could vouch for him. In my ignorance, I assumed that these demands came from the Israeli authority. ‘No’ he tells me, ‘this is what your British government asks for.’
So here my friend from Ramallah is telling me about my own country’s visa requirements although he has never been there, never been to Europe. Just because travel seems so impossible at times, does not mean that many Palestinian people do not think about it, look into it, try it. Despite the daily obstacles faced and the amount of forethought that is required to complete the most basic of tasks while under occupation, Palestinians, like anyone else, have more ambitious plans, why shouldn’t they? Just because one is forced to live under a physical occupation, does not mean that one’s mind should be restricted too. The Palestinian people have just as many travel, educational and personal plans as any other but in their instance they can rarely be realized. So for those living in a free state, maybe give some thought, as Palestinians do every minute of the day, to the Israeli occupation and the difficulty of achieving what is a human right - to live life with a free body and mind.
Harriet Straughen is a Writer for the Media and Information Department at the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy (MIFTAH). She can be contacted at mid@miftah.org.
Settlers’ Stones and Sports Centers
Date posted: April 27, 2011
By Harriet Straughen for MIFTAH
In a recent interview with The Jerusalem Post, the newly-appointed head of the Israeli government press office, Oren Helman, spoke about foreign media and their need to see a different side to Israel than the one which is so often a focus in international media. Aside from the conflict, Helman talks about a new initiative called ‘There is more to Israel’ or TIMTI for short. He wants to ‘take them to see things, give them briefings, give them more information’. All of this seems fair and appropriate for a government press office. Helman then uses, as his example, the West Bank city of Hebron. He tells the Jerusalem Post, ‘You have to bring them there to see what is being talked about. It is not how they say, a city under the oppressive occupation of the Israelis. People are not suffering that greatly there.’ As a reflection of this, he cites the three malls and a new $10 million sports center found in Hebron.
After reading this, I took my own trip to Hebron, so that I too could see what was being talked about. As the bus entered the city, I saw the sports center and one or two of the malls. But a five-minute walk away from this main street, one reaches the edge of the old city of Hebron. Again, this is a bustling area with all manner of stalls and shops peddling their goods to the crowds of people walking through.
However, as I walk deeper into the old city, the crowds diminish as do the stalls and shops. Only two-three minutes’ walk from the main entrance to the old city, there are more shops closed then there are open. Above our heads a battered mesh covers the market street. On that mesh are rocks, some the size of dinner plates, interspersed with all manner of rubbish. One shopkeeper shows me the singed hole of his shop’s tarpaulin cover, the result of a burning object being thrown down through the mesh and landing in his shop. Above the market reside a number of Israeli settlers (approximately 400 in the center of Hebron), many of whom show their objection to the Palestinians below through such acts of violence and harassment. There is little wonder why so many shopkeepers have decided to leave their property below, unable to maintain a living under such circumstances.
Further along the market street, the area opens up to a square surrounded by beautiful but battered old buildings. As one looks up, several Israeli soldiers meet your gaze all monitoring the area from surrounding roofs and balconies, with their guns held up ready for any ‘trouble’.
I visited Hebron during Passover. During this time, there were increased ‘security’ measures employed in the city, as there was all over the West Bank and Israel. In Hebron, in order to ‘secure’ the area for the passage of the settlers from their homes to the Tomb of the Patriarchs/Ibrahimi Mosque, soldiers were placed every 10-20 meters along the old city street they would walk through. Each soldier held his gun to his chest so that the barrel was pointing at head/chest height for most people. Never having been in such close proximity to so many guns, my natural reaction was to physically recoil each time I passed them. At one point, an Israeli soldier on patrol turns around and points his gun directly at a child, no more than 12, walking behind him. To my horror, the child barely flinches, presumably he is so used to this sort of behavior.
The soldiers were stationed there until the settlers moved through to the holy site, completely closed to Muslim worshippers of the Ibrahimi mosque in the same location. Shortly after, I re-entered the area and spoke to one of its Palestinian inhabitants.
Leila both works and lives within the old city of Hebron. Her shop, the Palestinian Women’s Embroidery Co-operative, is situated right in the heart where the settlers had walked through that day, and where they walk through every Saturday. While the Israeli soldiers (reportedly around 6000 during Passover, 2000-3000 at all other times) are posted in Hebron in order to protect the safety of the Israeli settlers, it must be questioned who is at a greater risk of violence or harassment. Leila describes how the settlers often walk past and flip up the tables of the Palestinian stalls. They have been known to pull down the products from the front of the shops. Leila tells me how her sister had been working at the shop when a settler openly spat in her face twice. The settlers may be more brazen when the soldiers are not there but it seems the Israeli military themselves are also to be feared by the Palestinians.
“The army is often worse than the settlers,” Leila said. “They stop young men and they beat them which is very disturbing to watch. This is why so many people are too scared to come to the market to shop and so business is very bad.”
Leila has had personal experience of how the soldiers behave towards the Palestinian people in Hebron.
“I sent my son, who was only 15 at the time, to go buy me some bread. When he encountered some soldiers they accused him of throwing stones. They checked his pockets for rocks and even found the bread money in his pocket. But they still accused him and he was arrested for two months with a six-month probation. He is still too scared to leave the house.”
Leila also described how the situation in Hebron meant that it was not only the settlers and soldiers that were a threat but also those closer to home. Hebron is divided in its authority. According to the 1997 Hebron Protocol, the old city, surrounding the holy site of the Tomb of the Patriarchs/Ibrahimi Mosque, is under the total control of Israel in what is known as area ‘H2’. The rest of the city is under Palestinian Authority control and is labeled ‘H1’. As a result of this divide, Leila describes how criminals from other parts of the West Bank including the H1 area come to the H2 Israeli-controlled areas in order to escape punishment from the Palestinian Authority. Car thieves, drug dealers and more hide out in the H2 area and therefore pose an added threat to the Palestinian residents, who already have enough to deal with.
This part of Hebron, only 10 minutes from the “$10 million sports center and the three malls,” is a reminder that foreign journalists should indeed come and see what is being talked about. But they should see it for themselves not under the Israeli government press office’s organized trips. Just because one part of town doesn’t seem that bad, does not mean that people’s livelihoods and safety aren’t being threatened on a daily basis only a short walk away.
Helman concluded his interview about foreign journalists saying, ‘Give them the information. They are smart, professional, and experienced. They will know what to do with it when the time comes.’
I hope, having seen Hebron and other areas of the occupied West Bank (not just those offered by the Israeli press office) foreign journalists do know what to do with the information they are given. After all, they are smart, right?
Harriet Straughen is a Writer for the Media and Information Department at the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy (MIFTAH). She can be contacted at mid@miftah.org.
The ‘Real’ Palestine
Date posted: April 20, 2011
By Harriet Straughen for MIFTAH
Over the last few weeks I have been repeatedly told that Ramallah is not the ‘real’ Palestine. For this, I was told, I must travel further afield, go north, go south, go into Nablus or Hebron. I was unsure of what people meant when they said the ‘real’ Palestine. Do they mean more conservative communities? Or towns where there is not the easy access to cocktails and continental cuisine such as that found in Ramallah? Do they mean the villages separated by the wall?
The other day, I finally experienced the ‘real’ Palestine. It was not in the tense streets of Hebron or amongst the active demonstration in Bil’in, but here in Ramallah, in Al Amary refugee camp.
As I walked around the quiet and cramped alleyways of the refugee camp, I struck up a conversation (with the help of someone who could translate) with two women sitting and talking outside one of their homes. I wanted to know where they were from originally and one woman explained that she had come from a small village which she had been forced to leave in 1948 - she was eight years old at the time.
After being invited into their homes to continue the conversation, what followed was a powerful introduction to what the ‘real’ Palestine is.
One of the women is named Amna but she prefers to be called Um Mohammed, meaning ‘the mother of Mohammed’, her eldest son. She was eager to talk about her past and tell her story.
Amna, 71, spoke of the village where she was born along with her brothers and sister. Beit Affa, near Ashkelon, was once home to many Palestinian families. She described how it had been a village of peasants who had planted their own vegetables, an idyllic spot surrounded by trees. When she was eight years old, however, this picture of rural tranquility was disrupted. Jewish forces began to attack the village. Most people took to hiding in their homes to avoid the snipers who would shoot those on the street. Amna’s memory is strong and she has little trouble in recalling both her own experience but also the military exercises that were taking place at the time, something which must have been explained to her later. She remembers the Egyptians flying over with their planes and promising the Palestinian people that they would reclaim any villages captured by the Jewish forces. However, the Egyptians were unable to stop the night raids taking place and the Palestinian people took to fleeing into the woods. From that point on, they were unable to return to their homes.
Amna recalled that, at the time, she didn’t fully understand the situation or why, as they ran from building to building, her brother kept forcing her head down (out of the line of bullets) – her overriding memory is of continually tripping over because of her brother’s actions to save her life. She laughed at her girlish naivety. Amna can still remember the names of most of the villages she moved around. She can remember that the Egyptians tried to reassure the fleeing Palestinians that any land that was taken by Jewish forces would be recaptured by the Egyptians that night – something that obviously didn’t happen. Amna recalls how, every morning, her family tried, unsuccessfully, to re-enter the village from which they had just fled.
Amna also talked of everything that they had left behind. Under the illusion that they were going to be able to return in a couple of days, most families left the majority of their belongings at home and simply hid the most precious. Amna and her family had wrapped and hidden any gold or money that they had within their house, believing they would be back to retrieve it once the fighting was over. They left chickens and cows in the village and only took one camel to carry their mattresses.
The family moved from village to village, eventually settling in Gaza. But this was not the end of Amna’s journey. Now married and with children, she was persuaded by her brothers to move to the West Bank in the 1960s for a better way of life. As she departed, she had been warned that she may not be able to return to Gaza.
Her and her young family initially moved to a house outside the camp but it had been too expensive for them so they took a place inside Al Amary which was half the price and that is where they have remained.
Through all this displacement, I ask her about how she feels for the village of Beit Affa. She tells me she longs for the village. Both her and her family dream of returning to the place they are from, despite her children never having visited it. But Beit Affa is no longer in existence. During the fighting of 1948, the village was completely obliterated.
In a moment of sad reflection, she laments all the people who were killed at the time she was forced to flee. The mix of pain and nostalgia when talking about her past are evident on her face. The event took place over 60 years ago and yet, as Amna herself asks, ‘Does anybody forget where they are from?’
Amna has not forgotten her Palestine. For her and so many others the ‘real’ Palestine is the home they remember and the life they used to live, not the modern day reality of the refugee camp. The ‘real’ Palestine surely has to be the people and their individual histories. Whether they live in an apartment block in Ramallah or a farm in the South Hebron hills, it is them and not their current situation that defines them.
Background – Over 400 Palestinian villages were destroyed in the run-up to the declaration of the State of Israel in 1948. 800,000 Palestinians were displaced, resulting in over 4.5 million registered Palestinian refugees around the world today.
Harriet Straughen is a Writer for the Media and Information Department at the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy (MIFTAH). She can be contacted at mid@miftah.org.
