Lubya a palestinian demolished Village in Galilee Memory-History-Culture-Identity Mahmoud Issa Preface
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Jamal Shihabi196 is a teacher and the imam of Homs refugee camp. He has nine children residing in the camp. In 1981 a new position of camp mukhtar was created and Jamal became the first camp mukhtar. “The return to Lubya is inevitable no matter how long it will take,” said Jamal, whose father was a teacher in Lubya. “If it is not me who returns,” he told me, “then my children or their children will.” Fadiya Abbas197, who is seventy-five years old and lives with her husband and eldest son in Denmark, also said that should would like to return. Her answer, however, also revealed the kind of multiple identity that so many Palestinian refugees have acquired after so many years in forced exile, often forced to move from one country to another, in search of employment, because of family connections, or because of ongoing conflict. “I married Fayad Abbas in 1937. We already had four children when we left Lubya.” “In Lebanon, I gave birth to eight more, but unfortunately lost five of them,” she told me. “That is why I would like to stay for the rest of my life in Lebanon and be buried near my sons. Denmark is beautiful, but only for its people. As far as we’re concerned, we left every thing behind in Lubya. If one day we would be able to return, no one would get there faster than I. I saw the film about Lubya on Danish television, and I wept all through. It reminded me of my beautiful life there.” Younger Palestinians from Lubya also spoke about the desire to return to their village one day. “Returning to Lubya is a dream that I will always do my best to realize,” said Husam198. “I was born in Homs, Syria, in 1968, and have been living in Berlin for the last five years and working with my brother in his company. The Palestinian community here is very close to one another. I enthusiastically look forward to establishing a Palestinian center to look after our community’s interests. I am seriously thinking of going to Palestine to live, in spite of the difficulties I may face.” Many of the young generation have never seen Lubya. Most have heard countless stories about the village and about life before 1948 from their parents and grandparents. Some have seen pictures or videos of Lubya, yet most indicated a desire to return. “If I had the chance to go back I would do so without hesitation,” said Khalil, “even though I have never seen the village.” Jalal had the same response when I asked him if he thought about returning to Lubya. “If there is any possibility of returning, I will definitely do so,” he said. During the 1990s refugees in many places of exile renewed efforts to build a popular lobby to pressure the Palestinian leadership, Israel and the international community to respect and facilitate implementation of their rights, including return and housing and property restitution. This included internally displaced Palestinians inside Israel. Nayif, Abu Hassan’s son, is active in the Association for the Defense of the Rights of the Internally Displaced (ADRID) in Israel. He accompanied me on several occasions to Lubya, and to visit Lubyan families spread in different places in Israel. He knows in detail the history of almost every family in Lubya and the village history. “The first meeting [of the association] took place in ‘Ibillin, in Qasr al-Salam on 11 March 1995. About 300 members from all the displaced (muhajariin) from different Arab villages participated. The majority were from the Galilee. I was astonished to meet so many representatives whom I had never known before as displaced. The initiative was taken after the signing of the 1993 Declaration of Principles in Oslo, when the Palestinians in Israel began to realize that their fate was left without any solution. We elected three committees to work for our goal: to solve the problem of our confiscated land.” “Israel responded negatively to our requests. They accused us of wanting to throw them into the sea, simply because we asked the government to implement our individual rights to our land. We are citizens of Israel, and it is our right to ask for our property back. The official Israeli television asked to interview us. We accepted on the condition that they give us fair time in the program, and that two government ministers participate in the discussions. There are about 250,000 Palestinians in Israel who are concerned about this issue. We need support to make a general survey of all the plots of land in question.” I also asked Lubyans if they would like to resettle in the West Bank or Gaza if a Palestinian state was established in these areas. Almost all indicated that they would rather return to Lubya. “I prefer to return to Lebanon or Syria,” said Husam, “but if I have the choice to return to Lubya, then I am ready. The right of return to our lands and homes is a natural right for us. I will not be staying in Denmark for sure. I will try my best to return in the coming few years. I will try to open a small workshop that will allow me to live decently with my children. I take decisions democratically with my sons, who share my views regarding the future.” “Yes of course, I would return to Lubya if I had the possibility,” said Adnan, “but not to the West Bank or Gaza.” His wife was categorical in refusing to come back to the West Bank and Gaza. “I would like to go back to Lubya, but I would not go back to the West Bank,” she said. “Palestine is still occupied, and I prefer to stay here and wait.” “Without a doubt, I don’t have any hesitation about coming back if I have the chance,” said Saleh. “All the cities and villages of Palestine are fine, but I want to return to my own roots and the roots of my fathers and grandfathers, but in the end I would say that part of the land is better than nothing.” When I asked Khalil about the idea of returning to the West Bank, he thought the idea was not very practical. “As to going back to the West Bank and Gaza, I do not think that it is a feasible project. The economic situation there cannot absorb us all. They have enough problems there to deal with as is.” Jalal shared the same view. “Of course I would like to go back to my homeland,” he said, “but I would not like to go to the West Bank and Gaza. There is hardly any space for those already living there.” Others expressed grave doubts about the establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. “Of course I would return immediately if I had the chance,” said Kassim. “I would not return to other places. Besides it would not be a real Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza. I only want to return to Lubya, if there is any real possibility.” “The West Bank is hardly large enough for its own people and it will probably become another Somalia,” said Jawad. “If I am given the choice of returning to Palestine, I will choose to stay outside, but will lend my support to the Palestinian state.” “One must consider seriously what kind of life he or she would have in Gaza or elsewhere without the proper means of financial support, otherwise it would be difficult to realize one’s projects no matter what they are,” said Akram. “Therefore, we must return to our homeland only when we have the ability and the means to do that. I would like to return to any part of my homeland. Gaza and Jericho are as much part of Palestine as the other cities. The important thing is that Palestine exists on the map of the world.” For Yusra, Akram’s older sister, who grew up hearing about Lubya from her grandparents, “Gaza and Jericho do not constitute an entire Palestinian state. Palestine must be returned whole. Frankly speaking, I don't remember Lubya more than I do Lebanon, because I was not born in Lubya. When they show us a map and ask me where I come from, I feel irritated because I cannot find my village on it. It makes me feel bad. We have to continue to believe in our homeland, and we must educate ourselves about it, but of course I want to return to Lubya.” Even those Lubyans who were able to settle in the West Bank and Gaza in the 1990s under the Oslo process felt that there was something missing, that they had not yet exercised their right of return. Jamal Hajjo199 who was born in 1944, spoke about the difficulties he faced during his years exile before his return to Gaza, and about his position on recent political developments. “I consider myself now as living in Palestine, in my own homeland, but I will not give up my right to return to Lubya. We still have the documents that prove our right to our property. I am ready for a compromise, but not for giving up all my lands. I will never accept to sell my land for any amount of money. Besides all international laws guarantee our right to our property.” Samar Naji200, came to Ramallah in 1990s after the establishment of the Palestinian Authority, along with her mother who came to work as a judge. Samar’s reflections on what it meant to come to Palestine, yet not return to Lubya, encapsulates both the mosaic of Palestinian identity and the existential dilemma of protracted exile. Samar’s mother is originally from Lubya, while her father is from the coastal city of Yafa (Jaffa) near Tel Aviv. “When I came here in 1994, I felt the same as I felt when I went to Lebanon where they looked at me as a stranger. So I said to myself, ‘Now I am in Palestine, no one will look at me differently.’ Unfortunately, this was not the case. I feel that the people here also treat me like a stranger. In the classroom they said to me, ‘You are Syrian.’ I told them, ‘No, I am Palestinian.’ We are forty-eight girls in my class, and there are also girls from the United States to whom they refer as ‘the Americans.’” “I don’t like this treatment, but I got used to it. In Cyprus they referred to me as the Arab girl, here as the Syrian, and in Lebanon as the Palestinian. Here in Palestine, they also think of me as part of the Palestinian Authority and I still don’t have many social contacts. I think that the people here are still influenced by the first intifada. The occupation made the people more cautious in their social relationship. I met very friendly people, but the tendency towards being very cautious makes me feel as if I am from the secret police (mukhabarat).” “I went for a visit to Jaffa but I didn’t feel that I have a special relationship to it. I haven’t visited Lubya yet. I feel though that I belong to Lubya, and I am looking forward to visiting it soon. I remember my grandmother telling me all the time about Lubya and about her brothers who died while defending the village. She always wept when she told me about the martyr’s cave [where they buried the dead in 1948]. I am proud of those who died defending our homes.” “I lived in Cyprus for eight years and in Syria for three, but I felt more comfortable in Syria because of the culture and traditions we share with them. When I arrived in Palestine, I wept, not only because I love Palestine, but also because I left good friends behind. Now I have only my parents and only one friend. I didn’t understand my father’s friends when they said that they wept when they arrived in Palestine. There was harmony in the life of Palestinians in the camps in Syria, but here I face a lot of problems.” “Someone tells me that we must not listen to music, and another tries to convince me to wear the veil. In Cyprus they refused to let me hold the Cypriot flag. While in Syria I felt myself a Palestinian, but after one whole year in Ramallah I still have no real social life. When I saw Tel Aviv I was shocked. There is a great difference between Tel Aviv and Ramallah, however, I felt that the big buildings in Tel-Aviv were false. Yafa felt closer to my heart. Everything in it is normal.” Samar’s mother, Um Wisam, who was born 1950, shared her daughter’s views. “I still feel that we are strangers in Ramallah. The people here asked us, ‘How do you find our land?’ as if we have nothing at all to do with Palestine. Until now we only have formal relations with the people around us, but I meet frequently with my neighbours who also came back from exile. The relation with Israelis needs a generation or two to be normalized. The Israelis are people like us, and their children are not to blame for what the older generation did to our homeland. I still hope to return to Lubya.” What was also strikingly clear from all of the interviews, was that Lubyans refuse to accept compensation as a substitute for the opportunity to exercise their right of return. This view transcended all generations. When asked about compensation versus the right of return, Mahir Hamada was clear. “We are against compensation, we should go back to where we came from. Perhaps there are some obstacles now, but as long as I am alive, I will not give up my dream of returning to rebuild my family home. That is where our dignity lies and our history resumes. We should pay more attention to the new generation, especially those who were born in Europe, for they have an identity crisis.” For many compensation was akin to forgetting or selling the homeland. “Never, I am against compensation,” said Ali Abu Azzam. “The moment we accept compensation, our land will be forgotten.” “I will not accept compensation,” said Kassem. “Absolutely not. It would be clearly selling our homeland.” Khalil agreed that “compensation is a kind of selling out. My choice would be to return to Palestine,” he said, “even under the worst of conditions.” “Our homeland is not for sale,” said Saleh. “It is a symbol of our honor. Compensation with return to our homeland is a reasonable solution, but compensation without return does not mean anything. A man without a homeland is a man without honor. We will not sell our homeland. I will never accept the situation as it is right now because it is wrong.” “I refuse to be compensated,” said Najah. “I want to go back to my origin, where I can feel really free and regain my identity.” “I categorically reject the option of compensation,” said Kilani. “I’d rather get another citizenship and wait until I get the chance to return to my original home. Anyway, the entire Palestinian leadership is from Gaza. We have no place in this revolution. We are marginal to it.” For Jawad “compensation does not give me back my identity or my self respect. Even if they give me millions of dollars I will always stay a refugee.” The question of the right of return is frequently discussed among Palestinians, but not among Israelis. There are those in Israel who totally refuse to even talk about the subject, and there are those who would take a positive view of the issue if the right of return was implemented only in the West Bank and Gaza. The majority, however, is against the refugees’ return to their own lands and villages occupied in 1948, because of what they think would bring an end to the Jewish state. This subject is one of the most controversial issues in the conflict. Only in the last few years have some Israeli Jews initiated efforts to educate the Israeli public about the refugee issue and the right of return. When I asked Izra Lavi about the return of Palestinian refugees, including those from Lubya, Izra responded with a question. “Well, I want to ask you, would you like to return if it was possible?” I told Izra that in fact I would like to return and that my father who is seventy-two years old would definitely like to return. This is his dearest wish.” Izra responded with a laugh. “What will you do here? What would your wife say about living here? I am not sure after all that you will come to live here,” said Izra’s wife. “I knew a Palestinian who came from Jordan, but could not tell where his house was. He said that he is now a millionaire in Jordan.” “His father sincerely wanted to come here,” said Abu Wajdi, one of my friends who knew Izra and had accompanied me on the visit. “For him it is better than to stay in a foreign country, living among strangers.” But for Ester, Izra’s wife, the idea of return seemed like a dream. “Return after 46 years? There were Jews who came from Morocco and they left everything behind. There is no room left here. If one hundred thousand return, where will they settle?” I tried to explain to Ester that Lubya’s lands were still largely uninhabited despite the fact that more than half a million Jews from all around the world immigrated to Israel during the 1990s. “There are more Palestinian refugees than the number I have mentioned,” she answerd. “But would you accept that only the elderly people return?”, she asked. “Your father wants to return to Lubya, what about Haifa and Jaffa?” asked Ester. “There were Jews who came from Syria, Lebanon, and Morocco. Look, I tell you, my son lives in Australia. He has a lot of Palestinian and Iraqi friends there and he says that he likes them better than the Australians. The Australians are strangers, while the Arabs are his brothers and friends.” I said that we could sit and discuss in detail where the refugees could return. Izra tried to explain to me that it was a different situation between Jews who had been living in Europe and came to Israel after 1948 and Palestinian refugees now living in exile in Arab states in the region. “The Jews in Europe were not living well. Russia didn’t want them, neither did all the Eastern countries. I don’t speak about the Jews in the United States, but at least you have the Arab states in which you can live easily, in Iraq, Lebanon, Tunisia, Egypt,” said Ezra. When asked about the massacre of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, expulsion from Kuwait and Libya, and ill-treatment in general in most Arab countries, Izra said: “It is Arafat’s fault for siding with Saddam. It is between you Arabs to solve these problems. The Jews of Russia were not expelled by Jews, the Russians didn’t want them, while the Arabs are your brothers.” This is one of the common justifications for denying Palestinian refugees the right to return, that they would be better off living with other Arabs. When I asked Nahom Abbo about the right of return, his answer was different: “If we want to have a comprehensive peace and continue to have peaceful relations with our neighbours, the situation should remain as it is now. Any changes in the status quo will bring the riots back again. If you want to make peace you must give up some part of your rights. Look at the Jews who left their property in Germany, Iraq, Morocco, and Tunisia. Everything is gone without compensation.” I pressed Nahom, saying that in fact the Germans continue to pay compensation to Israel. “Not for property, but as compensation for the people they killed, but we should sit and talk about all these issues, including this one.” In fact, allied powers in Germany did impose laws allowing people to recover their property. “Under Peres’ government there were talks about those issues. Peace and life are more important than land. Let us talk frankly, 90 or 95 percent of those Palestinians are no longer with us, but their sons are. I think that it is better to solve the problem by compensation, but if you say to me I am from Lubya and I want to return there, then this will create new problems.” The issue of the right of return also came up during discussions I had at the Institute of Peace Research in Givat Haviva in Haifa. “We are not talking about 1948. It is over,” said Sara Ozacky Lazar201, “No one in the PLO is realistic, even the most radical among us is afraid. Israelis are afraid. We are looking to the future and I am for a Palestinian state since a long time ago, but it is time to stop dreaming about the right of return. My father returned to Lithuania and he could not even find his house.” When she invited another Palestinian, Walid 'Asliyya, an advocate from Um al-Fahm, a Palestinian town in Israel, to take part in the discussion, he said: “Ask the refugees themselves, not me. They have the right to raise their own issues.” Sara responded, telling Walid that he “should explain to them and tell them to stop dreaming about the past. We will help them in Gaza, but not over here, and don’t say you are not part of the game. The Oslo agreement is the best solution for the Palestinians. They should stop dreaming about their return to Jaffa. You intellectuals are destroying the life of your people.” When I informed her that the house her father is living in now in Haifa belonged to a Palestinian family who left under conditions of war, she became more agitated, and accused me of being unrealistic. Yohanan Ishkar, Director of the Institute who was present at the interview intervened: “I understand the tragedy of Palestinians, but we must make historical compromises.” Two other Palestinians present, Salem Jubran and Riad Kabha, both members of the Institute’s leadership, did not participate in the discussion or make any comments. When I asked them how an institute devoted to the research of peace does not discuss such issues, one of them answered: “Actually it is the first time that we discussed the right of return of the Palestinian refugees.” During my time in Israel, I also sat down to discuss the refugee issue with Dr. Uri Davis202, who has written many books and articles about the conflict and the nature of the state of Israel. I asked him how he conceived of a solution to the refugee issue and the right of return. “In my opinion there is only one real and effective solution: dual citizenship. That means that the holder of dual citizenship has the right to live in Nablus or in Natanya according to his choice. Just as I have the right as a dual citizen of Israel and the United Kingdom. But it also will meet enormous resistance from the Israeli government. In my view that is the only effective program of action. It can be achieved through a very strong political fight against Israeli opposition. There is in my opinion only one alternative strategy to the strategy of dual citizenship, and that is naturalisation (Arabic, Tawtiin).” “What I fear is actually not naturalisation. What I fear is that the international community, under Israeli and American pressure, will use naturalisation, use the fact that Palestinians are no longer stateless in order to abolish their status as refugees. It is not true that if you have a passport you are not a refugee. You can be a refugee, have asylum in Denmark and have a passport. There is no legal connection between citizenship and refugee status. So again if you talk about a Palestinian state and naturalisation, you must negotiate very carefully to make sure that the international community and the United Nation does not abolish the resolutions relevant to the Palestinian refugees.” “One resolution is already abolished and that is a bad defeat for our cause, and we must make absolutely sure that this defeat is not repeated for the Palestinian refugees, because they have rights to properties, to compensation, to residence in Israel. So I see two strategies: the strategy of dual citizenship or, if you want, multiple citizenship. If you can have Palestinian-Israeli dual citizenship, you can also be a Jordanian-Palestinian-Israeli citizen. Look to Europe and see how the process of unification is developing. The European story is a good story to follow. If you go for naturalisation you really have to be very careful not to compromise the rights of the refugees.” The peace process I also asked Lubyans and the several Israeli Jews that I interviewed about their thoughts about the Oslo peace process. Lubyans, old and young, expressed both optimism and a sense of pessimism toward the peace process that began in Madrid, Spain, after the first Gulf war in 1991 and continued with the signing of Declaration of Principles in 1993 in Oslo, Norway, followed by subsequent interim agreements. Looking back at his long eighty years of life, with more than half a century in exile, Abu Tal’at, expressed mixed feelings. “Personally I am totally for [the peace process]. Twenty-three Arab countries together could do nothing against Israel. The number of Palestinians killed in the Arab countries is higher than the number of those killed by the Israelis. Our people in Burj al-Shamali camp are starving. We collect money and other necessities to send to them. We don’t have a strong resistance base like Hanoi to help us in our struggle. The Lebanese even refuse to allow Palestinians to work in their country.” “The prophet concluded the Hudaybiya agreement with his enemies (al-kuffar), and two years later he succeeded in entering Mecca. We are a people with rights and the whole world should support us. I am sure that there will be a solution for the Palestinians of 1948 sometime in the future. I don’t believe that there will be a solution in the near future though. The American solution is now on the table, therefore, there is only the possibility that the West Bank will be returned to the Jordanian government. Besides, I don’t believe that the Palestinian Authority has the ability to survive independently. Most families want to stay where they are living right now. (He laughed loudly.) Lubya is gone. They will never see it again. Maybe they will even kill Arafat.” Nayif Hassan shared similar views about the US role in the peace process. “As long as the US dollar is strong and influential, we will not regain our rights,” he said. “This is exactly like what happened with the shuyukh of Lubya. The educated people had no say and the makhateer decided everything. A Palestinian is oppressed wherever he lives. Whoever accepts compensation is a traitor, and it is not me who said this, these are Allah’s words. Wherever we go, we are faced with the question, ‘Where are you from? What is your country of origin?’ The Kuwaitis tell the Palestinians that they succeeded in freeing their land from Iraq in a very short span of time, while we have been occupied for fifty years and so far have failed to get back our homeland.” “I don’t believe at all in this solution,” said Ali. “They took seventy percent of our land, and now they are negotiating over the remaining thirty percent. They said that Palestinians have received self-determination. Where is it? They settled immigrants in Saffuriyya, and when the original owners of the land tried to collect cactus from the fields, the new settlers turned them out saying: 'It was once your land but now it is no more yours. Get out of here.' They were prevented from harvesting anything from their fields. Is this the peace they spoke about? Last year I saw a demonstration in the streets of Nazareth. The children were holding the flags of Israel and the Communist party. I asked the children: 'Where is your Palestinian flag?' They threw down the flags and quit the demonstration.” The younger generation of Lubyans residing in exile also expressed mixed feelings towards the current peace process. Husam, for example, was optimistic, but also realistic. “I totally support it. We have tried different ways to achieve our national goals, and I don’t mind giving this peace process a chance. The Palestinian people will go on with their lives, even if this process fails. We can always revert to other methods if this process does not help us get what we want. It is enough to hear the sentence ‘President of Palestine’, which in itself is a moral triumph, but I will never forget the suffering of my people.” Others, however, were more pessimistic that the peace process would enable them to exercise their rights. Both Adnan and Najah shared the same feeling about the deficiencies and shortcomings of the peace process: “This is not a solution. They gave the Palestinians nothing.” Najah added, “I don’t think this is a solution either. The Israelis continue to confiscate Palestinian land, and there is still no solution to the Palestinian refugee problem. The United States, which is trying to mediate between us and the Israelis, betrayed us by vetoing a resolution condemning Israel for confiscating land in Jerusalem.” “The Oslo agreement falls short of fulfilling our ambitions,” said Kilani from Homs refugee camp in Syria. “I want to go back to Lubya with my eight family members. I don’t want to return to Gaza or to the West Bank, because I will live there the same way as I was living in Syria. In Syria we Palestinians have the same rights as the Syrians; only the first-rank jobs are not open to us, otherwise we have the same rights and duties. In Lebanon, on the other hand, a Palestinian must have a Lebanese partner in whose name he should register 51 percent of his business; that is not the case in Syria. I pray that God will help me one day return to my village.” “I want to answer our question with another,” answered Khalil. “What is the value of this peace process to us as long as we remain far away from our homeland?’ No one discusses our problem here in Denmark. Besides, this peace process is neither fair nor just. The main problem that needs to be solved is the refugee problem and the right of return. This process is good only for Israel, and the Arabs are the losers.” “This peace process is both good and bad,” said Jawad. “Good because it put the name of Palestine on the international map and this is a political advantage, and not good when considering all the martyrs who died for Palestine. We ought to have obtained much more than we did out of it. Personally, I feel that I got nothing. I am still a refugee, and I cannot go back to my homeland. The negotiations were conducted based on an unequal balance of power.” “Concerning the solution of our problem, and as a man who has worked for about twenty years to resolve my own problems,” said Sakir, “I believe in finding a peaceful solution that is balanced and durable. The dispersal of the Palestinians that we see now only exacerbates the problems, and I do not see any future either for the Palestinians of Syria and Lebanon. What we see right now is, at best, a temporary solution. Even some Israelis believe that.” “I always believe that our homeland is the only place where we can ever feel safe,” said Muhammad Shihabi. “The peace process is frustrating because it did not mention in definite terms the right of return. As a Palestinian I was brought up with this idea in mind. Our future will be like that of South Africa today, a secular state with no difference at all between Jews and Palestinians.” |