PERHAPS BECAUSE I was sixteen at the time, and perhaps because I was in school in Jaffa, the epicenter of the political and military earthquake that ended in the destruction of Palestine and the dismantling of Palestinian society, the events of the catastrophe of 1948 retain a searing clarity in my memory sixty years later.
From my youthful vantage point, it began on a morning in late fall 1947. I arrived at my school, al-Amiriyya, in Jaffa. On the wall facing the entrance of the school was a small blackboard where every morning something clever or interesting (referred to as hikmat al-yawm, or “wisdom of the day”) would be written in chalk. That particular day, 30 November to be exact, I glanced at the board, and what I saw there I will never forget: “Yesterday, on 29 November 1947, the United Nations decided to partition Palestine and establish a Jewish state in it.” I was stunned. What did it mean to “partition” a country? How could you establish a country inside a country? Why would the United Nations do this? Why didn’t they come and see for themselves that Palestine is our country? The whole idea was absurd and incredible...
Absurd?
Incredible?
Why?
In 1923, Gt. Britain finished the first partition, handing over to a Saudi Arabian refugee, Abdallah ibn 'Ali, all of the eastern portion of the country, originally intended to be included in the territory of the reconstituted Jewish national home.
In 1937, the Peel Commission suggest another partition.
In 1939, the Woodhead Commission made a further partion suggestion.
Partition was on the table for decades as a solution. That it didn't work was the Arabs fault. That Hallaj's teachers did not inform him of the political reality and possibilities is a problem but not one to be blamed on the Jews.
We didn't like the idea but basically, the official Zionist bodies accepted the idea.
The Arabs have only themselves to blame for getting themselves into a perspective that was constantly rejected, to their detriment.
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1 comment:
Dear Anon: Why do you need to write in filthy language, is it because since you have no guns to shoot me you use the next 'best' thing? That's too bad.
Actually, our right to regain our homeland stolen from us by Arabs - who were not filthy at all, just a bit dusty from the long road from Mecca and Medina and Nadj - was recognized by the entire civilized world but then you became a bit violent and a conflict started. Stolen? We had to begin buying back our land.
And wipe the foam from your mouth.
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