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Cultural
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Jerusalemites has asked
a number of Palestinians to write about who, and what, is a
Palestinian. We would like to invite our Palestinian browsers to
also voice your opinions on this matter. You may send comments or
articles to:
managing-editor@jerusalemites.org
Article by Raeed Tayeh, a Chicago correspondent for the Washington
Report on Middle East Affairs. (New)
Article by Abdulhadi Walid Ayyad, student at University College,
London.
Article by Dina Raad, Fulbright Student in Arizona, USA.
Article by Dr. Hazem Nusseibeh , he has held several prominent
government posts in Jordan
Where do I fit? article by Rana Abdalla, a Corporate Tax Auditor at
the Canadian Ministry of Finance
Article by Dr. Subhi Gosheh , a medical doctor by profession
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Who
Am I? by
Raeed N. Tayeh
I'm a
Palestinian-American.
A human
being with two identities, yet I'm a lost soul with no homeland.
I'm a
phenomenon I suppose, but I am certainly not unique. Close to five
million others all over the globe desire the same thing that I seek.
What I
seek, what we all seek is simple.
We want
our God given rights.
We want Justice.
We want freedom,
We want our land.
We want Palestine.
Oh how
I dream of that wonderful day, when our flags are raised, and when
the marching bands will play.
When
the young will cheer, and when the old will cry.
When the refugees return, and when Zionism will die.
I want
to live where my grandfather lived, and be buried next to his soul.
I want to be the one pulling the rope, when the bells
in Jerusalem toll.
I want to stand on the Dome of the Rock and make the
call to prayer.
I want to build a home, with my own two hands, on the
holy land that is there.
Don't
get me wrong, America is fine.
But I'd
rather live on the land that is mine,
I'd rather live in Palestine.
February 6, 2000
Mr. Raeed Tayeh is an American-born writer originally from Beit
Hanina, a suburb of Jerusalem. He is a Chicago correspondent for the
Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. He also writes Op-Ed
pieces for Progressive Media and articles for Islam Online.
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Who is
a Palestinian?
by
Abdulhadi Walid Ayyad
Some time
during the winter of 1987, my two younger brothers, my parents and I
rushed home early from the home of a family we were visiting. When
we arrived at our house, the first thing my parents did was to turn
on the television and, since my parents never before cared much for
television, I knew something very strange was happening. On that
day, at the innocent age of six, I became cognisant of a part of me
I had known only superficially before that time: I was a
Palestinian.
In the
winter of 1987, the Palestinian Intifada had erupted. On that first
night, my parents sat around the television set and identified
regions of the country they could remember vaguely from over 20
years earlier. Needles to say, being a boy of six, I was very
impressed.
After that
first night sitting around the television set, watching the
developments in a far away homeland my parents had left long ago,
nothing would ever be the same. Before that night, I was merely a
primary school pupil who was living in California but had visited
Kuwait-- and that was usually enough to impress the kids in first
grade, the most adventurous of whom might recall a family trip to
Mexico, but nothing like Kuwait. Now, I had something to be really
proud of.
Swallowing
every bit of television news I was allowed to watch, and all the
newspaper articles I could read (ie, all those without words too big
for a six-year old), I tried to catch up with my parent's knowledge
of the whole situation, and I managed to surprise them and some of
their friends who would visit. For years on after that night, our
little household was inspired without end. My parents spoke now of
something they had hardly ever mentioned before-- they spoke of a
return to Palestine.
The only
problem was that the news anchors never spoke of Palestine. They
spoke of 'Israel', the 'West Bank', and a place completely new and
exciting for me, the 'Gaza Strip', which I imagined was once
something like a district in Los Angeles a long time ago. In fact,
at some times, and these were far too often, the media portrayed us
as the people on the wrong side of the conflict. Combine this with
the glorified and simplified images of war brought to children and I
began to worry that we were actually the bad guys. One learns simply
too late and too painfully however, the complicated truth about war
and human conflict, and the complete lack of a 'good' side anywhere.
Nonetheless, I adopted quickly the cause of my newly discovered
nation: We were and continue to be driven into acts of violence to
claim our simple right of self determination. This to me is at least
part of what it means to be a Palestinian. Being a Palestinian, in
the full sense of the word, has meant standing up for our
inalienable rights regardless of the lack of sympathy we receive
from just about anybody else. What's strange is that there is little
else which binds us, really. While many people think of Palestinians
as being Arabs, I learned later on that many of our countrymen-- and
we certainly always have thought of them as being Palestinian-- are
Armenian, Greek or Chechan. While, recently, there have been some
disturbing incidents over religious disputes in the Palestinian
community, for the most part of many centuries native Palestinians
of a dizzying number of religious denominations have lived side by
side in the midst of pilgrims coming to visit what is considered by
most to be God's special place on Earth.
This, in
conclusion, is what being a Palestinian has meant for me. It has
meant being aware of our special niche among the nations. Living
peacefully throughout endless generations of imposed political
turmoil and war, being Palestinian has meant destitution, hope, fear
and what has been an endless struggle for independence. In other
words, it has meant sticking together in the hope that we will some
day finally be able to return to and live in that place my parents
spoke of.
January 23, 2000
Abdulhadi Walid Ayyad, originally from Abu Dis, just east of
Jerusalem, was born in Kuwait in 1981. His family moved to
California, USA until 1992 when they returned to Kuwait. Today,
Ayyad is studying Physics at University College, London (University
of London).
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Who is a Palestinian?
by Dina Raad
People ask me where I'm from, and I proudly answer, "I
am a Palestinian." Usually, that's a brow-raiser.
"Ah,
and what's it like over there?" is the usual question that follows.
"I
don't know," I say, with a mixture of shame and sorrow. "I've never
been there" I try to explain, and the brows rise a little more: A
Palestinian who has never been to Palestine? Yes, that's me.
Like a
pure-bread Arabian horse born and raised somewhere other than in
Arabia, I am a pure-bread Palestinian; where I was born and raised
is only a marginal detail. My father was born and raised in
Jerusalem, and his father, and his father's father. And my mother
was born in Acre, and her father in Nablus. Jerusalem, Acre, Nablus
... all names so dear to my heart, cities that run in my blood, in
my DNA. I feel for them the love of an orphan child for the mother
he/she never got to know, separated by cruel circumstances beyond
their control.
So does
the fact that I was forcibly born elsewhere -- because my parents
frantically fled for their lives in 1948, holding onto their house
keys, thinking this was all temporary -- does that make me any less
Palestinian? I sure don't think so!
If so
many Jews can find it in themselves to argue with a straight face
that this is where they belong because their ancestors were there
2000 years ago, then how much more do I -- I, whose lineage was also
there since 2000 years and up to 50 years ago -- how much more do I
have the right to plant my feet firmly in the ground and insist,
even if I don't have a passport that says so, that I AM Palestinian,
and I belong in Palestine?
Dina Raad is a Fulbright Student at the Walter
Cronkite school of Journalism and Telecommunications at Arizona
State University in Temep, Arizona.
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How
are Jerusalemites Doing? by Dr. Hazem Nusseibeh
In a previous discourse entitled “Who is a Palestinian” I tried to
depict a mental and subjective definition of a Palestinian, in
consequence of his cruel uprooting and dispersal half a century ago.
I shall in this discourse attempt to describe his fortune or
misfortune, as the case may be, in his new situation as a refugee or
displaced, scattered in the four corners of the globe, with
particular emphasis on Jerusalemites whose fate, I am more familiar
with, than the rest of the Palestinian people.
To start with and I refer to earlier articles, if anyone expects to
see any Jerusalemite in a refugee camp, he would be greatly
disappointed. When catastrophe struck the Jerusalem Arabs in 1948,
they were an unborn citizenry: sophisticated, highly cultured and
professionally proficient in every walk of life.
They comprised top level administrators, professors and poets,
teachers, musicians, men of letters and authors such as khalil
Sakakini, George Antonius, Ishaq Husseini, Is’af Nashashibi, Abdul
Rahman Bushnaq, Ibrahim Touqan, Iskandar Khouri, Bajjali Arnita,
Batroni and many others. In the professions, they were top level,
highly accomplished judges and lawyers, including, to mention a few,
Henri Kattan, Anwar Nusseibeh, Majid Abdul Hadi, Anton Attallah,
Abdul Latif Salah, and numerous others, and Jerusalem had an
excellent government sponsored law school.
In journalism and broadcasting (before television), they had well
developed newspapers and weekly publications including “Falastin”,
al-Qifa’a al-Jami’a al-Arabiyah, al-Jami’a al-Islamiyah, al-Karmel
and others. Yousuf Hanna, I’issa al-I’issa, Ibrahim Shanti, al-Farouqi
to mention a few more amongst the highly qualified journalists and
columnists, in spite of the vicissitudes, turbulence and military
restrictions which oftentimes muffled free journalism during the
British mandate.
In broadcasting from “This is Jerusalem”, they had a large cadre of
highly qualified anchors, news readers and editors, whose names were
commonplace, not only in Palestine and Jordan but far beyond in the
Arab world. They literally pioneered, operated and ran many
broadcasting services in the Arab world and, particularly in the
Gulf States, after their dispersal in 1948 and 1967.
As a testimonial to what I have paid, suffice it to mention the
following story which happens in Kuwait in June 1962, on the day
Kuwait celebrated its first independence. As a foreign Minister of
Jordan, I attended those celebrations. In a meeting with the ruler
of Kuwait, Sheikh Abdullah Salam Sabah, I raised the opportunity to
thank the Emir for the warm generosity and welcome which our fellow
countrymen and women were accorded in Kuwait. The Emir snapped back,
“you don’t have to thank me. I have to thank you for the great
accomplishments which your countrymen have made in Kuwait. They have
built up our country.”
Dr. Hazem Nusseibeh has held a number of prominent government posts.
He was a representative of Jordan at the Mixed Armistice Commission.
He was Minister of Foreign Affairs, Minister of the Royal Court and
has served Ambassadorial posts to Egypt, Turkey, Italy, and Austria.
He was also the Permanent Ambassador of Jordan to the UN.
Dr. Nusseibeh is author of various books, including The Ideas of
Arab Nationalism, Palestine and the United Nations and A History of
Modern Jordan.
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Where Do I Fit? by Rana Abdulla
Several years after receiving our Canadian Citizenship, a
Kuwait-born, Palestinian origin Canadian-- at times I still find
myself brooding over the issue of my national identity: How
Canadianized have I become? What is a Canadian? Am I a Canadian?
Where do I fit in the Canadian Mosaic? Now: a woman in my thirties,
I still don’t have the answers.
On paper, everything seems simple, clear-cut. Nationality: Canadian.
Country of birth: Kuwait. No identity crisis; no existential angst.
Outwardly, the only signs of my foreignness are my name, which I’ve
never even considered changing or anglicizing, and my accented
English, a language I first learnt in Kuwait.
Never once have I regretted my decision to become a Canadian. To
travel to the country of my birth, where I lived for more than half
of my life, I need a visa. Officially, I am not a Kuwaiti;
officially, I’m a Canadian.
In reality, though, I don’t feel Canadian or Kuwaiti in the same way
I feel Palestinian, which I realized after an absence of twelve
years. I discovered that while I now inevitably see things from a
Canadian perspective, I remain basically Palestinian in the way I
feel, think, react. I face concerns how I perceive my place in this
society and how others perceive me.
To Palestinians, however, there was something foreign about me (un
je ne sais quoi) that made people ask me if I really was a
Palestinian. Was it my Arabic accent grown stale and dated through
disuse and lack of contact with spoken language? No, it was
something deeper than this superficial sign: I was Canadianized. I
do not fit, I face a sense of displacement, a feeling of isolation
in what I consider home.
But I still regard myself as a Canadianized Palestinian, not yet
metamorphosed into a Canadian for I don’t feel Canadian in the same
way I feel Palestinian. A refrain that keeps ringing in my mind.
Through the years, I’ve taken an active role in my Canadianization.
No adult can undergo acculturation merely by osmosis, or against her
will. The desire, the determination, the commitment, have to be
there. It’s the same with acquiring a new language. No adult can
ever master a new language without a persevering, painstaking,
obstinate effort-- not to mention fervor, devotion, passion,
obsession. In my case, both experiences have vastly expanded my
horizons and enriched my life.
In my quest for this elusive, mysterious abstraction-- the Canadian
soul-- I’ve explored the history, the geography, the arts, the
literature, the economy, the political system of this country. I go
on picnics on Canada Day; I wear a poppy in my lapel in November; I
vote in every election; I hold a degree from a Canadian university;
I am a member of a Canadian professional association for certified
accountants; I speak, read, write and understand French and English.
I’ve lived and worked in Quebec and Ontario; I’ve tried
unsuccessfully to become interested in hockey, curling, lacrosse; I
watched the juno awards; I’m a fan of Canadian movies; I’ve traveled
from coast to coast by train; I drink rye; I don’t care for maple
syrup; I enjoy life in Canada. I love this country and yet,
notwithstanding all my efforts, the Canadian soul continues to elude
me.
The Palestinian soul is persistent: the bits and pieces that form
the Palestinian culture, love and longing are permanently fixed in
their position in accordance with some preconceived design, and it’s
this stability, this permanence, this lack of fluidity, this
foreordained positioning that separates me from my Canadianization.
The coming Canada day I will hold an olive branch on one hand and
the maple leaf in the other hand, might help me in quest for my
national identity.
In a lot of ways, I have had the opportunity to reap the benefit of
two cultures: a heritage as rich, as dynamic as the Arab’s, and the
material well-being of the west. But sometimes the best of both
worlds makes you feel you belong to neither.
Rana Abdulla was born in Ahmadi, Kuwait on May 1, 1961. She
graduated from the University of Windsor with a Bachelor of
Commerce, two diplomas from Saint Lawrence College of Ontario in
Business and Accounting, and earned her CGA designation from the
Certified General Accountants Associations of Ontario.
Rana's father, Hilmi Abdulla, was born and raised in Balaa (Tulkarem)
and her mother, Fatima Hamshari, born and raised in Tulkarem. Her
father served Kuwait Oil Company since 1952 and until he immigrated
to Canada in 1994.
Rana immigrated to Canada early 1980's with her husband, Rafe, a
biologist, born in Balaa and graduated from l'Université d' Oran
(Algeria). They have three daughters, Rania (18), Danah (13) and
Sarah (4).
She is currently working at the Canadian Ministry of Finance as a
Corporate Tax Auditor. Rana has taken an activist approach to
helping Arab immigrants and refugees. Rana helped raise money to the
orphans and children of Palestine and Iraq; she helped many Iraqi
refugees to come to Canada as an expression of deep sympathy with
the Iraqi refugees who are suffering a terrible fate.
Rana received awards and recognition certificates for her
humanitarian work from many Canadian charitable organizations. Rana
find her rewards in knowing that what she experiences will forever
change their lives and the lives of the refugees, poor and needy
people she continuously assists.
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Who is
a Palestinian? by Dr. Subhi Gosheh
Palestine as a new geopolitical entity was re-coined in the 19th
century by the British for colonial and political reasons and to
help the Jews-- before their new nomenclature as Zionists-- settle
in and colonize Palestine, largely through British efforts in the
19th century: the Sykes-Picot Pact and then the Balfour Declaration
and British occupation at the end of World War I. The official name
was stamped by the League of Nations in 1922.
This para-Mediterranean Southwestern part of Asia was well known
throughout history as the land of Canaan, inhabited by Arab
Canaanites as far back as 4,000 BC. This land retained its name for
centuries as it hung on to its inhabitants with their particular
cultural characteristics, which has persisted up until now in the
Palestinian-- Canaan’s legal and historical descendants.
It has been occupied and liberated by its people and re-occupied
about 25 times throughout history. The names of the occupants
changed but its people remained the same, and its unity with the
motherland persisted during the Muslim-Arab Empire and Ottoman
Empire, as the land of Syria. It only changed its name once for two
centuries during Crusader Invasions (11th and 12th centuries), when
it was called the Holy Land or the Land of the Holy Tomb.
The last occupation by the British was different in that it aimed to
plant a new foreign group of peoples in order to uproot the original
inhabitants and thus create a new national home for the Zionists. It
did its best but, since the beginning of its occupation, the Arab
inhabitants refused it and fought both the British and the Zionists
in a long history of struggle from 1918 to 1948, when Israel was
created and since 1948 up until dooms day.
This land’s long history of occupation and liberation has made the
Arab Canaanite descendents in this part of Arab Land (South-West
Syria), immune to such subjugation because of fighting against it,
and it would not be farfetched if we say, that fighting the
occupants or the struggle for the liberation of their land runs in
the Palestinian blood. Or, we can even say that there is a gene in
the Palestinian’s chromosomes for this particular characteristic.
This would explain the continuous struggle in Palestine, Syria, and
Lebanon that the Palestinians have waged against foreign occupation
since 1918. Not only are the Palestinians fighting, there are also
the Lebanese fighting Israeli occupation up until today. There are
also Arabs and Muslims who fought against the British-Zionist
occupation since 1918, and all through the riots, uprisings,
revolutions, and Intifadas, which took place in Palestine, and who
have shared in Political and other activities such as riots and more
serious activities outside Palestine.
This means that Palestinians have not remained confined to those
inhabitants living in Palestine or to the Palestinian refugees who
have been expelled continuously from Palestine. Rather, it
encompasses all Arabs, who have shared the same political fate which
resulted from imperialist-Zionist Colonial occupation and its
influence on the Arab world, and also, those Muslims who have shared
the suffering of their brothers after the occupation of Jerusalem
and its Holy Places by Zionists, as well as others who fought for
liberty, fraternity, and equality of all nations.
The description of the Palestinian as a fighter for liberation has
been distorted by the Zionist media and its sympathizers. It
pictures the Palestinian as a “terrorist” who kills women and
children for the mere sake of killing, and tries to proclaim the
massacres of Qubia, Samou’, Sabra-Shatilla as humane acts, and
depicting the destruction of bridges and electricity generators as
merciful acts.
It is saddening to find that almost all types of media-- of course
maneuvered by the Zionists and their sympathizers-- concentrate on
Palestinians as “terrorists”. Few concentrate on Palestinian
refugees and their hardships, still fewer concentrate on Zionist
aggression and confiscation of Palestinian Land, house demolitions,
apprehensions, massacres, and imprisonment of Palestinians in
Palestine.
Of course the Palestinian refugee needs to focus attention on
his/her 50-year ordeal and on his/her national and human aspirations
to return to his/her homeland. The prisoner also needs to be
liberated, house demolitions and other similar crimes should stop.
Almost nobody talks of the positive aspect of the Palestinian, and
there are many of them, particularly if these qualities still show
after all these miserable sufferings and hardships spanning half a
century.
In the field of Education, Palestinians enjoy the highest rate of
education and the least in illiteracy in the Arab world and even in
some parts of Europe. We cannot enumerate the number of Palestinian
top-notch people in the world in the fields of medicine,
engineering, construction, atomic research, and agriculture, art,
music and painting, and they could even excel in more sectors if
they were not faced by setbacks from anti-Palestinians.
If we look at many parts of the Arab world, South America, Africa,
we can see the result of Palestinian work in the construction of
these areas in all fields of education, medicine, industry, art, and
sports.
If we look at Palestine now, we can see what advanced state the
Palestinian has achieved in fields of agriculture, industry,
education-- from kindergarten to many universities, in spite of all
Israeli rules and regulations to hinder such progress.
The Palestinian voice has tried to reach all over the world into the
political spheres and others, such as the United Nations, which
means that it has the ability and the acceptability in this world--
because of their capability and high standard of performance.
The Palestinians have been the custodians of both Muslim and
Christian heritage through the ages. They have been tolerant of and
cooperative to other religions, especially compared to what the
Zionists are doing in Palestine now-- demolishing churches, mosques,
and other Holy Places, preventing Muslims and Christians from
Praying in their Holy Places in Jerusalem, taxing churches and other
religious places, among other harmful actions.
This is just a small part of the positive aspect of the Palestinian,
and it will remain so, because deep in his/her heart, the
Palestinian is a believer in God, Muslim or Christian, has national
aspirations for freedom, equality, fraternity, and wants to live in
peace in his/her free homeland, enjoying his/her sovereignty. The
Palestinian is ready to fight only for that cause and for no other
reason. He/she believes that the world should advance to righteous
international standards of equality, without bias, so he/she and all
people would enjoy their cooperative common life and peace.
A writer on politics and a well-known patriot, Dr. Subhi Gosheh is a
medical doctor by profession. Born in Jerusalem, he studied first at
St. George’s School, then studied medicine at the American
University of Beirut. He practiced medicine in Jerusalem until he
was imprisoned and kicked out in 1971, whereupon he went to Kuwait
and practiced medicine there. He lived for a good number of years in
Kuwait and he distinguished himself by his sober and illuminating
ideas about the problems of his country and people and by his
political integrity. He has also written constantly about the
political and social predicament created by the particular situation
of the Palestinians both at home in occupied Palestine and in exile.
His book, Our Sun Will Never Set, (1988) vol. I, about his early
life in Jerusalem and his memories of the customs and lifestyle of
that city, was first published in serialized form and quickly gained
great popularity among its readers. He is now preparing the second
volume.
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