Resilience: the capacity to withstand or to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness.
(Salman Abu Sitta (center) aged six with his family.)
Wikipedia: Salman Abu Sitta
After the Hamas-led attack on Israel on 7 October Abu Sitta wrote on the American news website Mondoweiss about the “determination and courage of those young people” referring to those who executed the attack. He also stated that he “could have been one of those who broke through the siege” on October 7.[9]
[9] “I could have been one of those who broke through the siege on October 7”. Mondoweiss. 4 January 2024. Retrieved 26 May 2024.
oooooo
Salman Abu Sitta, who has single-handedly made available crucial mapping work on Palestine, was just ten years old when he left his home near Beersheba in 1948, but as for many Palestinians of his generation, the profound effects of that traumatic loss would form the defining feature of his life from that moment on. In this rich and moving memoir, Abu Sitta draws on oral histories and personal recollections to vividly evoke the vanished world of his family and home from the late nineteenth century to the eve of the British withdrawal from Palestine and subsequent war. Alongside accounts of an idyllic childhood spent on his family’s farm estate Abu Sitta gives a personal and very human face to the dramatic events of 1930s and 1940s Palestine, conveying the acute sense of foreboding felt by Palestinians as Zionist ambitions and militarization expanded under the mandate.
Following his family’s flight to Gaza during the 1948 mass exodus of Palestinians from their homes, Abu Sitta continued his schooling and university education in Cairo, where he witnessed the heady rise of Arab nationalism after the overthrow of King Farouk in 1952 and the momentous events surrounding the Israeli invasion of Sinai and Gaza in 1956.
With warmth and humor, he chronicles his peripatetic exile’s existence, as an engineering student in Nasser’s Egypt, his crucial, formative years in 1960s London, his life as a family man and academic in Canada, and several sojourns in Kuwait, all against the backdrop of seismic political events in the region, including the 1967 and 1973 Arab–Israeli wars, the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, and the 1991 Gulf War.
Abu Sitta’s narrative is imbued throughout with a burning sense of justice, a determination to recover and document what rightfully belongs to his people, an aim given poignant expression in his painstaking cartographic and archival work on Palestine, for which he is justifiably acclaimed.
oooooo
Mapping My Return: A Palestinian Memoir Salman Abu Sitta New York, Cairo, The American University in Cairo Press, 2016, 332 pp.
(https://www.academia.edu/71650799/Mapping_My_Return_A_Palestinian_Memoir)
With Mapping My Return, Salman Abu Sitta makes the latest contribution to the growing genre of Palestinian refugee memoirs in English, building on previous efforts by Fawaz Turki and more recently Ghada Karmi, Abdel Bari Atwan and Ramzy Baroud. Abu Sitta is most known for his ground-breaking project mapping historic Palestine and developing a practical plan for implementing the right of return, which provides the thematic basis for this memoir. Indeed, he states in the Preface that his purpose in telling his story is to convey the true background to the Palestinian struggle (p. xi).
As a memoir, Mapping My Return is organised chronologically, charting the author’s childhood in southern Palestine, the trauma of the Nakba, and his subsequent exile in Egypt, Kuwait, England and Canada. Throughout, his individual experiences are interspersed with major events in Palestinian history. Abu Sitta eloquently employs his own life story and those of his relatives to argue for the refugees’ return as an essential requirement for justice and lasting peace. Striking a more scholarly tone than some of the aforementioned memoirs, he refers to numerous academic texts and primary sources to make his case. As is suggested in the Preface (p. xi), this means that the memoir can also serve as an introductory guide to Palestinian refugee history, enabling readers to probe the subject more thoroughly should they wish.
Abu Sitta was 10 years old in 1948, which gives his account an added historical value as the number of survivors from the Nakba generation continues to fall. While Mapping My Return focuses on the refugee experience, the first four chapters cover life in pre-1948 Palestine and provide potential source material to scholars of the Mandate period and Palestinian social and labour history. The depth and detail of these chapters is effective in drawing the reader in and making the subsequent shock of the Nakba especially evocative. Abu Sitta dedicates three full chapters (5-7) to covering the latter, and in doing so conveys the chaos and confusion of what was experienced by most people as a series of cataclysmic events rather than a singular rupture.
One of this book’s greatest strengths lies in its expression of the turmoil, insecurity and pain of ongoing forced exile. Abu Sitta’s description of the fear, anxiety and vulnerability of Palestinians in Kuwait during the First Gulf War (chapter 18) is particularly powerful in highlighting what it means to be stateless. Meanwhile his own story is that of the ‘schizophrenic life’ (p. 230) of a Palestinian refugee in the West, most notably in the often racist setting of 1960s London (chapter 14). More exposition of the personal impact of this disjointed experience would enrich the autobiographical aspect of the book and add some psychological nuance to its comprehensive political history.
The last four chapters (19-22) delve into the process of Abu Sitta’s mapping work, carried out over several decades, which resulted in the critical discovery that the majority of village sites depopulated in 1948 remain unoccupied (pp. 300-301). His account of the meticulous research he conducted in archives across the world (pp. 269-272) will be of great interest to scholars of Palestinian history and is frustratingly limited. Abu Sitta states that documents from Mandatory Palestine are scattered across the UK (p. 257), while valuable sources on older Palestinian history can be found at numerous libraries and archives across the Middle East, Europe and North America (p. 270). More detail on this, even in the form of an Appendix, would doubtless be of great value to many researchers, and would not be out of place here given its centrality to Abu Sitta’s life and works.
This book’s most important contribution to the scholarship may lie in Abu Sitta’s subtle refutation of the notion that Palestinian refugees were passive victims of an unwelcome fate. They are portrayed here instead as determinedly seizing every opportunity to improve their situation, be it by attempting to return to their lands after 1948 (chapter 9), preserving their identity and social structures in refugee camps (p. 95), or campaigning for their national political rights in exile (pp. 197-226).
Where the memoirs of Atwan and Baroud stand out for their respective vibrant humour and dramatic storytelling, Mapping My Return draws its greatest value from its successful depiction of the intersection between individual stories and broader national history. Watershed events like the Nakba, the Naksa and the first intifada are recalled through an array of personal stories that effectively convey their magnitude and impact. As a comprehensive account of nearly a century of Palestinian history, this book is an invaluable resource anyone with an interest in the experiences and records of Palestinian refugees.
oooooo
A Realistic Plan of Return For Palestinian Refugees to Their Homeland | … https://youtu.be/Q0xnVxaaQ0M?si=MP-VaDVTzWDZhLVw
oooooo
A Realistic Plan of Return For Palestinian Refugees to Their Homeland | Salman Abu Sitta
Bideoa: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0xnVxaaQ0M
Dr Salman Abu Sitta lived through the Nakba. In this episode of This Is Not A Watermelon, we hear about his experience, writing his memoir “Mapping My Return: A Palestinian Memoir,” and the Palestinian Land Society – an organization he founded that is dedicated to the documentation of Palestine’s land and people. Dr Abu Sitta gives us an overview of the history of the Zionist occupation of Palestine, explaining the role that the British and the Haganah played, ultimately betraying the Palestinians. This is a unique opportunity to learn about the events of 1948 from a first-hand perspective.
0:00 Introduction
1:43 Mapping My Return: A Palestinian Memoir
14:38 The British in Palestine and the Haganah
36:15 Depopulation During the Nakba
40:00 Anti-Zionist Movements & the United Arab Republic
53:50 Israelis vs Jews
56:54 Palestine Land Society
Transkripzoa:
Introduction
0:00
My Hope Is that young people like you who are listening are now a force to be
0:06
reckoned with not found in my lifetime whatsoever
0:12
that the that the power of opinion and conscience expressed by demonstration or
0:20
expressed by an item or something to be posted on our social media is
0:27
unprecedented unprecedented the hope is to make that moral Force into a legal
0:36
Force which forces the European governments who are still siding with Israel change their mind and change
0:43
their [Music]
0:52
position welcome to this is an out of watermelon my name is mikim henna today we have a very special episode with Dr
0:58
Salan abua who is the founder and president of the Palestine land Society
1:04
he’s an academic and a scholar and quite honestly a giant in his field it’s a huge honor to have you here in the
1:10
studio welcome I’m glad to be here to meet young people fresh minds are always uh
1:17
welcome because they are pure yeah well it’s an honor to have you um I first
1:25
came I first became aware of your work because I grew up across the street from Au and the Palestine land Society is an
1:32
important institution um maybe before we get into that institution’s work I’d
1:39
love to talk a little bit about your Memoir um mapping my return um which is
1:45
connected to your Decades of research on the nakba um can you tell us a little
1:51
bit about how you structured that book and chose to make it a memoir as opposed to academic sort of an academic history
2:01
well over the course of years you know you live your life uh as a Palestinian
2:07
who became a refugee in 1948 and um you go through certain
2:13
processes including my Early Education in England and um then my professorship
2:19
in universities and you meet various people and you speak about Palestine and
2:24
then you you find that the passage of time will create uh a certain track uh
2:31
which has knowledge which is of essence to younger people um starting with my
2:37
two daughters and also my nephews and nieces and I wanted to tell them about
2:43
the life we lived um uh before 1948 because uh all of them all of them
2:52
have been born after 1948 so they would like to know how we lived and and of
2:58
course how we became refugees and how we we fight it and um in the introduction
3:05
on the first pages I say uh this book is dedicated to my parents who are the
3:12
first generation of my family in 12 in 12 uh uh Generations who have uh died
3:21
outside Palestine and it is dedicated to my two daughters and the generation
3:30
um like them who are born outside Palestine so this is a a dividing line
3:37
um between the new generation uh who are born after 1948 and my generation and my parent
3:46
generation uh who died outside Palestine I can’t trace uh my family to 12
3:54
generations and and during the course of years I have dug up uh any references I
4:02
find about my family and least I found in
4:07
1840 just after Napoleon invasion of of of Egypt um uh but the key uh uh event
4:19
which made me start on that in 1961 uh I started my study for PhD at
4:27
University of uh London as you might uh you might uh See Clearly
4:35
that was merely 10 years after 1948 so I took advantage of my presence in London
4:42
I said well let me find about Palestine um uh in England which has been in
4:49
Palestine for 30 years from 1917 militarily
4:54
1920 as a government until 1948 so I went to Roy graphical society
5:00
which as you know is very well known famous organization started in the 19th
5:07
century and they have maps and uh documents about many countries explorers
5:14
and so on so I thought well Palestine was 10 years away from that date and uh
5:21
they have been in Palestine for 30 years I should find a wealth of information there so I went to the uh
5:30
Royal geographical society and I said can I please see the section about
5:35
Palestine this was in 1960s 1961 yeah um and said what we don’t have
5:44
Palestine there is no Palestine I said IAP you you just left there 10 years ago
5:51
and there was big conention contingent of soldiers and and Colonial officers
5:58
and government people and and how come you don’t have I said where
6:03
is that I said show me a map and I I looked at the map and put my finger in
6:10
Palestine this is Palestine ah I said you mean
6:15
Israel and I was shocked really shocked I mean it was just in the um near memory
6:24
of of anyone more than 15 years old can know
6:29
where pistan is so this is the first time I see to a great shock
6:37
how um pistan was erased on purpose on purpose because it couldn’t have been
6:44
lost in the memory of someone and could not have been lost uh uh with no records
6:51
whole government British government in Palestine has branches in in
6:57
England and then this started a long march um for searching about Palestine
7:04
at the very same time uh another thing which really shocked me and I use it as
7:12
a fuel for my research is uh another
7:17
story also in the same period roughly um we were given uh residence in England
7:25
it’s called aliens card alien card alian card aian card so I had to renew my
7:34
Residence at one time and uh I went to the office government office to renew it
7:41
and well I was giving back the cards and say it’s done and when I left the office
7:48
I just had a look at the card and I found that under the name of citizenship
7:57
nationality it said uncertain uncertain so I walked back to
8:04
the window of the office and said sir excuse me there’s something wrong here
8:10
you called me uncertain I am Palestinian and and your age uh could
8:18
be allow you to be one of the people who served in Palestine I’m Palestinian my
8:24
father is Palestinian my grandfather is Palestinian how could you write in my I
8:29
am uncertain nationality uncertain I said he looked at me in a nice way I
8:36
said son I’m sorry it’s only a formality well here is another shock here in the
8:43
bed uh of imperialism in London we were denied existence and
8:51
recognition uh that was very shocking so yeah denied as a formality uh
8:57
formality um and of course um this started long search for um
9:07
Palestine it’s it’s remarkable to see and I said this so many times so I’m
9:12
repeating here Israel robbed us of our
9:17
country they robbed us of our land and our personal property in 530 cities and
9:27
Villages they robbed us of all the documents of the government
9:34
of of Palestine which is our government then like records of Health uh education
9:40
banking transport um birth and deaths and all
9:46
that so they they actually took everything which belongs
9:52
to us everything materially M but
9:58
otherwise we did not lose anything we have our memory we have our recognition
10:04
of who we are we when we left as refugees in the middle of night under
10:11
the fire uh or bombs or um all kinds of
10:18
atrocities which Israel is committed and are still committing till till we are
10:23
speaking now in Gaza um we have left with nothing except the memory memory
10:30
and the personality who we are and we took this with us and we
10:36
tried to rebuild it outside in Exile slowly
10:43
slowly not only to ourselves but to other people and I needed proof for that
10:51
because um uh my memory and my memory of
10:57
my life before I became a Refuge is my own I have to tell other people about it with
11:03
documentation but the remarkable thing is that our records all our records not
11:10
only in Palestine in Lebanon and Syria and Jordan Egypt I find to my great
11:17
surprise that this was kept in Europe not in in our countries yeah well
11:25
um you find for example um Travelers in the 19th century after Napoleon came uh
11:34
to us the first one actually is uh count VY who came in
11:39
1785 to Egypt then to blades sham which is was today Palestine Lebanon Syria and
11:48
Jordan um and I find that all the written records about us people
11:55
geography um occupations uh is done by Europe yeah
12:02
yeah and why did they do that because they were colonial they wanted to grab
12:08
other countries they wanted to build their uh Power in a place they thought
12:15
was vacuum and so I was amazed because as supposing
12:22
there was no Israel and I am Palestinian I go to Jerusalem then like my father
12:28
did come to Damascus or Beirut he doesn’t need to be told who are the
12:35
people in Beirut or Damascus they are the same people they speak the same language and Merchant come
12:43
from Cairo to Damascus and they take silk from Damascus to Cairo and pyute
12:50
was very active Port they did not need to be told who they are they live their
12:55
life of the people in the country so you don’t need to be told but the foreigners
13:02
who came to describe our life for eventual Caesar of
13:08
the land they needed to know who these people what they do what Their geography and so on and so forth and uh and so in
13:17
a way when I went to travel to Paris National bibl bibl National and to
13:27
Berlin to buich when I found wealth of early ear survey and to of course to New
13:34
York United Nations and to also Washington uh Library of Congress I was
13:42
collecting the record they kept of us right like someone who steals your
13:49
passport and uh you go around and see who stole your passport to see picture
13:54
and and that kind of thing so that Journey uh told me lots of things not
14:01
only to obtain records about our life in Palestine and in fact in the region but
14:09
also why they did it and why we did not have it because we don’t need it they
14:15
needed yeah let me ask you a question about pre-1948 um for a
14:22
second and the role of the British in those early days um anytime I read the
14:29
history I hear a lot about the the hag and the sort of the terrorism
14:35
the the Zionist basically terrorist groups that were attacking the
14:41
British can you help explain that Dynamic what was actually happening on
14:46
the ground and what was the state of General disarray and Terror um that
14:55
indigenous Palestinians were living under yes well I thank you for this
15:01
question um because everybody talks about that period but people need to know about it um let me go f uh a little
15:11
back and also tell you a person story uh in
15:18
1917 uh the British were in in Egypt and they started a military campaign to take
15:27
over Palestine from the U rule of the
15:32
Ottomans um uh the Army
15:37
which the British started from Egypt called Egyptian expeditionary Force
15:45
which is a misn NOA because it’s not Egyptian it was British um and Expedition it’s not Expedition it was
15:52
occupation yeah they wanted to take over Palestine and they came to
15:59
attack Gaza first Gaza seemed to have a long record of that uh and from March to
16:07
probably October 1917 they failed twice to take
16:13
Gaza um and they lost several thousand killed and wounded British
16:19
soldiers why I tell you that because um they started a third attempt
16:26
to conquer Palestine by taking a divisionary
16:32
diversionary route to attack Beba instead of
16:37
Gaza and in my search of the britich army I found that they started from my
16:45
own land from my family land and in their Maps it say we started from Abus
16:53
land and my mother actually told me that she remembered these British soldiers
16:59
starting from our land in a diver route and they took uh
17:06
BBA another big town the east of Gaza took it by
17:13
surprise on the night of Wednesday 31st of October
17:19
1917 why is this date important because after several F failures
17:29
sent a telegram to London we took BBA to uh we took BBA Jerusalem will be
17:37
your Christmas present this cable reached London next morning November
17:46
1st and November 2nd balur who was then foreign
17:51
minister uh of Britain pulled a paper from his desk
18:00
and issued the belf for declaration which he has secretly agreed
18:08
with the some months back without this victory in BBA starting from family my
18:16
family land belur will not be able to make this
18:21
Infamous uh declaration or promise now that is a a a a date to be
18:30
remembered because after that when the British Administration started taking
18:38
over Palestine from 1990 to 1930 uh
18:44
48 what you describe just now was happening yeah without that event it
18:50
will not happen now the uh zist were a minority at the
18:57
time and when they had the chance to enter Palestine they tried to
19:03
recruit uh people to go to Palestine not many Jews in Europe wanted to go to
19:09
Palestine um but during events in Germany in the mid-30s
19:16
1930s um and the conflict between German Jews and their
19:22
government uh after um appointment of Hitler as the leader they started to
19:28
come to Palestine so in the middle of the 1930s there has been about um
19:38
300 uh, uh Jews coming to
19:43
Palestine this of course was a big shock to Palestinians to find this flow of
19:50
foreigners who came under the protection of British so I have questions about
19:56
this period so they are coming as you said under the protection of the British
20:02
yes who is providing the boats who is issuing The Residency cards who is finding uh housing where are these these
20:10
people staying upon arrival what is happening and what are the local um
20:17
indigenous Palestinians doing to raise their concerns and say this is not right
20:25
absolutely good question um wisan himself uh admitted that in the
20:32
1920s he could not find people willing to go to Palestine Jews uh and also did not find resources
20:40
to take them but with the uh new government uh in Germany there has been
20:49
motivation to go how did they go they had U they had used a Jewish M uh
20:57
Financial power to rent boats from Greece from France and they put the
21:05
immigrants on these boats and they were um taken to Palestine Britain was the
21:14
culprit which which allowed that so when they arrived to pistan they were given
21:20
papers I mentioned their number 30% of Palestinian population by the end of
21:27
1930 uh this date is very important your question is very relevant
21:34
because there was very large number of people who have no place to stay yeah
21:40
you see uh the the Jews mostly Arab Jews who have been present in Palestine Syria
21:48
and Lebanon they were ottoman subjects normal people speaking Arabic and so on
21:54
but they had uh the zist uh um uh Europeans arst U were able to buy land
22:04
probably up to 1 to 2% of Palestine and so they had very little
22:10
land but they have so many people and they put them almost in camps on this
22:17
tiny piece of land and in order to expand their power in Palestine they
22:25
formed the hagana let me go back back now how the hag was formed U the first High
22:34
Commissioner uh the British sent to palestin in 1920 is Herbert Samuel he’s British but
22:42
he is Ardent Zionist so his plan was to convert under the protection of Britain
22:50
to convert Palestine into what would be quote unquote National home as uh balur
22:57
says but in fact um he wanted they wanted to establish a state in his short
23:06
uh uh period of stay um five years uh he
23:12
enacted 100 laws in Palestine changing the laws of the land allowing the Jews
23:19
in Palestine to be coming they have not come yet in 1920 to have their own
23:26
schools their own banking system as I said their own education and own
23:32
Commerce and their own representative council the irony is the majority of of
23:40
the population who are 95% Palestinian they were denied the right to have a
23:46
representative council and so the frame of the wouldbe
23:52
state in Palestine for Jews was created by Herbert samel but there were no
23:58
takers only in the mid-30s they came and your question is right where did they
24:04
stay they stayed in kibuts in camps on the little land um uh which the Jews had
24:11
before and they formed the hagana the hagana of course is the Forerunner of
24:17
the Israeli Army um the British not only
24:23
allowed the hag to be formed and denied that to the Palestinians but they armed
24:30
the Jewish European Jews they trained them they gave them uniform they taught
24:36
them how to fight in something called SNS special night squads by British
24:43
general told them how to fight and so when the big uh uh Palestinian revolt
24:51
against the British from 1936 to 1939 started um they they were fighting
24:59
Palestinians were fighting the British and the embrion army of the Israelis
25:06
named the hagana it’s a a sorted part of the history of British because you came
25:13
to be a protector and the initiator of Independence according to the agreement
25:18
in the first world war instead you betrayed the uh people of Palestine and
25:25
the Arab countries and you had an army foreign army trained and uh did that um
25:33
in my case in my family case we fought against uh the British and of course the
25:42
uh hagana in 1948 my own elder brother was a leader of the
25:50
resistance uh and they actually kick the British out of the Southern half Palestine in BBA for one year m
25:59
and the Revolt Palestinian Revolt uh in in Palestine stopped how
26:08
did they stop they stopped because the British uh encouraged the Arab leaders
26:16
to send a message to Palestinian Palestinians saying stop
26:22
fighting the British the British will give you back your rights and so on that
26:27
was a lie of course on the side of the British it was also deception on part of
26:33
the Arab rulers of the time they sent a message saying We the Kings and
26:40
presidents of um Arab countries we urge you Palestinians to stop your Revolt
26:46
because we believe in the Good Will of Great Britain to restore your rights and
26:51
so on and that that that failure um unfortunately was repeated
26:59
1948 so the one thing about the story of the hag that I always find surprising is
27:06
that the from what I understand and correct me if I’m wrong but from what I
27:12
understand the hag targeted the British which I I don’t think people
27:17
really understand yes I love that question yeah so explain this to me I love that question the
27:25
zionists um use the British to have strong
27:30
presence uh uh in in Palestine and by
27:36
the end of 1939 when the Palestinian revolt against the British um was
27:43
stopped the uh Palestinian Society was decimated
27:49
by the British um for the first time in our
27:54
history the British planes bombed villages they
27:59
initiated um a group punishment they arrested leaders they
28:07
dissolved political parties um they probably killed and or imprisoned or
28:14
injured 50,000 people of that time small population um so by the end of
28:22
1939 the Palestinian Society was completely uh defense less unable to
28:29
defend itself then came the second world war so
28:36
Britain offered con consoling Promises to the Palestinians
28:43
not to not to revolt again and everybody was busy with the second world
28:50
war by this time they had going to organize itself even more 5 years after
28:58
1945 they were able to organize themselves they were able to bring more
29:04
Jews to palan through illegal immigration or
29:11
immigration um hidden on covered by the British government so by
29:17
1945 a number of things happened number one
29:23
the Zan were sure that the Palestinian are not able to defend themselves
29:31
because of the action British second one is that the British uh are exhausted and
29:39
hardly escaped and scathed from the second world war by the intervention of
29:46
the United States so the British were weak and unable to be of any force and
29:54
then the zist decided this is the time to jump on Palestine and take it
29:59
over who is against them who is likely to oppose them the Palestinians are
30:08
almost absent because they are wounded and almost
30:14
destroyed the British under the name of mandate were in Britain so they decided
30:22
to attack their Earth wild manufactur and kick the bridge out M that is the
30:29
Supreme example of gratitude which the zionists had and they started a campaign
30:35
of Terror against the British themselves they don’t need them anymore so they
30:42
wanted to take over Palestine and possibly possibly the British would resist that in some measure so they they
30:50
killed their Soldier they hang their soldiers and trees they kidnapped their judges they blow up King David toot tell
30:57
where they British um Administration was and and
31:03
they continued that Terror campaign against the British and I read that
31:08
there was part of the reason why the intensity of that Terror campaign increased was because there was fear
31:15
that the British might actually resend and side with Palestinians was that is there any
31:21
validity to that no no Brit obviously would never uh side with Palestinians
31:27
but they had to at least theoretically stand by their obligations under the
31:32
Mandate okay now let us see what the Mandate says the Mandate given to
31:37
Palestine says that Palestinians have the right to self-independence and and
31:43
the and the role of the British is to help them build institutions for the
31:51
state and the Betrayal of the British is very clear instead of building uh instit
31:57
utions for independent Palestine they actually allowed others to take it over
32:03
let us remember one thing when the United Nations issued the Mandate they
32:09
issued the Mandate in several grades one is called mandate a Class A uh Class A
32:16
means the country is ready for Independence but they need help in
32:22
building institutions of the government and who was given this class of man
32:29
Palestine and Iraq Iraq used that and the British
32:34
helped them to build an independent country of Iraq under mandate a and
32:40
Palestine was in the same category but enter theist and they destroyed that
32:46
with the help of the British and and and and so um uh the zist and the surprising
32:55
thing to me is that when the Palestinians resisted the British in
33:02
order to stay in their own country free from occupation they were treated
33:08
brutally and when the is the zist attacked the British soldiers themselves
33:15
they were tolerated and of course not only that um
33:21
after the British left unceremoniously the British left many countries with great celebration of
33:29
handing over the government to the local people left except in Palestine the
33:35
British High Commissioner left Palestine in a small boat with no word of goodbye
33:42
neither from Arabs who were betrayed nor
33:48
by Zionist who should be grateful to him it was the most unceremonious departure
33:54
of British official in any country controlled by Britain at the time now
34:01
they left Palestine to whom to um
34:07
20,000 uh um hagana soldiers formed into nine
34:14
brigades they had the full freedom to attack Palestine they attacked
34:20
530 towns and Villages made them refugees and today they are 9 million
34:28
Palestinians who are refugees they committed
34:33
156 atrocities and massacr because you
34:38
could not depopulate a country who is older than any country in Europe except
34:44
by brutal force by massacres and horrendous massacres we know many of
34:50
them of course dein and the and we have a list of all those we made uh forensic
34:58
analysis of all these um massacres U but
35:04
to live in this age today you as a young man and you see what’s happening in
35:11
Gaza you may find it surprising I don’t because the the zist who called
35:19
themselves Israelis later did the same all the time from 1948 now the the the only difference is
35:28
that we have uh uh social media we have internet and so on I I say to you and I
35:36
write it write about it so many times that if we had this small device called
35:43
mobile 1948 we probably will not be able to be
35:48
to be depopulated from 530,000 and Villages maybe they will manage one or
35:53
two or five or 10 and the world will raise up their arms and say why why do
35:59
you expel people from their homes right I’m going to ask you a weird question but I I don’t think I know the answer to
36:06
it and since I have you here I need to ask they depopulated 532
36:13
Villages why wasn’t it 1, 1532 What stopped them from depopulating
36:19
everything was there something that stopped the NECA from becoming a
36:26
complete entire Annihilation I mean what stopped the neba in its tracks at some
36:31
point to become an even greater um yeah travesty uh what you are saying is uh
36:39
why did the Zionist occupation of Palestine stopped at 78% time that’s exactly what I’m asking
36:46
you and and and not continue uh that’s again a good question um they
36:54
actually wanted to absorb as much as they can control and um
37:01
uh in this area 78% um let us remember one thing there
37:08
is something called the partition of Palestine which is passed by the United
37:14
Nations of course the Israelis always claim that we we did this because U the
37:20
partition plan passed uh this resolution to give us more than 50% of pistan the
37:28
partition plan uh allowed Jewish government uh in 55% of palistine but
37:36
that does not mean that the people in that part who are half the population
37:43
were were Arab Palestinians uh are to be removed they they cannot be
37:48
removed but the partition plan has no legal value it’s not binding it was mere
37:55
recommendation because the United Nation self said that um we have no authority
38:01
to divide countries right so the Israelis use that as a thin thread of
38:08
legality to occupy more of Palestine they exceeded the
38:14
55% pistan because they were able to do that yeah why did they stop
38:19
Boran said we cannot U uh chew more than
38:24
that and we should always claim that we are partition Palestine and so
38:32
we do not want to take over Palestine uh
38:37
in in the South Gaza Strip they could not do that they want to take over Gaza
38:43
Strip but the Egyptian Army under the leadership of uh Ahmed fad uh
38:52
uh brilliant and courageous man he defended Gaza Strip but in the in the
38:58
eastern part of Palestine which is now the West Bank they had an agreement with King uh was Amir abdalah but he became
39:06
king abdalah of Jordan to divide Palestine we’ll give you a chunk of
39:12
Palestine and you agree that we are we are regular and rulers of the rest of
39:20
pistan so they made a deal but this deal between Jordan and the Israelis were
39:26
denied and absolutely abhor by the Palestinians and they tried to form uh a
39:33
government called all Palestine government under Haj Amin hus who are who is was the natural leader of of of
39:43
Palestine and this all Palestine government was not um allowed to
39:50
continue after four or five years who who stopped it from being the failure of
39:56
the Arab countries to support the right of Palestinians in Palestine one thing
40:01
King Abdullah of Jordan took 20% of it and the other
40:07
countries either unable or unwilling to defend the right of Palestinians to be
40:12
in Palestine so there are two people who were against that Palestinians were of
40:19
course against the occupation by zanis of 78% but the other thing is the Zan
40:28
themselves were against the decision of Boran to stop at that point even now
40:36
historians like Benny Morris tried benorian for failing to
40:42
take overan but Boran was a clever leader he
40:48
said we cannot chew more than this and let us say let us tell the world we are
40:53
only dividing Palestine and let small chunk of uh of Palestine to remain under
41:00
our friend King Abdullah of Jordan who signed a secret treaty with us so they
41:06
were all uh conspiring against Palestinians whether Arab or
41:13
Jew um and uh created Created that and
41:19
of course 1967 the Israelis went further and took the West Bank Gaza Sinai Golan Heights
41:27
and and later Southern Lebanon uh the aim was always there but um the politics
41:35
of power in 1948 told them that it’s we never believed that we could have so much of
41:42
palestin 78% let us settle on it yeah I want to ask you I I told you this before
41:49
we started the interview when I first reached out to you is that there’s a period of Palestinian history that I
41:54
really don’t know much about and that’s the period during which the United Arab
42:00
Republic was a sort of governing Force um in the Gaza Strip and I don’t know
42:08
much about that period And I think a lot of people don’t know much about that period so can you help us understand a
42:13
little more about Egypt’s role in Gaza and what happened how did it start and
42:19
how did it end yes yes let me start by how I became a refugee yeah uh um I was
42:28
in a boarding school my father built a school in our area in 1920 um and I did four years in that
42:36
then I went to a higher School in BBA a barding school
42:44
um and in April 1948 uh the Headmaster came
42:50
to to us and said uh the Israelis or no
42:56
no zionists or the hagana are killing people in the area scene I cannot
43:01
protect you you have to go back to your families and so uh I with two other
43:08
children age 10 had to walk about 40 km
43:13
away to reach our families um and then on the 14th of May
43:20
that was 6 weeks later um the hagana attacked
43:27
our own place called al- al- Abu they
43:33
came to attack Us in 24hour M Vehicles we had in defense maybe 10 15 rifles and
43:40
people kept you shooting at them but after several hours they managed to of
43:48
course to overtake them and they
43:53
um uh blew up the school which my father built in 1920 we have bayara which is you know
44:01
motorized well they blew up that and they bent houses and they killed
44:08
everyone in sight and that was on the 14th of May
44:13
1948 on the day I became Refugee on that day Boran was standing in a room a hall
44:22
in Tel Aviv telling his um settlers that now we announce the Declaration of the
44:30
state of Israel so by coincidence on the date of the Declaration of state of
44:36
Israel I became a refugee and my family sent me to Egypt
44:42
to continue this study um at that time Southern
44:49
portion uh Southern half Palestine was defended by the Egyptian forces they
44:57
failed to uh protect 50% of Palestine and they were driven almost
45:05
out of Palestine except um for the courage personal
45:12
courage of the military leader of the army the Egyptian uh Army uh uh Ahmed
45:22
fuad he refused the orders of the Egyptian government
45:27
and he sent the historic telegrams saying that I my military Honor doesn’t
45:35
allow me to leave 200,000 women and children for the Jews to butcher them
45:42
like chicken these are his exact words and that’s how almost by accident
45:49
by the courage of this man um the Gaza Strip was saved as it is
45:55
called today um it is uh actually
46:02
550 square kilom but through some secret negotiation it was
46:09
reduced to 365 one of the officers um who saw this uh and was
46:18
present in this war is Jamal Abdul nasar Jamar Abdul nasar was second in command
46:25
with some uh his Superior officer called say Taha they were held in an enclaves
46:31
called Val fuja and they refused to surrender and according to her M
46:37
agreement they um left fuja uh in honor carrying all their arms
46:45
provided that people of fuja and uh Iraq
46:51
man sh next door to be safe in their life and property
46:57
that was in the agreement signed by United Nations and so the Egyptian Army
47:03
left there of course following their regular custom the hag betrayed that
47:10
agreement and kicked the people out now Abdul nasar uh
47:17
overthrew um King Faruk and Egypt became
47:22
under the administrative uh rule of uh Egypt Egypt
47:29
never uh um annexed uh Gaza they they
47:34
ruled it as Administration and they kept the character of of Palestine in Gaza to
47:42
this day actually the Palestinian flag was raised it was there is a Palestinian
47:47
mini Parliament there and um and ABD Naas then uh with Syria they created
47:55
United Arab Republic um Abdul nasar because of his close
48:00
knowledge of Palestine he was great supporter of Palestine and Palestinians
48:06
he allowed Palestinian students to be educated in Egypt free of charge uh
48:12
which has been a boom to their life as refugees because many of them became
48:19
teachers engineers and doctors and they worked in the gulf and they made the backbone of the later to be PLO
48:26
Palestine Liberation organizations and and so on so here is a contrast between
48:33
what happened to the part of Palestine in Jordan under King uh
48:38
Abdullah uh and they uh King Hussein later abandoned Palestine so it’s
48:45
neither allowed it to be uh a country of Palestine and independent as much as
48:51
possible nor they they kept it Arab they they lost it in
48:59
1967 easily and then they just disbanded any connection with the w bank so this
49:04
is not a very good history and as you know in Gaza it’s now the cadel of
49:11
resistance um and amazing that 1.3% of
49:17
Palestine now we are almost 200 days and
49:22
they did what no Arab Army could do that they did not surrender they kept the
49:28
Israeli Army at Bay of course they lost 100,000 people between killed and uh
49:36
injured um which is plain genocide um but they did not surrender
49:43
and they wanted to push them here and there find them uh a refuge place and
49:50
they decided they are not sheap to be moved from one place to another uh um
49:57
but the price of the blood of 100,000 Palestinians still going on by the way
50:03
um did something which in my own life I have never seen done before the case of
50:12
Palestine Palestinians reached all corners of of the world all corners from
50:18
Argentine Chile to New Zealand to everywhere demonstrations even in European
50:25
countries siding with Israel are there so my hope is that young
50:32
people like you who are listening are now a force to be reckoned
50:37
with not found in my lifetime whatsoever that the that the power of opinion and
50:46
conscience expressed by demonstration or expressed by an item or something to be
50:54
posted on a social media is unprecedented unprecedented the hope is
51:00
to make that moral Force into a legal Force which forces the European
51:08
governments who are still siding with Israel change their mind and change their
51:14
position um I I really must must must when you’re looking at the history of
51:19
Palestine for the last at least 2,000 years the
51:25
West which is is attacking us under the name of
51:31
juru or or almi or now under the banner of Israel
51:38
has always been attacking us I mean when countries like England Germany and
51:46
France Russian to Tel Aviv to give their
51:51
obedience um to Netanyahu saying we’re with you we’re with you they are the
51:57
very same people who started colonization of of the Arab countries in the first world war yeah they are the
52:04
people who attacked us 1,000 years ago under the name the Crusaders War they
52:10
are the very same people we have done nothing to them except giving them the
52:15
civilization through Spain through Italy in the Middle Ages
52:22
um it’s it’s the same enemy I don’t know why they continue to do that yeah can I
52:30
ask you a question when is the first time in your life that you heard the term
52:39
Israeli uh yes that’s again a good question we call them the Jews I never
52:47
understood that I I I want to ask you about this because the semantics are important because I’m sure growing up
52:53
you had many Palestinian Jewish friends um not in my area uh before 1948 there
53:01
were Jews uh Arab Jews yeah but in in jeffa and Jerusalem and few they were
53:08
not in the countryside the Jews before 1948 were not in the countryside and
53:14
it’s very important to know because these Jews were Arab Jews they lived for
53:20
many centuries in alal heon uh in safad they had religious connection with safad
53:27
and of course in Jerusalem increasing in number but they were Arab Jews the
53:32
European Jews came uh before um balur uh they came in
53:41
small numbers as pilgrims but of course after balur they came with the intent to
53:48
occupy Palestine and they were anma to the Arab Jews of course they called them
53:55
ashis because they came khazar Kingdom they are converted to Judaism and khazar
54:01
Kingdom in the um Russian steps uh Eastern Russia and Poland um they are
54:09
called ishz they came with the intent to take over Palestine so the genuine Arab
54:15
Jews were against that and they were not really doing that because they were living peacefully for um now coming to
54:23
your question we always called them Jews or Arab or ashkanazi or european Jews
54:31
that name remained to be called that until Israel declared itself and the
54:37
hagana was converted into something called Israel army right and then Israel
54:46
entered the uh United Nations and and so
54:52
very reluctantly the Arabs used the word Israel in quotation marks I in that time
54:58
in in 1948 did you say what is Israel and I’ve never heard this term before
55:03
was that like a new term no we say we say Jews Jews took over Palestine we did
55:08
not use the word Israel at all it was has no physical or or meaning to us
55:15
that’s that’s very important it took many years for people to use the word
55:20
Israel yeah okay before we wrap up um I want to ask you if you can tell if you
55:27
can tell us a little bit about the Palestine land Society um what is this place what does this Center do tell us a
55:34
little bit about it yes um as I told you my journey with
55:42
knowledge of at Palestine um I collected so much
55:47
material and so on and said then we have to make that knowledge uh formalized
55:54
formalized so I established palan land Society uh in London in the year 2000
56:02
which is now 24 years ago and uh it’s a society to document I quote from the
56:10
charter document Palestine land and people and to defend their
56:16
rights when I collected uh this information um it has to
56:23
be um um published somehow so I published several
56:30
atlases one of them the atlas of Palestine 1917 to 1966 big compendium in 700 Pages uh it
56:40
is published now first issue was 2010 published in English then in Arabic
56:50
then in Spanish and then in Russian and then I published another
56:55
Atlas Atlas Palestine 1871 to 1877 which is Palestine under the
57:01
Ottomans before the Zionist colonization of Palestine where there is not a
57:07
Zionist Colony whatsoever in Palestine uh and um then we published
57:14
several hundred papers about Palestine uh and refugees and all that but the key
57:22
question as an engineer and a planner um you cannot stop by telling people
57:29
about history um as a planner who built many projects around the world you have to
57:36
convert that knowledge into a project so we started then um designing how we can
57:46
go back to Palestine and I have several research papers and projects under the
57:54
word retain plan I found out to the surprise of many that
58:01
today 87% of the Jews live only in 12%
58:06
of Palestine which means that the land of
58:11
500 Palestinian Villages um and their people who are
58:17
refugees today are still empty so the return which is to Palestinians sacred
58:25
legal and possible is really possible and we charted uh how many Palestinians
58:32
can return and where to return and their route and their route um from Lebanon
58:38
from Syria from Jordan and of course from span and Gaza and we found it absolutely
58:44
feasible um and we have now plans on
58:49
screen to identify every Camp of refugees and where they come from from V
58:56
and what’s the root of their return which by the way none of them take needs
59:02
more than 15 or half an hour to reach home uh So the plan on computer using
59:10
geographical information system uh is developed so that we can identify the
59:17
people of any village where they are in any refugee camp anywhere and where is
59:22
their original home and how they can get there now when they get there who will
59:30
they find in their place I just said that I found that Israel is practically
59:37
empty there is only concentration of Israeli Jews now in three areas west
59:45
Jerusalem T Aviv area and haa the rest Palestinian can return uh there which is
59:53
of course supported by resolution one 94 which has been affirmed by the United
59:59
Nations more than 130 times longer than any resolution in the UN history and it
1:00:07
becomes part of international law so they have the right to return and they
1:00:13
can return but we went one further as planners of the return when they return
1:00:20
Israelis destroyed their houses as they now destroy Gaza
1:00:27
uh so they need to rebuild their houses so we started 8 years ago competition
1:00:35
among young Palestinian Arctic who are about to graduate and we uh uh ask them to enter
1:00:43
into competition we give them a number of villages each year we give them data
1:00:51
about these Villages as they were aial photos of the village that was its
1:00:56
population everything about it and we give them projection of how many people
1:01:02
uh they are today and and and then we
1:01:08
have um them submit designs of how to
1:01:13
reconstruct that Village completely um we have uh International
1:01:19
jury mostly British judge the results each year in September uh so so far we have
1:01:28
270 young Palestinian artics entered this competition in the last 8 years uh
1:01:35
the next one will be announced in September in London and we finished the
1:01:41
complete reconstruction plans for 60 Palestinian Villages distributed all
1:01:48
over Palestine and the hilly side and the coastal area and the added area and
1:01:53
so on so we have all the were weather uh to return as we should
1:02:00
because it is an unusual anomaly in history that Palestine between Lebanon
1:02:09
Syria and Egypt to be the only one which is not Arab and Palestinian you cannot
1:02:16
have a BAL spot in the Arab world which is existence for thousands of years um
1:02:22
the anomaly of Israel is really an anomaly by every every possible
1:02:27
consideration by legal historical um rights and all that now um
1:02:34
I know from many people I’m digressing a little here but it’s irrelevant a lot
1:02:41
of European and American Jews are for
1:02:46
the first time raising their voices against Zionism and against Israel
1:02:51
yeah conference I attended recently uh was was was
1:02:57
organized by European Jews anti
1:03:02
uhti right so let us hope that right to be restored to his people after 76 years
1:03:11
now after so many people killed and let this be a lesson to the world that evil
1:03:19
has a limited life and that Justice must Prevail even if it takes too long
1:03:25
Justice must Prevail Dr thank you so much for being here I really appreciate it it’s a
1:03:32
privilege and an honor to have you on thank you for having me [Music]
Warren Mosler, maisu eta gidari
“Any school of thought that is not ‘MMT consistent’ is inapplicable
with regards to any actual economy”
“DTM-rekin koherentea ez den edozein pentsamendu eskola
aplikaezina zaio gaur egungo edozein ekonomiari”
(Warren Mosler, 2013)
