A friend from the UK asked me this: “Where do I find the best online “explanation” of pre-Israel and Israel since 1900?” I referred him to the works of Ilan Pappe and Ramzy Baroud. Here is a more personal story that I have learnt from a Palestinian friend, Khalil, who is a 1948 refugee from Al-Jammasin in Jaffa (in Arabic: يَافَا, Yāfā) district, famous all over Europe for its oranges.
Write down this
I am an Arab
And I work with comrades in a stone quarry
And my children are eight in number.
For them I hack out
a loaf of bread
clothing
a school exercise-book
from the rocks
rather than begging for alms
at your door
rather than making myself small
at your doorsteps.
Does this bother you?
Mahmoud Darwish
My friend Khalil is a Palestinian from Al-Jammasin in Jaffa district. His grandfather grew oranges there before it was taken from him and his town destroyed by the terrorists of 1948. Khalil was 6-years old. He was forced to take shelter under olive trees and in caves with his family pursued by the Israeli militia Hagannah. One year before he can remember going to the cinema, to the markets, being part of busy city life.
In 1946, a break-a-away militia from the Hagannah called the Irgun led by Menachem Begin blew up the King David Hotel killing half the British military command and a lot of civil servants. So the British left after having had a mandate over Palestine from 1917 till 1947. Prior to the British Mandate was Ottoman rule. However the Ottomans did not occupy the country with military force as did the British after WW I and now the Israelis after WW II.
Israeli lies about Palestine are legendary. They wish to rewrite history. Before the former Prime Minister, Golda Meir, came from Jordan to Palestine she came with a Palestinian passport. Yet when Prime Minister she said Palestinians do not exist.
After the war, in 1948, driven by European guilt about the Holocaust, the United Nations set up the state of Israel. Zionists created the myth of national liberation, a land for a people, in a land without people. In 1977, Israelis made former terrorist, Menachem Begin, who became their Prime Minister after his party, the Likud, won most seats in the Knesset (parliament). Ironically the slogan of the Likud party was “From the river to the sea …” The Likud manifesto read: “Judea and Samaria will not be handed to any foreign administration; between the Sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty.” The slogan was repeated by Begin during the 1977 election. The Samarians reject this view of history saying that Jerusalem (Arabic القدس Al Quds, meaning “the Holy”) is not their capital and that their temple should be built outside of Nablus near two mountains. Khalil says that the Samarians welcomed his family as refugees to Nablus. The Samarians reject the government in Tel Aviv.
In the 16th century Khalil Hamdan’s ancestors from the Jammasin (Masra’at Hasana) tribe had paid taxes to the Ottoman empire on goats, beehives and water buffaloes.
Now they were driven off their land (the Nakba) by Zionists in the greatest genocide of the 20th century only to be repeated in the 21st century by the new leader of the Likud, Benjamin Netanyahu whose cabinet is openly fascist.
In the 1930s, Jaffa had a communist newspaper called the ‘Arab Labour Weekly‘ and its citizens read Egyptian papers like ‘Rose Al Youssef’. They went to the cinema ‘Al Cinema Wa Al Nas’. There were magazines like Sabah El Keir’ and a satirical one called ‘Al Baaqouqa’ which means “the Mess”.
The people in Jaffa used to go to the libraries to read short novels and magazines.
This was a very sophisticated society and many families were wealthy.
Khalil’s family was no different, they wanted their son to become a lawyer but after Al Nakba he became a diesel mechanic and later a boilermaker instead, making water tanks. Khalil was working drilling wells to grow oranges.
At the age of 19 years, Khalil went to Germany under a Jordanian passport to work and to send money home to his family, now strangers in their own land displaced to Al Ein No 1 refugee camp in Nablus near the old city. Khalil’s family had no money. His mother and father had 8 children to support.
From 1962 till June 1967 Khalil worked in Germany Khalil worked for a big company as fitter turner. Khalil became a refugee in 1948 from Jaffa and then again in June 1967 when he was forced by the six day war to come to Australia instead of returning to Nablus in the recently occupied territories invaded by Israel during the 6 day war..
Khalil now lives in Australia and makes honey from his beehives which he sells at a local market. Khalil came to Australia and worked for Email, a white goods company in Sydney. He sent money back to his family in Nablus. Now he sells honey and nuts in local markets to send money home to his sister, Weam.
Below is rarely seen archival footage that accompanies memories and accounts of forgotten Palestinian cities – highlighting the catastrophic effect the creation of Israel in 1948 had on them.
Banner photo: Al Quds, capital of Palestine.
Ian Curr
27 Nov 2023