The Saed Family

Seven years ago, the father of the Saed family was suffering from kidney cancer. He needed a kidney transplant. Fortunately he was able to receive a kidney from his wife and two years later he had recovered. During the time of tests, dialysis, the transplant and recovery, his doctor recommended that he should spend most of his time in an upper level room so that he could get as much fresh air as possible. It was suggested that the family build a new floor onto their house in the Old City, so that the father could live here during his time of treatment and recovery. The new addition was not hard to build. Their house had a flat roof, already surrounded by two walls, from the houses surrounding. All the family needed to do was add a couple walls and a roof. Two years later, when the Saed family's father had recovered, his oldest son was married. The father moved out of the new addition and the son and his new wife moved upstairs. Five years later, the son and his wife now have two sons and another one on the way. 9 months pregnant and due in two weeks, the wife sits in the downstairs living room as her husband and other men from the family, brothers and cousins, demolish the room she has lived in since she was married. A few days earlier, the family had received an order from the Israeli government that if they did not demolish this addition to the house in 10 days, they would come and do it for them. To avoid the roughly $20,000 fee they would be charged for the Israelis to demolish their home, they took on the dangerous task of demolishing it themselves.

Home demolition is rampant in Jerusalem. The reason for home demolition is that Palestinians have built without a permit. To obtain a permit, however, is next to impossible for Palestinians. Only 13 percent of East Jerusalem is allotted for construction for Palestinian homes. Most of this area is already built up. This allocation is according to plans laid out for Jerusalem after Israel annexed East Jerusalem in 1967. According to international law, this annexation has never been recognized and thus municipality plans extending into East Jerusalem is illegal for Israel. Even in these limited areas, the process of applying for a building permit is extremely lengthy and costly. If you decided to go through this process, you are not even guaranteed to be able to build, only about 5-10% of Palestinians receive building permits each year.

The impetus to build, however, is great. The population of Palestinians in East Jerusalem has grown from 66,000 to 250,000 since 1967. To accommodate for a growing population it is necessary to build. There is also a strong desire to continue building in Jerusalem, and not in the West Bank. Palestinians must live in Jerusalem in order to maintain Jerusalem residency and their Jerusalem id's, which allow them free movement between the West Bank and Jerusalem. If one moves to the West Bank, you will lose your Jerusalem id and obtain a West Bank id. With a West Bank id, it is necessary to obtain permits in order to come into Jerusalem at anytime. It is thus understandable that families, who have long lived in Jerusalem, desire to build so that their growing families can continue to live in Jerusalem and maintain free access to Jerusalem.

So although homes are order to be demolished on the grounds that permits could not be obtained, the issue is far more complex than a bunch of belligerent Palestinians going against orders. It seems that there are deeper issues at stake and "...many Palestinians say Israel limits construction to push them out of East Jerusalem..." (Quotation from a New York Times article about Home Demolition. Read here).

With all these reasons in the back of my mind, Last Friday, I watched as the Saed family took sledge hammers to their own home in order to avoid the fee of Israel destroying it for them. I watched the women sitting on the couch, kleenex in hand as they watched part of their house be demolished and realized that they are now left with 13 people having to sleep in 2 rooms instead of 4. I watched a 9 month pregnant woman comfort her two boys with the thought that the room she has lived in for 5 years will not be home to her soon-to-be newborn child.

Another article on this topic from the Guardian: The Effect of Home Demolitions

Prayer for Palestinian Unity

Tensions between Palestinian factions grew this week, starting last Sunday. This news article on Al Jazeera breifly describes renewed violence in the West Bank town of Qalqilya: Click here.

This is Sabeel's prayer for unity between their own people, from last week's wave of prayer:

Tensions between Hamas and Fatah erupted once again in a deadly shootout in Qalqilya on Sunday. We pray that Palestinians can work through their internal divisions so that families already living under Israeli occupation need not fear yet another source of hardship and violence.

The wave of prayer is something Sabeel writes every week and sends out to all of their Friends in other countries. This prayer is used by people all over the globe to gather for prayer at 12 noon in their respective time zones.

Nakba Day

The war in Israel-Palestine in 1948 is known, to Israelis, as the “War of Independence”. This same year is remembered, to Palestinians, as the Nakba, meaning “catastrophe” in Arabic. The Nakba is the lesser-known side of the story; the side that the average westerner does not hear. It is even considered a taboo topic in many circles of society. The lack of publicity of this event, however, does not deter its significance. The Nakba, according to Rashid Khalidi in Palestinian Identity, serves as the solidifying event in the formation of Palestinian identity. In the process of conquering land in order to create the nation of Israel, millions of Palestinians were driven from their homes, never to return and never to be confiscated. Hundreds of villages were depopulated.
Last Friday, May 15, I joined hundreds of Palestinians in commemorating Nakba Day.


Our tour guide, who was born in the town of Lifta, told us many stories of life there before 1948. Here he is pictured with one of the old buildings in the background.

It is the tradition that Palestinians visit their villages of origin. For that reason, I joined a tour that went to Lifta and Ein Kerem; two villages depopulated in 1948. Being the first time to depopulated villages, I was struck by the obviousness of their presence. As one enters into Jerusalem, deserted buildings are seen on a hill. These are the buildings of Lifta. They are clearly visible. Their presence is even more recognizable when walking through the old streets, by the old spring, and into old buildings: schools, homes, mosques, and churches.
If these buildings are so obvious, I wonder how the stories of the Nakba are so little heard. In some cases, depopulated villages have been completely covered up with parks or nature reserves. Israeli discourse tends not to mention the people who lived and worked in these lands before they came. But in those villages, like Lifta, where buildings and streets are clearly visible, how can Israelis still be in denial? When there are Israeli hiking trails that go right by these old buildings, how can people not know? In talking with a coworker, I discover that many Israelis do know that these buildings were once Arab villages. They, however, think that Palestinians willingly fled their homes, thus putting the blame on them.


Walking down a street through the old buildings of Lifta.

In some cases, Palestinians did willingly flee their homes. This is not, however, the case for every village. In the village of Deir Yessin, the Israeli army came in a massacred the citizens. News of this massacre spread far and wide, causing many Palestinian villages to flee their homes, leaving their towns deserted, for fear the same would happen to them. Other villages were driven out of their homes at gunpoint. Naim Ateek, the founder of Sabeel, was one such village inhabitant. He recalls the day soldiers came to his town, telling everybody they must leave within a few hours, or they would be killed.
This catastrophic event left a permanent mark on Palestinians. Many are still alive who remember being driven from their homes. For those who were not yet born, their parents and grandparents memories of the Nakba cause this event to flow through their blood as well. Some of the refugees of 1948 have moved to different villages and established new lives, but still wish for compensation that is long overdue. Others still live in grim conditions in refugee camps that have existed since 1948. For those in refugee camps, where poverty and traumatic conditions abound, dreams of returning to the towns of their origins run deep and bring up the complicated and persistent question of the “right of return”, which is still a stumbling block in a final solution to the peace process.
It is hard for me, coming from North America, a privileged background, and with untold freedoms to imagine the impact of such a catastrophe and power it plays in the present day lives of Palestinians. I come up with the question, “what is the purpose of looking back, if not to figure out how to move forward?”


Boys contribute to the celebration by dancing Dabka, traditional Palestinian dance.

On this tour, however, I did see Palestinians moving forward. Although, we were visiting depopulated villages, all participants were celebrating. There was music, dancing, and picnicking. Nakba Day was celebrated as if it were Palestinian Independence Day. I could see that Rashid Khalidi is right when he says that the Nakba solidified Palestinian identity. It is the event that is remembered by Palestinians to this day. It is the event that brings them together and pushes them forward, continually searching for peace and justice.

Here are a couple Cornerstone, Sabeel’s English Newsletter, issues that address the Nakba.

Cornerstone 50 - The Ongoing Nakba
Cornerstone 51 – A Time to Remember, A Time for Truth.--In this issue, look especially for the Personal Testimony of Josef Ben-Eliezer on Pg. 18, a Jewish immigrant from Germany, and holocaust survivor, who spoke at Sabeel’s conference last fall about his experience in the Israeli army responsible for killing and driving Palestinians from their homes

The Pope in Aida Camp

The Pope visited Aida refugee camp in Bethlehem; a refugee camp that has existed since 1948. This was very significant, as at least 5 million Palestinians are refugees. Read here about his visit. You can also see a picture here of the Pope on the stage built by Aida camp right in front of the separation wall.

Another article about the Pope's Visit from Al-Jazeera: Pope end Middle East Pilgrimage.