I Saw Palestine, By Fadi Kiblawi

Opinion, July 2003, www.aljazeerah.info

I Saw Palestine

Palestine Media Center

09/07/2003

By Fadi Kiblawi

Beirut, Lebanon (PC) - 22 years and three days after my birth into exile, I saw my homeland.

Today at approximately 2:30 PM, I climbed to the top of an outpost at the Khiam prison, notorious for its torture chambers during the Israeli occupation, and for the first time my eyes were introduced to a sight previously only imagined. One hour later, I arrived at Fatma’s Gate, which demarcates the border between Lebanon and Palestine.

The fence that stood in front of me held me captive in my prison, cosmic in physical size but worlds smaller than the plot of land between the Jordan River and Mediterranean Sea. I picked up a stone with the words of the Palestinian poet of exile, Mahmoud Darwish, resonating in my head. “How a stone from our land builds the ceiling of our sky.”

Exile is such an absorbing phenomena with a subjective character and metaphysical quality wholly indescribable by words. My experience in such a state may seem unusual, given the material and political stability I enjoyed throughout my upbringing; starkly contrasting a defining characteristic of the vast majority of my Palestinian brethren.

Perhaps the contemporary world order intended for me to abandon my ancestral roots for a constructed American identity, and its accompanying sociopolitical and cultural chauvinism. Seemingly this would be the most comfortable route, so do I defy nature?

The Palestinian ethos is a manifestation of an existential state of dispossession…of being out of place. Thus from my birth, the status of exile from a land never touched or seen has been a pervasive element in a life recognizing this national identity, which has evolved and developed primarily in and as a result of exile. And denial of such an identity, while not impossible (but perhaps untenable), is certainly unnatural and unreasonable.

Being Palestinian is not a choice. It is a simple fact of life that accompanies with it a subconscious desire to return to the land. Thus our mere existence is in itself resistance; a struggle which cannot be diminished until the desire is satisfied.

In 1948, David Ben Gurion, reflecting on a sinful creation and its inevitable repercussions, said, “The old will die and the young will forget.” Looking across the valley facing me, I knew at that moment more than ever that he could not have been farther from the truth. While generations will die, generations will live all carrying with them an identity, which will never forget the land of its roots.

Stone in hand, Darwish’s words on my mind, I contemplated throwing it at the field in front me; a symbolic gesture. Reeling back, I suddenly stopped, unable to complete the motion. My hatred for the State that sent my ancestors to Lebanon’s camps scattered in the Diaspora of gods and flies, as Mourid Barghouti would say, and sealed our fate into exile could not supercede my love for my land. In front of me was my home…how could I assault my home in such a way. I tossed the rock to the ground, and walked deeper into my prison cell promising to return. I continued my day’s journey to the Burj-al-Shamali refugee camp in Tyre to visit family.

The simple fact that the refugees of Lebanon survived two decades of immense assault in their camps, yet will only accept the relief of return to their villages in Palestine illustrates the essential basis for the reconciliation of peace.

Notwithstanding the destruction and depopulation of over 400 villages. Notwithstanding the fraternal ties between Sabra, Shatilla, Qibya, and Jenin. Notwithstanding roadblocks, checkpoints, house demolitions and curfews. Notwithstanding Apache helicopters and one-ton bombs. Notwithstanding policies that can only be described as sadistic in intent and effect. All of this can eventually be forgiven. However, the Palestinian identity will resist, continuously infecting the thorn on Israel’s side, until its character of displacement is annulled.

22 years and three days after my birth into exile, I saw Palestine. 22 years and three days from today, will I have my right to return? Will my identity find peace? Or will a conflict stealing one generation after another endlessly burn for the sake of religious exclusion, when inclusion is possible and a moral imperative?

*For Palestine Chronicle

Earth, a planet hungry for peace

The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03).

The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers in the West Bank (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03).