Issues

Palestine

Living with the War

Posted on Monday June 4, 2007

I was teaching at Central Connecticut State College, in New Britain, Connecticut when the June 5th, 1967 war broke out.

That period was miserable for most Arab Americans, especially for Palestinians. For me personally it was unbearable watching the Israeli Army on television, shooting barefoot Egyptian soldiers from helicopters, and the Israeli population celebrating the fall of Jerusalem.

An equally painful aspect of the war was the celebration by my American colleagues and neighbors of the Israeli victory, as if it was the United States who fought and won the war. Except for my family, I felt isolated and alone.

The war caught many of my friends and relatives outside Palestine, and thus quite a few of them were prevented by the Israelis from returning home. In fact my sisters, Suad and Koukab and my brother Khalid were teaching Arabic in Algeria at the time. Koukab and Khalid were able, after a lot of heartache, to go home, while Suad now lives in the United States.

I was born July 25th, 1926 in Birzeit, Palestine and graduated in 1945 from Al-Rasheediya secondary school in Jerusalem. I held a couple of jobs before landing a position with the Arab Bank in that city.

In 1948, the Arab Bank, and all of West Jerusalem were occupied by the newly established Jewish state and I, like many of my generation, became unemployed.

From 1950 to 1953, I worked in Kuwait, where I saved some money, applied and was accepted at American International College, in Springfield, Massachusetts to study Mathematics. I then obtained a Masters degree in Mathematics from the University of Massachusetts, in Amherst where I was teaching, and where I met my wife, Andrea.

During my academic career, I taught Mathematics and/or Statistics at the following institutions:

American University of Beirut, Lebanon, where my son Shakir was born.
Central Connecticut State College, New Britain, Connecticut where my daughter Elena was born.
The University of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut.
The University of Petroleum and Minerals, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia.
The American University, Washington, DC.

The 1967 war brought a drastic change in my life as it prompted me to become involved in newly established Arab American organizations:
—Arab American University Graduates, where I was treasurer;—The United Holy Land Fund, where I served as the Connecticut representative;—The Palestine Human Rights Campaign.

Since we moved to Virginia in 1996, I have become active in local politics; I am a member of Arlington County Democratic Party, and am a precinct captain.
I am also a member of Virginia Arab American Democrats, and a sponsor of Virginia Arab American Candidates Night, a political event coordinated by The Arab American Institute. It was at this event last fall, that Virginia Arab American Democrats held a fundraiser for James Webb, the US Senate candidate whose election gave the Democrats the majority in the Senate.

I go to Palestine every year, where the economy continues to get worse and the settler population continues to increase. I am afraid that the two state solution will never materialize unless the Israelis withdraw completely from the West Bank, Gaza and Arab Jerusalem. Otherwise, the Palestinians should campaign for equal rights for all those who live in Palestine from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean.

Yusif Farsakh
Teacher & AAI Activist