Issues

Palestine

"I saw the Ottomans leave, I saw the British leave and I'll see the Israelis leave"

Posted on Monday June 4, 2007

He stood at the top of the stairs, his powdery gray beard matching his white flowing dishdasha. Using his cane, he made his way down the narrow flight of stairs. I kissed him on his cheeks and then, awkwardly at first, we hugged. “Salam Grandpa,” I said. It took 21 years, but I finally met my grandfather.

I was born a month before the 1967 war in a little village north of Jerusalem, and the effects of those events continue to impact my life today, 40 years later. After the war, we found our home destroyed and my dad’s small shop had been pillaged. My father took on menial jobs over the next six months, but in 1968, with no prospects for an Israeli pullback on the horizon, my parents decided they did not want their children to grow up under occupation. We emigrated to Brazil when I was 1.

Now I was back in our old village. Over the next few weeks, I spent much time with my granddad, getting to know him, seeing the room where I was born, learning about our family—and finally finding a sense of personal history that had been so lacking in my life.

Grandad was old, how old we didn’t know since they didn’t issue birth certificates back when he was born. Still, most people easily figured him to be close to the century mark.

He was convinced the occupation would end in his lifetime. “I saw the Ottomans leave, I saw the British leave and I’ll see the Israelis leave,” he said.

He died not long after—having never known, despite his long life, what it was like to live as a free person, unencumbered by occupation and by the dictates of others. I think of him often, and those words continue to haunt me. So many Palestinians today live under the shadow of a brutal Israeli occupation, and as with Grandpa, all they cling to is a simple way of life and an undying hope that someday, they will be able to help shape their futures.

Nidal Ibrahim
AAI Executive Director