Pullout from Gaza is cause for celebration Arab American News, August 17 2005

By Neal AbuNab --

Liberty for the Palestinians has always been the issue. The word “occupation” does not mean much to Americans because they’ve never been occupied. The war of independence was about taxation without representation.

We don’t celebrate Liberty Day or Freedom Day. We celebrate Independence Day on the fourth of July. The British never occupied America because the early colonists were mostly English and European. One can not occupy himself. Therefore, there must be a foreign element involved in occupation. European Jews immigrated to Palestine with the intention to establish a state just for Jews. That is called Zionism. It is the displacement of the original inhabitants of the land with another people.

Occupation is enforced by a foreign army against the will of the legitimate owners of the land. The foreign army occupies cities by building police stations in city centers with big jails barricaded by high fences and barbed wire. The occupied people do not have the right to go to a court to contest the confiscation of their homes or their land. The occupied people do not have the right to bear arms to defend themselves when soldiers shoot at them with M-16’s. The occupied people do not have a single political choice that determines their destiny. The occupied people are slaves subject to the will of their masters, the foreign soldiers.

The regime of occupation is enforced by a military commander who sets up check points on every major road and requires the occupied people to carry an identification paper issued by his soldiers. This ID paper is a privilege and a recognition that a person exists as a valid slave.

My family lived in Ramallah in 1967. After the war we were forced out of our home at gunpoint and put on a dump truck and transported to Jordan. We attempted to sneak back to our home as we did not find the refugee tents too comfortable. We did not like being beggars waiting in line for a handout of wheat and sugar. We did not like being bare footed. We did not like sleeping on top of each other in a tent with no plumbing or air-conditioning. We really hated it when it rained and we had to sleep on muddy ground. It was not nice.

My father borrowed money from relatives and bought a small VW bug. One day, before the crack of dawn, he woke us up and packed the family of seven into the tiny car. He drove up North and crossed the low Jordan River near the town of Nablus in the Galilee. We were back on the road to Ramallah. People warned us about the many army checkpoints. We did not know what to expect. But we were so happy to be back in our land. On the road we sang, joked and played. I was only five years old but I remember every moment of that drive like it happened yesterday.

Some water had leaked into the car when we crossed the low river. Then, we came upon a traffic jam. All cars just stood still and we waited in the early morning sun for a couple of hours. We got to a military checkpoint. There were tanks and many mean looking soldiers with lots of guns and hats. My father had a pleasant smile for everyone, even the soldier who shouted at him asking for papers in broken Arabic. My father showed him his driver’s license but the soldier was asking for the “ID”. Well, we did not have one and we could not tell him that we just smuggled ourselves back into our own country.

In the eyes of the soldier, it was now his country and we were unwanted pests. He let us through and we were back on the road again. In less than fifteen minutes we hit another roadblock. We waited and then we reached another camp full of soldiers. This time my mother volunteered to chat to our interrogator, and she was so nice to him. She told him that we were visiting some relatives in Nablus and we got stuck there when the war broke out. He bought the story.

The distance was less than sixty kilometers but it felt like a drive across the universe. It was early afternoon when we got to the outskirts of Ramallah and I could smell the sweet aroma of my secure home. My mother had instructed all the kids to tell the same story that she had been saying. We hit another checkpoint. We waited our turn. There was a big soldier with a long red beard asking questions. I was petrified. My mother gave him the usual story but he was not buying. He looked inside the car, stared at the wet carpet, and told me to get out. He took me to the side and lifted me up with one hand like I was a chicken about to be strangled. He shouted at me and said: “You just came from Jordan, didn’t you?” I said: “yes”, as salty tasting tears mixed with the words.

He pointed his large rifle at my father and ordered him to get out. He told him to put his hands up above his head and to go stand in a fenced area. Then he got everyone out of the car and he told another soldier to take the car. We stood in a fenced area guarded by a younger soldier. We stayed there for hours sweltering in the heat of the July sun. Finally, a big dump truck arrived and we recognized it. We were put on it and sent back over the Jordan River. Back to the valley of death that was full of white tents.

Thirty eight years later and I still can’t forget the stench of the human flesh that was packed in that dump truck like sardines. I can never erase that from my memory. I cried because I caused my family to become refugees. My father comforted me and told me: “for as long as you live keep telling the truth.”

We tried for many years to obtain that precious “ID” card. The application was always denied. The masters would not accept us as slaves and let us back into their plantation. We applied to be free men everywhere we went in the Arab world, but no one accepted our application.

In two weeks the Israeli army will leave the Gaza strip and let go of the Palestinian slaves there, after 38 years of torment. It is a big thing. It is a cause for great celebration. Liberty from the foreign master has finally arrived for some Palestinians.

Neal AbuNab is a filmmaker and columnist for The Arab American News. He can be reached at: 313-506-4409 or nealabunab@todaylink.com