PALESTINE Memories of 1948 - Photographs of Jerusalem | Page 113

was important as I moved from one camp to another:
to have decent morals, to be respectful and to trans-
mit these values to the young people. I began to raise
funds to help the poor and the numerous orphans, and
to finance the rehabilitation of the camp’s schools. In
addition to my work as a teacher for Unrwa in primary
schools and colleges, I spent my time trying to find
donors and charitable organizations.
Today, we are proud to have found support 35 for four
schools, two for girls and two for boys. 36 Education is
the foundation for everything. It allowed me to think
for myself, to inform myself, to become an educator
in turn and to be respected. It played a central role in
building the idea of the liberation of Palestine. Perhaps
that is why the Israeli authorities closed schools in the
occupied territories after the First Intifada of 1987. 37 It
is also why Israel is constantly controlling the content
of Palestinian textbooks, including those of Unrwa. 38
Education is a tool for the emancipation of the poor
and the oppressed. It is our greatest possession, even if
it is invisible.
Life in the Gaza Camp near Jerash was never easy,
far from it. There is a substantial difference between
the refugees from the West Bank and those of us from
Gaza: those from the West Bank were given a national
number by the Hashemite Kingdom and so are con-
sidered as Jordanian citizens, which gives them certain
rights, and that makes a big difference. We, the refu-
gees from Gaza, are stateless, we are neither from Gaza
nor from Jordan. We do not belong to any state, and we
are not recognized by anyone, not even the Palestinian
Authority. We are like those divorced women who have
nowhere to go: their husbands have rejected them and
their original families do not want to look after them
any more.
The consequences are disastrous and affect our
whole lives. For example, when I bought some land in
1996 and built a house on it, 39 I was not able to register
Street calligrapher
Salaheddin
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