PALESTINE Memories of 1948 - Photographs of Jerusalem | Page 125

We stayed in order to defend our land and to avoid
it being confiscated, we cultivated it and rented it out
to farmers. The schools needed teachers, and as I was
one of the few people with a degree to have stayed, I
became an English teacher. Our house on Sirkin Street
in Haifa was, like other Palestinian properties, placed
in the hands of the Custodian of Absentee Property, 28
and he made it available to new Jewish immigrants. We
received Israeli citizenship and the law considered our
family to be “absentees”, because we had taken refuge
in Ibtin in 1948! The argument was grotesque, but it
has never been questioned. And yet, we Palestinians of
Israel are still here, because we are the living stones of
this land. 
The harvest
Suad
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