PALESTINE Memories of 1948 - Photographs of Jerusalem | Page 13

Living Memories
By Falestin Naili
Historian, Researcher at the French Institute for the Near East (Ifpo)
There are dead who sleep in rooms you will build
there are dead who visit their past in places you demolish
there are dead who pass over bridges you will construct
there are dead who illuminate the night of butterflies, dead
who come by dawn to drink their tea with you, as peaceful
as your rises left them, so leave, you guests of the place,
some vacant seats for your hosts … they will read you
the terms of peace … with the dead!
From The “Red Indian’s” Penultimate Speech to the White Man,
by Mahmoud Darwish, translation by Fady Joudah
Living Memories
On May 15, 2018, thousands of Palestinian demonstrators gathered on the border between
the Gaza Strip and Israel to demand their right to return and to oppose the relocation of the
United States Embassy to Jerusalem. Seventy-one years after Al Nakba (1948), these demon-
strators, most of whom were under 30 years old, surprised the world by the longevity of their
memory. They shouted loudly and strongly about their right to return to nearby villages and
neighbouring towns in Gaza, like Ramle, Lydda, Majdal and Jaffa. These young people, who
have known no reality other than military occupation, wars and blockades, form part of a
collective destiny with 1948 as its tragic point of departure. For them, the border constitutes
the line drawn between their lives in the refugee camps of Gaza and the bygone days in the
villages and towns of their forefathers, some of which are visible from the border. It is the
demarcation between their present reality and a past from which they were forcibly cut off
and on which they cannot turn their backs.
In May 2000, similar scenes played out following the retreat of the Israeli army from
southern Lebanon. The border, once again accessible after 28 years of military occupation,
was the backdrop for visits and family reunions for Palestinian refugees who had settled in
Lebanon and their relatives living in the north of Israel. 1 Many Palestinian refugees today
live very close to the places they came from but to which they cannot return, even for a visit.
Sohaila Shishtawi testifies to this; living in Amman, she is only 80 kilometres away from her
1.  M. A. Khalidi (ed.), Manifestations of Identity: The Lived Reality of Palestinian Refugees in Lebanon, Beirut, Insti-
tute for Palestine Studies/ Ifpo, 2010.
Falestin Naili
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