PALESTINE Memories of 1948 - Photographs of Jerusalem | Page 148

water and fruit trees in abundance. To go into town,
we would take the bus to Haifa.
I was three years old when the Palestinian uprising
against the British erupted in 1936; it affected everyone
so deeply that it was talked about for years afterwards.
It was the first time I was faced with violence. Human-
kind had suddenly been divided into distinct clans:
the Palestinians (Muslims and Christians) including
the anti-Zionist militants (whom we called the “insur-
gents” – thuwar); the Jews of the kibbutz and lastly
the British police. What I remember from that period
of revolt, is seeing the body of one of our neighbours
who had been found dead and was brought back to our
neighbourhood.
At the Collège des Frères, where I went to primary
school, the teachers were monks and laymen. I liked
the example set by the monks, with their prayers every
morning. I said to myself: I want to become like them.
So, at the age of ten, in 1943, I left Nazareth to prepare
myself for the priesthood in the seminary of Beit Jala,
close to Bethlehem. My mother came there with me.
We passed through Jenin, stopping for a cup of coffee
under the orange trees, then took the Nablus road to
Jerusalem and on to Bethlehem. My mother left me
at the seminary where I would stay for 12 long years,
during which I was to study languages, philosophy,
theology, spirituality… with 20 other boys, until I was
ordained priest, without ever being allowed to go back
to Nazareth; but our parents would come to visit us.
I was young, but I do not remember having suffered
from the separation. To me, the seminary represented
freedom, friends, games, studies, festivals. We were
never alone there.
In 1948, I was an adolescent and in my fifth year of
seminary at Beit Jala. From our classrooms and from
the church, my fellow seminary students and I could
hear the mortars and grenades exploding around us.
The British had withdrawn in 1947 and had left the
country in a state of war between Arab Palestinians and
Jewish Palestinians. At the time, everybody was still
Palestinian. In 1947, Zionist groups began attacking
whole villages to cause panic among the Palestinians
and to chase them out. The massacres of Deir Yasin, Al
Dawayima and Tantura, in 1948, caused thousands to
flee, haunted by the terrifying images that were pub-
lished everywhere. The Zionist leaders very quickly
declared that the State of Israel was a “Jewish State”.
The rest of the land became part of Jordan.
146
Memories of 1948
In Beit Jala, which was part of the zone not occupied
by Israel 1 and administered by Jordan, the parishes and
schools were overflowing with Palestinian refugee fami-
lies. Whether they were Muslims or Christians made no
difference. Within a few months refugee camps began
to appear everywhere, in Jordan, Lebanon and Syria.
Some Christians who had had to flee tried to save
their property by giving it to the Church. But this
proved futile because, once Israel was created, any
Palestinian who was not present in person was com-
pulsorily dispossessed, even if he had previously given
the key of his house to a neighbour or to the priest for
safekeeping. If the owner was not in his house, he was
considered “absent” and the Israeli government appro-
priated it. This discriminatory measure was applied to
all Palestinians who had had to leave their towns and
villages during the conflict in 1948, even if they had
remained in Israeli territory and even if they became
Israeli citizens. Many, many people have since tried to
get close to their confiscated property, but they have
been insulted and chased away by the new owners. At
the same time, Israel forced Palestinians out of a house
if it had been lived in by Jewish immigrants back in
the 1920s.
Of the 20 seminarians of Beit Jala, three of us were
from Nazareth. For us, 1948 meant the severing of all
links that we had had with our families up to then,
because travel between the West Bank and Naza-
reth had become impossible. The borders were totally
sealed. I had been made a refugee. A privileged refugee;
I was not on the streets like all those who lost their
homes and found themselves in the Unrwa camps; 2 I
was protected, fed and housed, but a refugee nonethe-
less. Because, like them, I could no longer go home. It
was not until 1955, when we were ordained priests, that
I was able to return to Nazareth for two weeks, 3 after
12 years of absence. It was a shock: when I had left, my
brothers and sisters were children, and now they were
young adults whom I did not recognize.
After that, I had to get used to the idea of not being
able to see Nazareth again. When my father died in
1957, I could not even attend his funeral! At the time,
the Israeli authorities gave permission to the Chris-
tians living in Israel to visit Jerusalem and Bethlehem
for one day a year, from the 24th of December until
the afternoon of the 25th. Everyone made use of the
opportunity to see their parents and to kiss them – it
was more important than Christmas mass.