PALESTINE Memories of 1948 - Photographs of Jerusalem | Page 35
The case gave our firm a lot of good publicity. It was
at this point that my best friend, Mahmud Abu Zalaf,
reappeared in my life. The newspaper he worked for,
Al Difa’a, had had to move to Cairo but had not found
a readership there. He had returned to Jerusalem and
now worked for Al Jihad newspaper. 13 For seven years I
regularly wrote editorials for this newspaper, but never
signed my name.
A few years later, in 1959, I met my future wife,
Shamieh Labibeh. She worked for an American founda-
tion whose director I knew. She was wonderful, brilliant,
beautiful and words are bland compared to how much
her presence filled my life. She was from Jerusalem just
like me. Her family had emigrated to Jordan and then
to Bahrain, where she taught history and geography to
the children of the royal family. We got married in St
George’s Cathedral in Jerusalem and built our house in
Ramallah and that is where our four boys grew up.
When the Six-Day War broke out on June 5, 1967,
the whole family fled from Ramallah to Amman. I
remember that, at the border, there were Iraqi soldiers
also fleeing. In my opinion, it was not a “war”, nor
the “beginning of a war” because, in my eyes, the war
was over before it even started. I then had to wait two
months for the Red Cross to deliver a permit, which
was issued with Israel’s agreement to only 3000 people,
to be able to return to Ramallah with all my family.
We were now governed by the Israeli military, who
issued the orders that regulated our daily lives in the
West Bank. To admit this was a blow to our pride, but
this was our new reality. Learning Hebrew became a
matter of urgency, if only so as to be able to under-
stand administrative documents, newspapers, what
was being broadcast on the radio and, in general, all
the rules imposed on us. 14 So my wife and I signed up
to take courses at an American Institute in West Jeru-
salem which gave Arabic and Hebrew lessons. More
than half of the students were Arabs like ourselves; the
others had come from the US to become Israelis.
As for our business, we had to start again from
scratch. All but two of the banks had had to close: the
Leumi, 15 whose director was a former classmate from
Beirut, and the Israel Discount Bank. 16 As the Jorda-
nian laws that had governed the West Bank since 1950
were not changed in 1967, the banks needed our exper-
tise and we were able to work with Leumi. Relations
were professional and based on mutual respect. Fortu-
nately, after a while, other banks were able to open in
the West Bank. Alongside the professional advice we
gave, we denounced, from the legal point of view, the
way in which the Israeli military was violating national
and international laws in the West Bank when it came
to confiscating land and building settlements and roads.
My career after 1967 was multifaceted. Until 1968,
I continued as vice-president of the Bar Association to
which I had been elected in 1964. Our practice was still
being talked about because of cases such as the defence
of Hilarion Capucci, archbishop of the Greek-Catholic
Melkite Church in Jerusalem, who in 1974 was accused
by Israel of firearms trafficking for the PLO. Then, in
1984, we published a study of Israel’s plans to build roads
in the Occupied Territories, in which we denounced the
hidden objective of these plans: destruction of the irri-
gation systems used by the Palestinian people. After the
Oslo Accords of 1994, I worked on drafting new laws
for the Palestinian Territory and, in 1997, I was even
one of the legal advisors for the Monetary Authority in
Ramallah. My office also advised NGOs and impor-
tant international companies in the implementation of
development projects involving infrastructure, water,
electricity and natural gas.
In 1985, my private life was turned upside down. It
was a terrible year. I was coming home from Sebastiya,
a village in the northern West Bank, which I had visited
with two of my sons. On the road from Nablus to Jenin,
a car hit us head-on. My two sons were severely wounded
and believed I was dead: I lost my eyes, nose, and even
part of my skull but, after undergoing several rounds of
major brain surgery, I survived. I got some of my human
appearance back but completely lost my eyesight.
To get back to my office became an obsession. As
soon as I was able, I returned to work with the help of
invaluable assistants who were, and still are, my eyes.
I am still a member of the Palestinian Bar. And, since
May 31, 2016, I have been in the Guinness Book World
of Records as the longest-serving lawyer in the world,
who is still working after nearly 70 years of good and
faithful service.
Fuad Shehadeh died on September 6, 2019 at the age of 94,
almost a year after having given us this interview.
Fuad
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