PALESTINE Memories of 1948 - Photographs of Jerusalem | Page 59

The Nazareth militant
Samira Khbais Khoury, 90 years old
‘Better to die of hunger at home than to be a refugee with
nowhere to go.’ With these words, Samira Khbais Khoury’s
father sealed the fate of his whole family in 1948. Because
his house and his lands were there, he decided to stay in
Nazareth, whatever the cost, even though the United
Nations Partition Plan of November 1947 had allocated
Galilee, of which Nazareth is the heart, to Israel.
The decision to stay was not an easy one to make in
1948, particularly because of the many massacres openly
carried out by the Zionist militias, right in front of every-
one. Massacres which were, furthermore, being used as
propaganda, as a sort of psychological weapon intended to
provoke the Palestinians into an exodus. 1
Samira is one of the 10,000 Palestinians who stayed
in Nazareth (of the 150,000 who did not leave Israeli
territory) and who helped to earn for their town, which
is famous as the scene of the Angel Gabriel’s visit to the
Virgin Mary, the nickname of the “flower of Galilee”, and
“the Arab capital of Israel”.
Samira’s story puts her in the very specific category of
“the Palestinians of 1948” that the Israelis call “Arab
Israelis” 2 in order to be able then to classify them accord-
ing to their religion, “ethnicity” or social status (Christian,
Muslim, Druze, Bedouin, etc.), labels that take away any
links to the Palestinians of the West Bank, Gaza and the
Diaspora. This division also erases any mental image of
unity. Not recognizing Palestinians is one way of not see-
ing them as a nation and of avoiding the question of their
national rights.
Samira is an example of those citizens that Israel con-
siders as being a “second-class citizen”; those 1,700,000
people who today demand to be called the “Palestinian
minority” within the State of Israel whilst also advocating
loudly and forcefully for the need to create a Palestinian
state with Jerusalem as its capital, to recognize the pre-
1967 borders and the right of return of refugees.
 As far back as I can remember I have always
been indomitable. Rebellious, but a good student. Dis-
obedient, but generous. At the age of seven, in 1936,
I could recite all the revolutionary songs that my ele-
mentary school mistresses taught us, and I would hap-
pily follow them when they finished classes early in
order to go and demonstrate. The whole of Palestine
was demonstrating! The Great Revolt of 1936–1939,
known as thawra (the revolution), had started in Nab-
lus, then had spread like a trail of dust from town to
town, to Jerusalem, Nazareth, Hebron, Bethlehem. 3
Our school marched in the streets chanting slogans
against the British mandate. A bunch of little shrimps,
in our pretty uniforms, we shouted as much, if not
more, than the big girls: ‘British, go home! Dignity!
Stop treating us like beggars!’ We were so proud! I was
even prouder when I went past my father’s shop in the
Samira
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