PALESTINE Memories of 1948 - Photographs of Jerusalem | Page 63

released and those from East Nazareth were able to
stay, but later, when the State of Israel gave us citizen-
ship, they were distinguished by a special stamp, as if
to make them “special cases”: their identity cards were
written in red ink, whereas ours were in blue ink. It
was a way of differentiating those who had run away in
1948 and who had come back from those, like us, who
had always stayed.
In 1949, Nahda got in contact with a progressive
women’s organization, an association of Jewish women
which had already existed before the creation of Israel.
They were advocating for the return of Palestinian
refugees and wanted, just like us, to be members of
the Women’s International Democratic Federation, 13
which had a voice in the United Nations, and which
was holding its congress in Paris that year. But the
Federation explained to us that it could not include
two associations from the same country, even if there
were Palestinian-Israeli women on the one hand and
Jewish-Israeli women on the other, and so they asked
us to merge. We finally managed to do so in 1951
by taking on the name of Movement of Democratic
Women. This caused some acid comments from all the
other Palestinians outside Israel. The diaspora thought
that we should not remain within the State of Israel,
whereas for us, it was, on the contrary, an act of resist-
ance. Particularly because, if there were 158,000 Pal-
estinians in Israel in 1948, today there are 1.7 million
of us – ten times more. To be numerous is a victory,
even if it is a silent one… Methods of communication
at the time not being what they are today, discussion
was more difficult. Our respective positions divided us,
while we were all trying to defend a single and same
Palestinian identity.
It was in that Movement of Democratic Women
that I met Yukhavit and her partner Benyamin Gonen,
who had emigrated to Palestine in the early 1930s,
when they were four and five years old, she fleeing from
Palm Sunday procession, Jerusalem
Samira
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