PALESTINE Memories of 1948 - Photographs of Jerusalem | Page 85

for an agricultural expert with the United Nations Edu-
cational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco).
I asked one of my friends who had the right connections
in the Jordanian government to intervene on my behalf.
Allowing me to travel abroad was a good way to get rid
of me, he told them. His argument was successful and a
few months later I was posted as a Unesco agricultural
instructor to Liberia. At first the Liberian authorities did
not really care to host a Palestinian – we were perceived
as tough nuts to crack at the time – but as there were no
other candidates, they finally agreed.
As for my brother, Suleyman, he stayed in the West
Bank, joining the Palestinian resistance and becoming
a military leader. He worked under cover and nobody
in the family knew where he was or what he did. When
I saw him, he was dressed in rags, an old black scarf
covering his head. Unfortunately, he would be betrayed
by one of his companions and arrested by the Israelis
in 1973.
It was only when he was released from the Israeli
prison that he told us what he had endured. The Mos-
sad 8 had at first intimidated him to make him talk.
They assured him that no relative or friend would come
looking for him, because nobody knew where he was,
and that they could easily make him disappear. But
Suleyman had been born under a lucky star, and that
day luck found him. Arriving at the police station, the
group of soldiers who were escorting him ran into the
Israeli lawyer, Felicia Langer, 9 nicknamed “the lawyer
of the Palestinians”, whom my brother knew. Hearing
her voice, he started speaking loudly so that she could
hear him. The coincidence of that meeting no doubt
saved him because Langer quickly let it be known that
Suleyman was alive and in prison.
Nevertheless, the “sojourn” behind bars lasted one
long year during which our father was able to visit him.
He found Suleyman thin, weakened by torture, and
with no teeth. But Suleyman found a way to make my
The Allenby Bridge, 1950
‘Abd Al Rahman
83