This land was theirs

Hannah Mermelstein

On March 20, 1941, Yosef Weitz of the Jewish National Fund wrote:

“The complete evacuation of the country
from its other inhabitants and handing it
over to the Jewish people is the answer.”

On this day in 1948, almost two months before the first
“Arab-Israeli war” technically began, the 1,125
inhabitants of the Palestinian village Umm Khalid fled
a Haganah military operation. Like their brethren from
more than 500 villages, they likely thought they would
return to their homes within a few weeks, after the fighting
blew over and new political borders were or were not drawn.

Instead, more than 6 million Palestinian people remain
refugees to this day, some in refugee camps not far from
their original towns, others in established communities in
Europe and the US, all forbidden from returning to their
homeland for one reason: they are not Jewish.

Yosef Weitz’s wish was granted. In my name, and in the
name of Jewish people throughout the world, an indigenous
population was almost completely expelled. Village names
have been removed from the map, houses blown up, and
new forests planted. In Arabic, this is called the Nakba,
or catastrophe. In Israel, this is called “independence.”

Last month I went with a man from Umm il Fahm
(a Palestinian city in Israel) to his original village of
Lajun, only a few miles away. Adnan’s land is now a
JNF forest “belonging” to Kibbutz Megiddo.

As we walk the stone path he points to each side of the road,
naming the families that used to live there: Mahamid,
Mahajne, Jabrin…. The land there is not naturally rocky;
the stones that we walk on are a graveyard of destroyed
houses. Adnan was only six years old when the Haganah’s
bullets flew over his head and he and his family fled. But he
remembers. He tears up as we stop at the site of his
destroyed house and says, “Welcome to my home.”

Adnan is an Israeli citizen, yet the land that was stolen from
him has been given to a body that refuses to let him live on
it. As an American Jew, I could move to Lajun/Megiddo
tomorrow, gain full citizenship rights, and live on the land
that Adnan’s family has tended for centuries. Adnan, who
lives just a few minutes away, is forbidden from doing so.

As we approach the 60th anniversary of the state of Israel,
the 60th anniversary of the Nakba, let us remember Adnan.
Let us remember the inhabitants of Umm Khalid.
Let us remember more than 6 million people whose
basic human rights have been deprived for 60 years, and
let us, as Jewish people with a history of oppression and a
tradition of social justice, work for the right of indigenous
people to return to their land. This is our only hope for
true peace and security in the region.

Hannah Mermelstein is a co-founder of Birthright Unplugged
and lives in Boston, Philadelphia and Ramallah.