The words you are searching are inside this book. To get more targeted content, please make full-text search by clicking here.
Discover the best professional documents and content resources in AnyFlip Document Base.
Search
Published by , 2018-11-19 21:26:21

My Roots are Deep in Palestine

My Roots are Deep in Palestine

1

2 MY ROOTS ARE DEEP IN PALESTINE

3

My Roots Are Deep In

PALESTINE

IBRAHIM EBEID

4 MY ROOTS ARE DEEP IN PALESTINE

Ebeid, Ibrahim 1935-
My Roots Are Deep in Palestine

First published in 2018 by
Ibrahim Ebeid
Chicago, IL
USA

Copyright © 2018
Ibrahim Ebeid

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted
or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical
or other means, now known or hereafter invented without permission

in writing from the publisher. No translation of this book is allowed
without the written permission of the author and publisher.

ISBN 978-0976-336638

Typesetting and design by Alternative Publishing
La Mesa, CA USA

Printed in USA

SPECIAL THANKS:

Micheal G. El-Farr Aliza Virden
Adel Nagi Husayn Al-Kurdi
Ibrahim Y. Abeid Jiries Eid
Joseph Castello Patrick Pethybridge
Maria Ebeid Yazid Ebeid
Jeff Archer Isabel and Sylvia Ebeid
Faisal Aranki Robert Brown
Wajih Saadeh Jeffrey Pethybridge
Ziad ElJishi

5

CONTENTS

About the Author 6
1. Origin and Roots 11
2. EBEID ABDULMASSIH EL-FARR AND HIS DESCENDANTS 15
3. NAOUM AND FAMILY LIVING IN JAFFA UNTIL 1948 22
4. Sykes-Picot & Zionist Terror 32
5. Memories and Thoughts 41
6. Memories from the 1950s 50
7. Into Exile 48
8. In the United States 69
9. Military Life 73
10. Work and Activities 88
11. Maria, the Woman of my Life 103
12. My Reflections on America 111
More Family and Friends 119

6 MY ROOTS ARE DEEP IN PALESTINE

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

I brahim Ebeid was born in Pales-
tine before the country was a ca-
sualty of WWII and a large portion
was occupied by the Zionist forces to be-
come Israel in 1948. He left his country
of birth in his early 20s and went on to
live in Germany and the United States,
where he resides today. Along his jour-
ney, he spent extended periods of time
in various Arab countries, especially Iraq.

Ebeid’s childhood was initially quite
idyllic as he and friends enjoyed the natu-
ral beauty of Palestine and spent much
time among the orange groves and hills
and woods.
At the end of World War II, storm clouds began to emerge that fore-
cast a drastic change to his life as well as every inhabitant of Palestine.
The victors drew up maps to reflect their geopolitical desires and Palestine
was about to lose its identity of the past two millennia. The British were
occupying Palestine but realized they had to leave. The result was the
creation of the country of Israel, a supposed home for Jews of the world to
relocate to and create a Jewish state. Palestinians were quite perplexed by
the new powers to be because for centuries, Jews, Christians and Muslims
lived side-by-side with no problem. Now, millions of outsiders were mov-
ing to the newly-declared country of Israel and foreign Zionism began to
separate the Jews from the non-Jews.
In 1959, Ebeid left his beloved Palestine and moved to Germany,
where he worked and lived for one year. The following year, he moved to
the US. Eventually, he gained US citizenship and served in the US Army.
He met his future wife, Maria, and they got married and had two chil-
dren; one boy and one girl.
Despite his living in foreign countries, his love of Palestine was Ebeid’s
passion for his entire life. He has relentlessly been active, and still is, with

6

ABOUT THE AUTHOR 7

Palestinian issues. Once he moved to the US, he never gave up the Arab
cause, especially for Palestine. He regularly spoke at rallies, forums, insti-
tutions and universities.

In the US, Ebeid became involved in writing and publishing. He was
the English editor for the publication, al-Moharer, that had a worldwide
circulation. Many of his articles were re-printed in various media. He
wrote in-depth articles about Palestine, Iraq and the Arab Ba’ath Social-
ist Party. He also published an English language newspaper from 1969 to
the mid-1970s, The Vanguard. It was mostly distributed among Ba’ath
Party members in the US and other interested parties to keep them up to
date on issues.

During the 1970s, Ebeid lived in Baghdad and was a member of the
Foreign Relations Bureau of the national leadership of the Ba’ath Party.
He was in charge of coordinating communications with progressive US
and European political activists. He also traveled to the Soviet Union and
East Germany within a delegation to sign accords with Ba’ath Party and
the Communist Parties of those countries.

The reason for writing this book is two-fold: to describe Ibrahim
Ebeid’s lifelong relentless support for Palestine, as well as the Arab world,
and for a brief genealogy of his family.

He was always interested in his family history since his childhood.
But, he wanted to know more. He took more than 15 years in a relentless
search for information about the Farr family, from which the Ebeids de-
scended. He wants to pass on to his children and grandchildren, and
future members of the Ebeid family, the family information he has com-
piled so they, as well as other interested people, can learn about their
origins and roots. He realized that no one had chronicled the family
history in writing and that his descendants would not have access to the
people who are now deceased that he spoke to.

This magnificent story of Ibrahim Ebeid’s intriguing life shows that
Palestine is still foremost in his heart after 80 years. Rarely is such emo-
tion and commitment made by any human being.

Jeff Archer
Author of The Mother of All Battles: The Endless US-Iraq War

DEDICATION

With Love To: Maria my beloved wife, my son Yazid,
daughter Carolina, my grand children Isabel, Sylvia and
Patrick and to the descendants of the Ebeid family.

8 MY ROOTS ARE DEEP IN PALESTINE

ABOUT THE AUTHOR 9

My Roots Are Deep In

PALESTINE

IBRAHIM EBEID

10 MY ROOTS ARE DEEP IN PALESTINE

11

CHAPTER 1

ORIGIN AND ROOTS

Our predecessors descended from the Sweirakiah tribe native to
the Egyptian Sinai and the Levant. The tribe had maintained its
fame, its Arab character and Christian faith.
In the 12th century CE, it joined Saladin in the wars against the
Crusaders. It played an important role with other Christian tribes in
defeating the Crusaders and liberating Jerusalem and other parts of
Palestine.

A number of men of this tribe were physicians, specialized in various
types of treatments. Their fame was widespread in the Levant and in
Arabia. Among those famous men was Suleiman al-Masri al-Sweiraki
who was selected by Saladin al-Ayoubi as one of his physicians. He was
also entrusted to treat some of his elite bodyguards. When Richard the
Lionhearted was wounded and was suffering from fever, Saladin sent
Suleiman to treat him.

Saladin bestowed the title of Mualem (Master of trade in Arabic), a
title used by physicians in those days, upon Suleiman because of his
performance and accomplishment. Suleiman was able to win the trust of
Saladin for his dedication and loyalty. In addition to his skills as a physician,
Suleiman had a wide knowledge of psychology that he employed in combat
tactics and planning that helped defeat the Crusaders. Saladin awarded
him with a piece of land in Darya, near Damascus. It was fertile land with
vast amounts of water. Shortly after Suleiman took ownership of the land,
a dispute took place between his family and another landowner that resulted
in the death of the neighbor’s son. This act prompted Saladin to order the
physician, who became known as Suleiman al-Mualem, and his family to
move to another piece of land in Caesarea, near Haifa. The move was
intended to avoid any more disputes and bloodshed for revenge.

When Jerusalem was liberated, the Sweiraki tribe within the Christian
Arab Brigade was the first to enter Jerusalem under the command of Issa
Ibn al-Awam, an honor bestowed upon them by Saladin.

After the death of Saladin in 1193, the al-Mualem family sold its land

11

12 MY ROOTS ARE DEEP IN PALESTINE

Caesarea occupied in 1948. Its Arab people in Caesarea and moved to
were expelled and a new town was built for Ramleh, a famous city in the
the Zionists. Only old historic ruins were kept center of Palestine. From that
for tourism. time until the beginning of the
18th century, with the
Abdo Nasri al-Mualem al-Sweiraki estimated birth of our ancestor
Abdo, the son of Nasri al-
Mualim, the history of the
family was very difficult to
follow. Our predecessors did
not keep any records, so the
little we knew was related to us
by word of mouth.

It is easier to start relating the history of the family from our ancestor
Abdo. Information about him and his descendants was known by those
who preceded us from the family and how it was related to their
descendants, generation after generation by the word of mouth.

Abdo and his sons, Jiryes and Khalil, were builders and well known in
Palestine and the Levant. Their fame reached Ahmed Pasha al-Jazzar, the
Ottoman ruler of Akka, (Acre), and Galilee.

When Napoleon Bonaparte was preparing to invade Egypt and the
East, al-Jazzar called Abdo and his sons to come to Akka and contracted
them to repair and fortify the wall of the city and to add a new wing to the
castle. Jiryes earned the respect of al-Jazzar for his skills and ability and
consequently, he gained the title of Master of the trade.

The project was completed ahead of time and the forces of al-Jazzar
withstood the siege of Akka by the French under Bonaparte (March 21-
May 20, 1799). Napoleon failed to conquer the city and he retreated.
Frustrated, Napoleon threw his hat over the wall and said, “If I cannot
enter you then my hat will.” History could have changed greatly if not for
the contribution that our ancestors achieved in protecting the city from
occupation and destruction.

According to what I heard from Uncle Saadeh Abdallah Saadeh (the
grandson of Ebeid) and his nephew, Dr. Wajih Ibrahim Saadeh, in addition
to building the wall, Abdo, with his sons and family, took part in defending
the city of Akka.

Ahmed al-Jazzar was a brutal ruler who earned the name of al-Jazzar,
(“the butcher” in Arabic) and, for an unknown reason, he wanted to

ORIGIN AND ROOTS 13

punish Jiryes and cut both

hands from the wrist so he

could not use them

anymore to build similar

fortifications.

When Jiryes learned

about the threat, he

escaped to Egypt, and

became known as Jiryes el- The wall of Akka
Farr, meaning “Jiryes the
runaway,” and the family name became known as such. After his escape,

his family, his father and his brother Khalil, stayed in Akka for a short

time. Fearing reprisal or harassment they left the city to Salt in the east of

Jordan at the beginning of the 19th century. After the death of Ahmed al-

Jazzar in 1804, Jiryes joined his family in the city of Salt and later on he,

along with his wife and children, resettled in the city of Ramleh.

Devastating Stories of Killing and Assassination of Ebeid’s Cousins

1: Ghali Ibn* Jiryes Ibn Ibrahim Ibn Jiryes al-Mualem el-Farr, a first cousin
of our ancestor Ebeid, was single and working for the State Treasury
collecting taxes from districts around Jaffa and transferring them to the
main office of the Department of Treasury in Jerusalem. One day, he
traveled from Jaffa to Jerusalem. It was getting dark, so he decided to
spend the night in a safe place before resuming the trip early the following
morning. He chose the Roman Catholic monastery run by the Jesuit
Order. However, it was not a safe place at all as unanticipated tragedy
awaited him. The priests whom he trusted turned out to be monsters;
wolves disguised in lambskin. They knew who he was and what he was
carrying, so they plotted to kill the man and share the spoils among
themselves. They offered him food and drink. After consuming the drink,
he felt something strange was happening to his system. He knew he had
been poisoned and he stumbled into the street, shouting, “Oh Muslims
and Christians; the people of the monastery gave me poison in the drink,
please inform the government.”

As soon as the authority in Ramleh received the news, a company of
policemen was dispatched to the monastery. They found Ghali dead, and
then they searched the place thoroughly and found the stolen money.

Ten were arrested; among them eight foreign priests. They admitted
committing the crime and were sentenced to death.

Ghali’s mother was taken care of by the government. She received an

14 MY ROOTS ARE DEEP IN PALESTINE

amount of gold money as a monthly salary, for life, as compensation for
her son’s services and dedication to the country.

*Ibn means son in Arabic

2: Iskander was a young man, single and talented. He was accepted at the
Military Academy of the University of Istanbul and graduated with high
honors. He was expected to have a bright future in a military career, but
his expectation did not materialize. Not long after his graduation, the
Turks plotted to get rid of him for fear that the young Arab man might
achieve a high and influential position. They killed him and dumped his
body in the Dardanelle. This abominable act took place during the reign
of Sultan Abdul Hamid, between the 19th and 20th centuries. Getting rid
of Arabs of high caliber was a common practice by the Ottoman Turks.
Brutal and savage mass executions in many parts of the Arab homeland
took place.

3: Mahfouz, the brother of Iskander, was a high-ranking official in the
Ottoman State. He was the customs director general in Bilad al-Sham, in
the Levant, or Greater Syria, that comprised of modern Syria, Palestine,
Jordan and Lebanon. In today’s hierarchy, his rank equaled that of a
deputy minister of finance. Mahfouz knew all the details of the killing of
his brother, Iskander, and he knew who committed the horrible crime.
The Turks were afraid to be exposed and they killed him as well and to
cover up their notorious undertaking, they made it look like an act of
suicide. They shot him with the pistol issued to him by the government,
put a bottle of wine in front of him and issued a statement that he,
Mahfouz, committed suicide in grief for his brother.

15

CHAPTER 2

EBEID ABDUL MASSIH EL-FARR
AND HIS DESCENDANTS

Ebeid, the founder of our family, was the son of Abdul Massih Ibn
Ibrahim Ibn Jiryes Ibn Abdo el-Farr. Abdul Massih was an Orthodox
priest. Priests in the Eastern churches are allowed to marry; he had
several daughters in addition to Ebeid his only son. We knew little about
the priest because the elders were not accustomed to recording anything
about the family history. Most of them were illiterate or semi-educated
peasants. Schools were not widely available in those days, so I have to
depend on what I heard from the elders of the town of Birzeit and the
family. I was told by my aunts that Ebeid was born after the death of his
father.

A story was related to me that the priest, the father of Ebeid, saw a
vision, or a dream, that he was dying and he would not see his newborn.
The premonition came true and he died and his hope to see the newborn
was not realized. Ebeid was taken care of by Ibrahim, his grandfather, and
uncles. He was named Abdul Massih after his father then became known
as Ebeid which is a nickname for Abdul Massih.

I tried to get more official information about Abdul Massih, the priest.
Official information and records were not available because of the wars
that ravaged the area for many years, especially in Palestine where the
Zionist occupiers destroyed everything to eradicate Palestinian culture,
history, and existence.

Ebeid was a jeweler and a builder, a wealthy man for the standard of
that time. He encountered trouble with the Ottoman Turkish Authority
for his activities against the Turks when they occupied our homeland.
Three of his cousins were killed and he had to flee Ramleh to Birzeit, a
hilly village in the center of Palestine. Ebeid’s sister was married to a man
from the Abed family. Her name was probably Miriam. Ebeid decided to
stay there away from trouble. He met a woman from the Abed family;
most likely her name was Katrina, and married her. He bought land, olive
orchards, vineyards and built a house that still exists in the village. Many

15

16 MY ROOTS ARE DEEP IN PALESTINE

generations were born in that house, including me.

A Bit of History of Ramleh

The city of Ramleh was built by the Umayyad Caliph Suleiman Ibn
Abdul Malik in 715 CE. It replaced the adjacent city of Lidd as the capital
of the military forces administration in Palestine for the next 400 years. It
was named Ramleh after a lady with the same name (Ramleh) who lived
in a tent in the area and received Suleiman Ibn Abdul Malik with great
respect. She offered him food and shelter when he was on a hunting trip
with his entourage. At that time, he was the Commander of Palestine.
Ramleh was occupied by the Zionists in 1948, and the majority of its
people, including the el-Farr family, were forced into exile under the gun
of the invaders.

I remember the city vividly with its orange and olive orchards. I went
there with my parents and brothers often to visit my maternal aunt and

her family when we were
living in Yafa, (Jaffa). It
was a short ride by bus
or cab.

The house of Ebeid
was standard and typical
of the houses of villagers
at that time. It was used
for people and animals
and it consisted of two
floors with one entrance.
The animals lived on the
Ramleh before occupation and ethnic cleansing 1948 first floor which was
similar to a basement. The mule was a necessity for the farmers because
it was used for transportation and tilling the land. The fellah (peasant)
kept the animal in a special place where food and water were within reach.
The food was dropped to the animal through an opening similar to an
arched window in the main dwelling, where people lived. Also, in the first
level, rabbits were kept and goats and chickens slept. Rabbits were a good
source of meat. Chickens supplied eggs, while goats yielded milk and various
other dairy products such as yogurt, cheese, and butter.
Later on, my grandfather Jiryes, the grandson of Ebeid, built a little
room attached to the main house. It has a pit under its floor to store the
olive oil from their crop and it was called the well. The room was used as

EBEID ABDUL MASSIH EL-FARR AND HIS DECENDANTS 17

a utility room, a kitchen, a washroom and sometimes a guest room. The
toilet was not a modern one; it was a latrine in the little yard. Also, in the
front of the house was an oven where they baked bread and roasted meat
and other food. The oven, or taboun as it is called in Arabic, was circular,
made of some sort of clay right on the ground inside a little hut made of
stones. The taboun was covered with hearth, mainly made of dried manure,
mixed with hay or jift, crushed olive seeds left from the oil press, to keep
it heated, and on the top was a round opening, through which they put
the dough to be baked or food to be cooked. I witnessed this interesting
taboun whenever I visited the house. I enjoyed the bread baked over
round heated pebbles and the baked chicken with onions called mussakhan.

The second floor was wide enough to be used as an open dwelling
where people ate, sat and slept. One part was higher than the other called
mistabeh; it was used as the sleeping quarters for the head of the family,
in that case, my grandfather. Alongside the second floor, there was another
elevated floor, part of it contained little silos, “khabiyah,” to keep grains,
such as wheat, lentils, and beans, and they were made of hardened clay-
like mud mixed with straws. Behind these silos was a large space to keep

The house of Ebeid from outside

18 MY ROOTS ARE DEEP IN PALESTINE

hay and other materials called rawiya.
Ebeid had four daughters and two sons. The daughters were Sarah

married to Hanna Ziadeh, Hanneh to Ibrahim Alloush, no children,
Ni’meh to Abdallah Saadeh who was a prominent man from Birzeit and
Barakeh about whom we know little; it seemed she died young and was
never married.

His Sons, Ibrahim, and Khalil

The Story of Khalil

Khalil was the youngest. Like his brother Ibrahim, he tended the
family’s sheep and other cattle, tilled the land and took care of the olive
orchards and vineyards. Once he went to water his animals in Ein Flifleh,
a natural spring nearby. There was a full moon and it was eerily quiet with
the exception of the noise of his animals and the breeze tickling the branches
of the trees. It was a weird night. He looked in the pool where the animals
drank and saw a cross-like sign inside the water, or, at least, he imagined
so. Several times, he tried to grab it, but in vain. Every time he tried to
pick it up the cross disappeared. The last time he tried, a rassad, a ghost,
that guards the water source at night, jumped into the water and took the
cross away.

Khalil panicked and was terrified. After this experience, he became
emotionally disturbed and did not last long. He was found dead on their
land called, al-Saqi, a few years later.. It was bitter cold, and his body was
coated with a blanket of snow under a blackberry bush. I heard that story
many times from the elders of the family and the town. The villagers
believed it and were afraid to approach the spring at night, especially
alone. Even in my childhood, I was afraid to go to the area alone. I imagined
weird and strange creatures coming to grab me.

When I was about four years old, I met his wife Hilweh Abed (his
maternal cousin), in Uncle Jiryes Musallam’s house. He introduced me to
her as her grand nephew, I remember that as a dream, she was very old
and sick. My uncle was taking care of her and she died shortly afterwards.

Ibrahim

Ibrahim was born about 1852. He was married to Sarah Ziadeh. He
also worked on the land. His son, my grandfather, Jiryes, was born in
1875. In addition to Jiryes, he had two daughters, Katrina and Miriam.

EBEID ABDUL MASSIH EL-FARR AND HIS DECENDANTS 19

Katrina was born in 1877 and Grandfather Jiryes Ebeid
married to Daoud Mizied.
According to my mother, she died
at the beginning of 1935, six
months before I was born. All her
children ended up in the US.

Miriam was born in 1880. She
became a nun and was known as
Sister Mary Teresa. I remember her
very well. She died in 1953 in
Jerusalem. We learned about her
death a few days later. She was
buried in Mamillah Rosary
Convent in Jerusalem. We were not
able to attend her funeral because

of “Israeli occupation.”
Ibrahim, the son of Ebeid, died at the age of 30, in 1882. His children

were little, and their grandfather Ebeid and his daughters Ni’meh and
Hanneh took care of them. No doubt the death of Ebeid’s children at a
young age made him sad and worried because his grandson, Jiryes, was a
child. He was very eager to see his grandson grow under his protection
and get married and have children.

Sarah, the mother of my grandfather Jiryes, the wife of Ibrahim, was
a young widow. She married Salih Khalil Nassir, from Birzeit, and she had
two daughters, Afifeh, and Sibat. I knew Aunt Sibat very well; we were
very close to her.

When Jiryes was 14 years old, his grandfather was worried that he
might not be able to see children in the family, so he fetched a wife for the
grandson and Grandpa Jiryes was married to Misa’deh Saadeh, the sister
of Abdallah Saadeh, the husband of his aunt Ni’meh. A few days before
his death, Ebeid was told a child was born named after him. He was
delighted and happy but it was a lie.

Grandfather Jiryes had several children from his first marriage. The
first child; Ebeid did not live long; he died few months after birth. Then,
Ibrahim the first also died as a child. His other children were Iskandar
1894-1967, Ibrahim the second 1898-1914, Jalileh 1903-1970, Naoum 1905
-1978, Louisa 1907-1986, and Adlah 1910-1943.

World War I: Grandpa and my Father
During World War I, when my father Naoum was a child, his mother

20 MY ROOTS ARE DEEP IN PALESTINE

was dead, Ibrahim, his older brother, died at the age of 16, and Iskander
the oldest was in the United States.

Naoum, my father, was the only man in the family left in Birzeit to
help his father to raise and protect the family. By the end of the war,
Birzeit was brutally attacked by the British forces because the Turkish
soldiers were in the town. The people were in disarray, many were killed
or wounded, houses were destroyed and the town suffered gravely. A bomb
hit my grandfather’s house and Fatimah, the gypsy woman who was taking
shelter in their house, was killed. Louisa, my aunt, lost her left palm from
shrapnel. They thought she was dead when they found her under the
wooden door unconscious and bleeding with some body parts of the ripped
gypsy woman scattered around. It was a horrible moment. Grandfather
was not in the house; probably he was out in the field. The majority of the
town left.

Ramallah was occupied by the British forces and was relatively safer
for the people from Birzeit to go to, so many families went there. My
father took his sisters and left to a valley in Birzeit called Khallet el-Sarar
where we had an olive orchard, and then they ended up in Jifnah, a
neighboring town near Birzeit. His sister, Louisa, was suffering from the
pain of her blown-up hand. It was rotten and falling, but luckily they were
found by their uncle, Abdallah Saadeh, who took them under his wing.
He cut her hanging hand with his shibrieh, a decorated knife that men
carry in a sheath attached to their belt, and treated her with crushed sage.

My grandfather panicked because he thought he lost his children. He
relentlessly looked for them and finally, after three days, he found them
with their maternal uncle.

After the war ended, Grandfather and his children returned to Birzeit
to find their house damaged. The olive oil from the well was running in
the street. What little furniture they had was stolen as well as their animals.
Nothing was left. My grandfather had to start all over and rebuild.
A few years later, he married his second wife, Katrina Salem Kaileh. They
had three sons, Youssef, Saleem and Hanna. Hanna suffered sunstroke
and died at the age of six months.

Besides tilling the land, my grandfather was a skilled carpenter and a
builder. In winter time, he converted his house to a carpentry shop making
tools for the peasants. Uncle Youssef learned the trade and became a
skilled carpenter as well.

The family got larger; my father got married, life became harder for
him to live in Birzeit and in the same house with his father and the rest
of the family. He felt that it was time for him to leave and start a life of his
own. My grandfather was not happy with the decision taken by my father

EBEID ABDUL MASSIH EL-FARR AND HIS DECENDANTS 21

but he had to realize that it was the right one. My father moved to Jaffa.
Later on, Uncle Youssef had to take the place of my father to help his
father on the land. When my grandfather died in 1946, my uncle, Youssef,
stayed in the house where all his children were born. He worked very hard
on the land and the burden was upon him. He was born in 1919 and died
in 1989

The luckiest one was Uncle Saleem, the youngest. He was fortunate
enough to go to high school in Jerusalem. It was a great achievement in
those days, in the 1930s. He worked in many places in Palestine. At times,
he was the head of the post office in Jericho, then a teacher in the Catholic
schools in Palestine run by the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem. Finally, he
settled in Nazareth and the family was separated because of the occupation
of Palestine by the Zionist Jews in 1948, and the birth of the Zionist entity
in Palestine.

Uncle Saleem moved back to Birzeit after Birzeit fell into Zionist
hands in 1967. He built a house and died in 1989, six months after his
brother Youssef. His children and descendants live in Nazareth and Birzeit

Uncle Youssef’s descendants are in the United States, Birzeit and
Amman.

Uncle Iskander, Birzeit, Naoum, my father Uncle Saleem, first
1962 with cousin Katerina from left

Aunt Louisa Aunt Adlah Aunt Jalileh wih uncle
Youssef, wife and some of
his children circa 1950

22 MY ROOTS ARE DEEP IN PALESTINE

CHAPTER 3

NAOUM AND FAMILY
LIVING IN JAFFA UNTIL 1948

My father grew up as a peasant. He worked many years tilling the
land until he married my mother, Miriam Shehadeh Hanna
Musallam in 1931. Life became harder and impossible for him
to stay in Birzeit in the same house with the rest of the family. He always
felt unfavorable treatment by his stepmother, so he was encouraged to
move by Aunt Adlah to Jaffa, where she was working.

He got a job at a printing shop for an orange-exporting firm, Al-
Malak Export Company. Later on, Aunt Adlah, through her employer,
got him another job in a law firm, Houmssy and Salameh. He was the
caretaker of the offices until May 1948. It was a good job for him, nice and
easy. Habib Houmssy, the head lawyer, was a very decent man and generous.
He did not fail to help my father financially, especially on holy days. After
Jaffa was occupied and we became refugees, he continued helping us. I
used to drop by the offices to play and chat with the lawyers and employees.
As a child, I enjoyed the candy and chocolate they gave me and my favorite
pastime was playing with the typewriter and the carbon papers that smeared
my hands and clothes.

Living in Jaffa

Jaffa was one of the largest cities in Palestine. Its population, including
suburbs, was about 125,000 in the mid-1940s of the 20th century. It was
built by our ancestors, the Phoenicians, in about 4000 BCE, long before
the appearance of the Bible. Jaffa means “the beauty” in the language of
our Phoenician ancestors. Indeed, it was beautiful and no wonder it was
known as the Bride of the Sea. It was famous for its orange groves that
surrounded many sections of the city.

Before 1948, it was the center of industry in Palestine.
By the 1930s, Jaffa was exporting tens of millions of citrus crates to the

22

NAOUM AND FAMILY: LIVING IN JAFFA UNTIL 1948 23

rest of the world, providing

thousands of jobs for the people of

the city and its environs and linking

them to the major commercial

centers of the Mediterranean coast

and the European continent. Import

and export companies, banks,

publication houses, textiles and

various industries flourished and

thousands of jobs were created. Jaffa

was also the cultural capital of

Palestine. Publishing houses,

theaters, and cultural clubs thrived

and the major daily newspapers were

published in Jaffa.

My parents were working very

hard to bring up four children; all

were boys: George, Ibrahim, Our family: Miriam my mother, Naoum
Michel, and Elias. my father, Ibrahim, Michel, George and
Elias circa 1945
Hanneh, the daughter of Ebeid,
was very eager to see the house of • George was born in 1932
Ebeid getting larger and expanding. • Ibrahim was born in 1935
She was also very happy to see • Michel was born in 1939
Naoum, her grandnephew, having • Elias was born in 1942

children, all boys. A few weeks
before she died, Hanneh met Aunt Louisa in church. She knew that my

mother was expecting and asked if Miriam gave birth. My Aunt Louisa

lied to her and told her, yes, it was a boy. Great-grandaunt Hanneh said

in Arabic, “Alhamdulillah illi imrit dar abi” (thank God that my father’s

house expanded). She was very happy to see the family getting larger; she

died at peace two weeks before Elias was born.

My mother made it a tradition to give birth in Birzeit. My brother

George and I were born in the house of Ebeid where step Grandmother

Katrina and my aunt Jalileh were taking care of her and of the newborns.

She stayed there about a month then returned to Jaffa. Michel was also

born in the house that my father and Amti (aunt) Adlah built in Birzeit.

Amti Louisa was the one who helped, and she was living in Birzeit at the

time, employed by the Catholic priest, Father Leonard Girard. Elias was

the only one to be born in Jaffa. I remember the day he was born; it was

on May 11, 1942 early morning. I went to the house of the midwife to tell

her that my mother was ready to give birth. Her house was a block away.

24 MY ROOTS ARE DEEP IN PALESTINE

I was seven years old. It was an exciting moment to have a new baby
brother in the family. That day I missed school.

George was named after my grandfather Jiryes (George is another
version of Jiryes). Grandfather named me Ibrahim after his father and the
two sons who did not live long. A few days after my birth, Grandmother
pulled the belly button cord by mistake. I bled a little and this caused an
infection that made me gravely ill with high fever and I started losing
weight. The doctor in Ramallah told my mother “Take your child home.
He is dying.” My mother was very desperate. She returned to Grandfather’s
house where the family gathered to be by my deathbed. My grandfather
was crying and he repented for naming me Ibrahim, for having no luck
with this name, His father was named Ibrahim and died at the age of 30.
His first son Ibrahim was a few months old when he died. The second
son, also Ibrahim, died when he was 16. He wanted to change my name
but my mother refused. The family rushed me back to Jaffa where Dr.
Khalil Saba treated me. I survived and the family members were happy.
Michel was named after Khalil the son of Ebeid. He was baptized with
that name, and later on he was known as Michel.

We lived in different houses; three houses were in al-Ajami and one
in al-Nuzha, the newest neighborhood in Jaffa, adjacent to al-Ajami. That
section was beautifully decorated with fountains, gardens with palm trees
and exotic flowers. It was a pleasure to walk in that area. Even though
Jaffa was very beautiful, al-Nuzha was different and special.

Top: Jaffa on the sea: close to our house
Bottom: Jamal Pasha St. in Nuzha section in Jaffa

NAOUM AND FAMILY: LIVING IN JAFFA UNTIL 1948 25

The last house we lived in was a small house located in an orange
orchard that belonged to the Jallad family. We were not paying rent, and
it was located in the al-Ajami neighborhood of Jaffa. About half a block
away, was al-Hilweh Street that crossed Jaffa from south to north. It was
a busy street; traffic and shops were abundant.

Orange orchards were in the city and the houses were at the edge of
the orchards and close to the street. Our house was no exception. The
orchard was beautiful; the fragrance of the orange blossoms was exquisite.
There were four pools for irrigation. They were larger than swimming
pools and deeper. We swam there in the hot simmering summer days or
sometimes in the water concrete canals that ran all over the orchard.

The beach was about three or four blocks away and we enjoyed it
tremendously. Sometimes we snuck out there, without the knowledge of
our parents, unaccompanied by adults. When they found out, we were
punished and grounded.

In Jaffa, I learned to love the land and agriculture. I cultivated a little
garden full of various flowers, from jasmine to gardenia. The love of flowers
stayed with me until now, in Chicago, where I made my balcony and our
living room a little garden that attracted many people to admire and
praise the wonderful display.

Memories and Experiences in Jaffa: First Experience of World
War II

I was probably four years old when my father came to Birzeit from Jaffa to
see us and the newborn, Michel. He took me to Jaffa with him, probably
to give my mother a break, and we stayed in a little room in the law firm
office where he worked. The room had one bed, a bathroom and a
kitchenette. The windows of the offices were taped and tinted for protection
from the German air raids. One night, we woke up with loud explosions
that shook the building. Both of us fell from the bed to the floor. Luckily,
no one was hurt, and there was no shattered glass or any damage. My
father decided to take me back to Birzeit where it was safe until he found
a new house for us in a safer area in Jaffa.

The Barber and His Friend

There was a barber in our neighborhood where we used to get our haircuts.
One day, I was there with my brother, George. While I was getting my hair
cut, another young man came in. He was a friend of the barber and they
talked about the happenings in Palestine; about the British and the danger

26 MY ROOTS ARE DEEP IN PALESTINE

of the Zionist movement. The young man was well aware of the situation,
He looked at us and said, “The Zionists are like a snake. If we do not crush
its head, these children will pay the price and suffer and Palestine will be
lost.” Even though I was a child, I felt the chill. This man was right; I still
remember him, the barber, and his words.

Terra Santa Boys School

The first among us to go to school was my brother, George. The school
was a long walking distance from the house. Sometimes, when we felt
tired, we took the bus. Sometimes, we walked to save the money to buy ice
cream or to go to the movies.

Al-Hamra Cinema House was our favorite and it was close to my
father’s work. The school was excellent. We learned Arabic and English
from kindergarten and French from second grade. The teachers were tough
and firm. We were not able to get help in doing our homework so we had
to do it with no supervision. My father was semi-literate and my mother
never went to school. Once, she told me that her maternal uncle, Moussa
Musallam, a Roman Catholic priest, took her to the town of Zababdeh in
Palestine to study in the school that he managed. However, a few days
later her father sent his older son, Uncle Jiryes, to bring her home because
he could not live with her away.

Though there was a school in Birzeit, she never went to it.
Unfortunately, this was the case for most of the kids, especially girls, in
the villages. We learned how to depend on ourselves. The school was also
located in al-Ajami. It was directed by the Franciscan Order of the Catholic
Church. The principal was a short monk, very brutal, especially if you
missed going to mass on Sundays. We had to go early because the teacher
in charge took the attendance and if anyone missed without getting an
excuse from his parents, God help him because he was flogged. It was
terrorizing to miss church.

The school we went to
until 1948

NAOUM AND FAMILY: LIVING IN JAFFA UNTIL 1948 27

The school was modern, spacious and beautiful; the teachers were
nice and dedicated, especially Dickran Eskegian who taught us art and
physical education. Father Ignatius was nicknamed Abouna Snesleh and
was very funny. He made us laugh. He was Maronite and taught us
catechism and French.

One day, some kids from the school threw orange peels through the
window from the schoolyard to our classroom on the second floor. Some
of the peels hit the priest on the head and we laughed. He got angry and
furious. He put us in a circle and smelled our hands to check to see if any
of us had the odor of orange. All of us did and we all were punished
because he could not identify the perpetrator: to him, we were all guilty.
Then, another volley of oranges came through the windows. We laughed
once again and he laughed as well. One day, he was sitting by the stairs
near one of the entrances of the school building. A friend named Spiro
Syriani pushed me and I fell on top of him. He was startled because he was
dosing. He stood up and asked who jumped on him. A student said,
“Father, it was Naoum.” He grabbed my brother George and punished
him. My brother knew it was me but he took the beating. We used to be
known as Naoum after my father.

The Bridge and the Patriotic Kids

There was a bridge called al-Ajami Bridge near the school. It was a main
thoroughfare in the middle of the city. Underneath it was a highway that
connected to the seaport. It was very busy and we used to go and watch

The Ajami Bridge

28 MY ROOTS ARE DEEP IN PALESTINE

the traffic passing by. When the problem of Palestine started, the British
took the side of the Zionist Jews to grant them our homeland or part of it.
The conflict started. As kids, we were affected and patriotic feeling inflamed
us. We started to go over the bridge and drop large cinder blocks or barrels
of trash on the British and Zionist trucks that passed under. Many times,
we inflicted damage but at the same time we were afraid to get caught or
shot at. We ran away back to the school compound like nothing happened.
My parents never knew about it; only the few friends who were in the
group. This simple act started reshaping my life to be militant and patriotic.

The War Ends: Another Started

I was going to school with my brother, George. That day, we decided to
walk. When we were close to the school, near the gate, we saw that some
of the students were jubilant and dancing. The bells of the churches rang;
cars blew horns. World War II was ended. We were happy because it was
a holiday. No school today. We turned back and formed a small
demonstration. Peace finally came to the world, we thought. In reality,
peace did not come. It became worse for us in Palestine. Though we were
children, we were well aware of what was going on. We knew that the
British were ruling Palestine and they were favoring the new illegal
immigrants, the foreign Jews, who were not natives. Disturbances started,
especially in the cities. The Zionists heightened their terror against the
Palestinians, and Jaffa was no exception.

Some Bitter Memories

We were living peacefully in our towns and villages until the Zionist entity
was created in our homeland and we were brutally evicted from our homes
to make room for the colonialist racist settlers. Thousands of our people
were murdered and hundreds of our villages were demolished.
Those foreigners now are living in our homes, on our farms and we were
forced to become refugees scattered around the world. Millions of us are
living in miserable camps, waiting patiently for the conscience of the
world to wake up and help them return home.

When I was 11 years old, in Jaffa, I witnessed some Zionist terrorist
acts that I have never been able to forget. They dwell in my mind and
never depart; they became part of me and my experience of being
Palestinian. Once, I was with few kids from my school, roaming around in
our favorite hideout, in a crowded vegetable market. A pushcart exploded.
The explosion was very powerful. A few people were killed and scores were

NAOUM AND FAMILY: LIVING IN JAFFA UNTIL 1948 29

wounded, some so seriously, that, later on, they died from the severe
wounds. In an intent to blow up “The Barracks,” a large building, used to
house some British police officers in Jaffa, located in the al-Ajami
neighborhood, a few meters behind our house, the Zionists dressed like
Arabs. They drove a caravan of camels, loaded with bombs, hidden under
loads of vegetables. The bombs exploded, the camels were killed and their
parts flew all over. Our house was cracked right from the northwestern
corner. Luckily, we were not hurt.

Fouad Kobti, a kid from my school living in my neighborhood, was
shot in the chest but he survived. We used to look at his wound with
amazement and wondered how he survived. He was proud of it. On Palm
Sunday 1948, the worshippers were praying in a procession around St.
Anthony Roman Catholic Church when Zionist mortar bombs started to
fall all around the churchyard and Terra Santa School. The prayers were
disrupted and the people panicked.

A bullet pierced our wooden door and struck against the wall, missing
my father’s head by one or two inches. He was lucky and we were as well
to have our father around.

Omar ibn al-Farran (Omar the son of the baker) was about 15 years
old and used to assist his father in the community bakery where we used
to bake our bread. Like any other child of his age, he had his hopes and
dreams, but his dreams were not fulfilled. The bakery was blown up by
Zionist gang artillery fire in the residential area where it was located. His
life was cut short and his body was torn apart into many pieces. Young
Omar was gone and we were not able to see him anymore. Neither were
we able to carry the dough to the bakery to bake bread. Omar and the
bakery were gone and Jaffa too.

The Saraya

The Saraya house, the government house in Jaffa located in the center of
the city, was blown up by the Zionist Irgun gang on January 8, 1948. A
truck full of explosives was used to execute the crime. As a result, 70
innocent Arabs were killed and dozens were wounded. The building was
used to feed and help poor and orphaned children. Barclays Bank, opposite
of the Saraya, was damaged and robbed. Half a block before the attack
took place, the criminal Zionists rolled a barrel full of gasoline and set it
afire. My father was at his work and he witnessed the event. It took place
in front of the building where the law firm was.

One day, in Jaffa, I was watching a battle from a safe distance with an
older man. We used to call him Ammo Nayef Kassis. Ammo is an Arabic

30 MY ROOTS ARE DEEP IN PALESTINE

word that means uncle; a word children use for respect when talking to an
older man. It was night and very clear. We were on top of a house watching
a battle taking place and we saw the shiny bullets flying in the sky towards
us, but failed to reach us because we were too far away. Ammo Nayef
asked me to stand behind a short wall that surrounds the roof and watch.
A few minutes later, some of the bullets whizzed over our heads and hit
the wall behind us that was taller than our protection wall. Then, we
decided to come down to the safety of the house.

Many times when I was going to school, or coming back to the house,
I witnessed trucks carrying wounded people or dead corpses going to the
government hospital which was not far from our house, about three or
four blocks away. These scenes do not depart my memory. They are not
good memories, they are painful ones.

The Ambush

Several Zionist terrorists from the Irgun Zvai Leumi gang were wounded
and taken to the government hospital for treatment in al-Ajami by the
British soldiers. Some young Arab fighters were getting ready to ambush
them half a block away from our house. The kids in our neighborhood
were asked to help the fighters to fill some bags with sand from the orange
grove where we lived. My brother, George, Michel and other kids from the
neighborhood helped fill up these bags. Of course, I was one of them.
After we did the job, we stayed out to continue playing. It became dark
and the resistance people asked us to go inside our houses for safety
because the battle would start and we might get hurt or killed by stray
bullets. We obeyed . The British tricked the Arab fighters by transporting
the wounded in a regular bus to Tel Aviv. A few minutes later, a decoy
armored convoy passed by and the fighters opened fire but with no effect.
Also, we learned from the news in the morning that the wounded Zionists
reached their destination safely by bus and not in armored cars. This was
indeed evidence of British support to the Zionist movement to take over
Palestine.

Back to Birzeit

One day, in April 1948, we woke up early in the morning and were getting
ready to go to school. My father was there in the house and I was surprised
that he had not gone to work yet. Then, he said that he was sending us to
Birzeit to be safe for a few weeks then we would be back to join him in
Jaffa. Odeh Abdul Hadi came with his truck to the house to pick us up.

NAOUM AND FAMILY: LIVING IN JAFFA UNTIL 1948 31

We took some of the furniture and a pair of beds and loaded them on the
truck. Then, we started on our way to Birzeit. My mother and little brother,
Elias, were in the cabin with the driver, also a friend from Birzeit.

Almost midway between Jaffa and Ramleh, there was a Jewish colony
called Neiter. It was a fortification by the highway and it was a dangerous
spot where many Arab cars were attacked and many people were killed. It
was a chance we had to take. My mother was very nervous and concerned.
Luckily, two British tanks were parked there and their guns were directed
toward the area of the colony. It was a very intense moment. Thank
goodness everything was fine. We arrived at Birzeit, unloaded our meager
belongings and slept in the house for the first time in awhile without
hearing guns or hearing bullets whizzing around or hearing bombs
exploding. Elias, my little brother, was always crying and complaining, he
was saying continuously “I want to go home.” Home for him was in Jaffa
and the orange grove .

A few weeks passed and the situation worsened. Jaffa became like a
ghost town. Most of the people were forced to leave. The courts were
closed and so was the office of the law firm where my father was employed.
My father lost his job and had to leave. Saddened and despaired, he
returned to Birzeit.

Our house in Birzeit

32 MY ROOTS ARE DEEP IN PALESTINE

CHAPTER 4

ROOTS OF PALESTINE’S PROBLEM:
SYKES-PICOT AND ZIONIST TERROR

November 2, 1917: A day Not to Be Forgotten

I will never forget the grand betrayal of the Western powers to our
cause of unity and liberation. Without Arab help and support, the
West wouldn’t have achieved victory over the Ottoman Turks. Sharif
Hussein Bin Ali, the ruler of Hijaz and Najd launched the Great Arab
Revolt in June 1916 against the Ottoman army during the First World
War and sided with the allies with the hope to unify the Arabs in one
independent state as promised.

As soon as First World War ended a secret agreement between Britain
and France, known as Sykes-Picot, to divide the Arab homeland into
mini-states under their Imperialist domination was revealed by the
Bolshevik revolution in Russia.

This notorious Sykes-Picot Agreement (15 May 1916) was struck as a
prelude to facilitate the creation of the Zionist state in Palestine at Arab
expense. The Balfour Declaration, granting a national home in Palestine
to the Zionist movement, followed a year and a half later, November 2,
1917. For this reason, Palestine was carved out of Syria and put under the
British Mandate.

The Balfour Declaration treated Palestine as real estate owned by
Britain and granted it to the Zionist Jews. It referred to the Arabs of
Palestine, who comprised 92% of the population, as “non-Jewish
communities of Palestine.” This gave a false impression that the Arabs of
Palestine were an insignificant minority occupying a position subordinate
to the Zionists. The Arabs were able to diagnose the malicious intention
of the British government and understood the real danger behind such a
declaration, robbing them of their land and secure it for the Zionists.

Palestine was victimized and partitioned furthermore in 1947. The
USSR and the United States played leading roles in bringing about a vote

32

SYKES-PICOT AND ZIONIST TERROR 33

favorable to the usurpation of our land. Unauthorized US nationals and
organizations, including members of Congress, notably in the closing
days of the General Assembly, brought pressure on various foreign delegates
and their home governments to induce them to support the US position
on the Palestine question.

US Ambassador to the UN, Warren Austin, had opposed his country’s
position on Palestine. He could not comprehend “how it was possible to
carve out of an area already too small for a state still smaller state.” He
thought it was certain that such a state would have to defend itself with
bayonets forever until extinguished in blood. The Arabs, he said, “would
never be willing to have such a small state in their heart.”

Mr. Warren Austin was right; the Arabs will not tolerate such a settler/
colonialist state in their midst. The Western powers and their Zionist
allies terrorized the Palestinians and forced them into exile. Injustice will
not survive. The Palestinian fighters will continue their struggle by all
means necessary to secure the total liberation of Palestine and for the
return of the people to their villages, towns and cities, and homes.

Terrorist Gangs: a Bit of History

Soon after the end of World War II, there were three basic para-military
Zionist organizations in Palestine, working against the Arab people, with
the specific purpose of driving Arabs out of Palestine. These were the
Haganah, the Irgun Zvai Leumi, and the Stern Gang.

Before the British mandate, the Jewish settlers had formed a group of
mounted armed watchmen called “Hashomar” and with the advent of the
British mandate, it became the Haganah (Defense). With a membership
of 60,000 Zionist Jews, the Haganah had a field army of 16,000 trained
men and a unit called the Palmach, which was a full-time force, numbering
about 6,000.

The Irgun Zvai Leumi included between 3,000 and 5,000 armed
terrorists and grew out of the Haganah and its Palmach branch in 1933.
The Irgun was not ready to obey the Jewish Agency which sought to dilute
the terror of the Haganah in order not to lose its respectability.

In 1939, one of Irgun’s commanding officers, Abraham Stern, left the
parent organization and formed the Stern Gang, numbering some 200 to
300 dangerous fanatics.

Some Zionist Terrorist Activities, 1939-1948

In 1939, the Haganah blew up the Iraqi oil pipeline near Haifa. Moshe

34 MY ROOTS ARE DEEP IN PALESTINE

Dayan was one of the participants in the act. This technique was used
again in 1947 at least four times.

During August 20, 1937-June 29, 1939, Zionists carried out a series of
attacks against Arab buses, resulting in the death of 24 persons and
wounding 25 others.

* November 25, 1940: S.S. Patria was blown up by Jewish terrorists
in Haifa harbor, killing 268 illegal Jewish immigrants.

* February 24, 1942: S.S. Struma exploded in the Black Sea, killing
769 illegal Jewish immigrants, described by the Jewish Agency as
an act of “mass protest and mass suicide.”

* November 6, 1944: Zionist terrorists of the Stern Gang
assassinated the British Minister Resident in the Middle East,
Lord Moyne, in Cairo.

* July 22, 1946: Zionist terrorists blew up the King David Hotel in
Jerusalem, which housed the central offices of the civilian
administration of the government of Palestine, killing or injuring
more than 200 persons. The Irgun officially claimed responsibility
for the incident, but subsequent evidence indicated that both the
Haganah and the Jewish Agency were involved.

* October 1, 1946: The British Embassy in Rome was badly damaged
by bomb explosions, for which Irgun claimed responsibility.

* June 1947: Letters sent to British Cabinet ministers were found
to contain bombs.

* September 3, 1947: A postal bomb addressed to the British War
Office exploded in the post office sorting room in London, injuring
two persons. It was attributed to Irgun or Stern Gangs. (The
Sunday Times, Sept. 24, 1972, p.8).

* December 11, 1947: Six Arabs were killed and 30 wounded when
bombs were thrown from Jewish trucks at Arab buses in Haifa;
12 Arabs were killed and others injured in an attack by armed
Zionists on an Arab coastal village near Haifa.

* December 13, 1947: Zionist terrorists, believed to be members of
Irgun Zvai Leumi, killed 18 Arabs and wounded nearly 60 in
Jerusalem, Jaffa, and Lydda areas. In Jerusalem, bombs were
thrown in an Arab marketplace near the Damascus Gate. In Jaffa,
bombs were thrown into an Arab cafe; in the Arab village of al-
Abbassiya, near Lydda. Twelve Arabs were killed in an attack
with mortars and automatic weapons.

* December 19, 1947: Haganah terrorists attacked an Arab village
near Safad, blowing up two houses, in the ruins of which were

SYKES-PICOT AND ZIONIST TERROR 35

found the bodies of 10 Arabs, including five children. Haganah
admitted responsibility for the attack.
* December 29, 1947: Two British constables and 11 Arabs were
killed and 32 Arabs injured, at the Damascus Gate in Jerusalem
when Irgun members threw a bomb from a taxi.
* December 30, 1947: A mixed force of the Zionist Palmach and
the “Carmel Brigade” attacked the village of Balad al Sheikh,
killing more than 60 Arabs.
* 1947-1948: More than 700,000 Palestinian Arabs were uprooted
from their homes and land. Since then, they have been denied
the right to return or been given compensation for their property.
After their expulsion, the “Israeli Forces” razed to the ground
385 Arab villages and towns out of a total of 475, and obliterated
their remains.
* January 1, 1948: Haganah terrorists attacked a village on the slopes
of Mount Carmel; 17 Arabs were killed and 33 wounded.
* January 4, 1948: Haganah terrorists wearing British Army
uniforms penetrated into the center of Jaffa and blew up the Serai
(the old Turkish Government House) which was used as a
headquarters of the Arab National Committee, killing more than
40 persons and wounding 98 others.
* January 5, 1948: The Arab-owned Semiramis Hotel in Jerusalem
was blown up, killing 20 persons, among them Viscount de Tapia,
the Spanish Consul. Haganah admitted responsibility for this
crime.
* January 7, 1948: Seventeen Arabs were killed by a bomb at the
Jaffa Gate in Jerusalem, three while trying to escape. Further
casualties, including the murder of a British officer near Hebron,
were reported from different parts of the country.
* January 16, 1948: Zionists blew up three Arab buildings. In the
first, eight children between the ages of 18 months and 12 years,
died.
* December 13, 1947-February 10, 1948: Seven incidents of bomb-
tossing at innocent Arab civilians in cafés and markets, killing
138 and wounding 271 others. During this period, there were
nine attacks on Arab buses. Zionists mined passenger trains on
at least four occasions, killing 93 persons and wounding 161 others.
* February 15, 1948: Haganah terrorists attacked an Arab village
near Safad, blew up several houses, killing 11 Arabs, including
four children.
* March 3, 1948: Heavy damage was done to the Arab-owned Salam

36 MY ROOTS ARE DEEP IN PALESTINE

building in Haifa (a seven-story block of apartments and shops)
by Zionists who drove an army lorry (truck) up to the building
and escaped before the detonation of 400 lbs. of explosives;
casualties numbered 11 Arabs and three Armenians killed and 23
injured. The Stern Gang claimed responsibility for the incident.
* March 22, 1948: A housing block on Iraq Street in Haifa was
blown up killing 17 and injuring 100 others. Four members of the
Stern Gang drove two truck-loads of explosives into the street
and abandoned the vehicles before the explosion.
* March 31, 1948: The Cairo-Haifa Express was mined, for the
second time in a month, by an electronically-detonated land mine
near Benyamina, killing 40 persons and wounding 60 others.
* On the night of April 9, 1948, the Irgun Zvai Leumi surrounded
the village of Deir Yassin, located on the outskirts of Jerusalem,
and after giving the sleeping residents a 15-minute warning to
evacuate, Menachem Begin’s terrorist groups attacked the village
of 700 people, killing 254 men, women, and children and wounding
300 others. Begin’s terrorists tossed many of the bodies in the
village well and paraded 150 captured women and children through
the Jewish sectors of Jerusalem. Several massacres, equal to Deir
Yassin or more heinous, that took place under the eyes of the
British army, caused panic and fear among Palestinians who were
unarmed and helpless, to flee for safety they never found. Under
the gun, they were forced into exile.
* April 16, 1948: Zionists attacked the former British army camp at
Tel Litvinsky, killing 90 Arabs.
* April 19, 1948: Fourteen Arabs were killed in a house in Tiberias,
which was blown up by Zionist terrorists.
* May 3, 1948: A book bomb addressed to a British Army officer,
who had been stationed in Palestine exploded, killing his brother,
Rex Farran.
* May 11, 1948: A letter bomb addressed to Sir Evelyn Barker, former
commanding officer in Palestine, was detected in the nick of time
by his wife.
* April 25, 1948-May 13, 1948: Wholesale looting of Jaffa was carried
out following armed attacks by Irgun and Haganah terrorists.
They stripped and carried away everything they could, and
destroyed what they could not take with them.

A story must be told, from the annals of Palestine about the King
David Hotel in Jerusalem massacre.

SYKES-PICOT AND ZIONIST TERROR 37

The King David Hotel explosion of July 22, 1946 (Palestine), which
resulted in the deaths of 92 Britons, Arabs, and Jews, and in the wounding
of 58, was not just an act of “Jewish extremists,” but a premeditated
massacre conducted by the Irgun in agreement with the highest Jewish
political authorities in Palestine — the Jewish Agency and its head David-
Ben-Gurion.

According to Yitshaq Ben-Ami, a Palestinian Jew who spent 30 years
in exile after the establishment of Israel investigating the crimes of the
“ruthless clique heading the internal Zionist movement:” the Irgun had
conceived a plan for the King David attack early in 1946, but the green
light was given only on July first. According to Dr. Sneh, the operation
was personally approved by Ben-Gurion, from his self-exile in Europe.
Sadeh, the operations officer of the Haganah, and Giddy Paglin, the head
of the Irgun operation under Menachem Begin agreed that 35 minutes
advance notice would give the British time enough to evacuate the wing,
without enabling them to disarm the explosion.

The Jewish Agency’s motive was to destroy all evidence the British
had gathered proving that the terrorist crime waves in Palestine were not
merely the actions of “fringe” groups, such as the Irgun and Stern Gang,
but were committed in collusion with the Haganah and Palmach groups
and under the direction of the highest political body of the Zionist
establishment itself, namely the Jewish Agency.

That so many innocent civilian lives were lost in the King David
massacre is a normal part of the pattern of the history of Zionist outrages:
A criminal act is committed, allegedly by an isolated group, but actually
under the direct authorization of the highest Zionist authorities, whether
of the Jewish Agency during the Palestine Mandate or of the Government
of Israel thereafter.

The following is a statement made in the House of Commons by then
British Prime Minister Clement Attlee: “On July 22, 1946, one of the
most dastardly and cowardly crimes in recorded history took place. We
refer to the blowing up of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem.”

Ninety-two persons lost their lives in that stealth attack, 45 were
injured, among whom there were many high officials, junior officers and
office personnel, both men and women. The King David Hotel was used
as an office housing the secretariat of the Palestine government and British
Army Headquarters. The attack was made on 22 July at about 12 o’clock
noon when offices are usually in full swing. The attackers, disguised as
milkmen, carried the explosives in milk containers, placed them in the
basement of the Hotel and ran away.

The chief secretary to the Government of Palestine, Sir John Shaw,

38 MY ROOTS ARE DEEP IN PALESTINE

declared in a broadcast:

“As head of the Secretariat, the majority of the dead and
wounded were my own staff, many of whom I have known
personally for 11 years. They are more than official
colleagues. British, Arabs, Jews, Greeks, Armenians;
senior officers, police, my orderly, my chauffeur,
messengers, guards, men, and women — young and old
— they were my friends.

“No man could wish to be served by a more industrious,
loyal and honest group of ordinary decent people. Their
only crime was their devoted, unselfish and impartial
service to Palestine and its people. For this, they have
been rewarded by cold-blooded mass murder.”

Although members of the Irgun Z’vai Leumi took responsibility for
this crime, yet they also made it public later that they obtained the consent
and approval of the Haganah Command, and it follows, that of the Jewish
Agency.

The King David Hotel massacre shocked the conscience of the civilized
world. On July 23, Anthony Eden, leader of the British opposition
Conservative Party, posed a question in the House of Commons to Prime
Minister Atlee of the Labor Party, asking “the Prime Minister whether he
has any statement to make on the bomb outrage at the British Headquarters
in Jerusalem.” The Prime Minister responded:

“…It appears that, after exploding a small bomb in the
street, presumably as a diversionary measure — this did
virtually no damage — a lorry drove up to the tradesmen’s
entrance of the King David Hotel and the occupants,
after holding up the staff at pistol point, entered the
kitchen premises carrying a number of milk cans. At some
stage of the proceedings, they shot and seriously wounded
a British soldier who attempted to interfere with them.
All available information so far is to the effect that they
were Jews. Somewhere in the basement of the hotel, they
planted bombs which went off shortly afterward. They
appear to have made good their escape.

“Every effort is being made to identify and arrest the

SYKES-PICOT AND ZIONIST TERROR 39

perpetrators of this outrage. The work of rescue in the
debris, which was immediately organized, still continues.
The next-of-kin of casualties are being notified by telegram
as soon as accurate information is available. The House
will wish to express their profound sympathy with the
relatives of the killed and with those injured in this
dastardly outrage.”

King David Hotel bombed

Text ot the Balfour Declaration:
(November 2, 1917)

The British government decided to endorse the establishment of a Jewish
home in Palestine. After discussions within the cabinet and consultations
with Jewish leaders, the decision was made public in a letter from British
Foreign Secretary Lord Arthur James Balfour to Lord Rothschild. The
contents of this letter became known as the Balfour Declaration.

40 MY ROOTS ARE DEEP IN PALESTINE

Foreign Office
November 2nd, 1917

Dear Lord Rothschild,
I have much pleasure in conveying to you on behalf of His Majesty’s

Government, the following declaration of sympathy with Jewish Zionist
aspirations which has been submitted to and approved by, the Cabinet
His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine
of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors
to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood
that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious
rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine or the rights and
political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country. I should be grateful
if you would bring this declaration to the knowledge of the Zionist
Federation.

Yours,
Arthur James Balfour

____________________

Notes
1939 — Jerusalem Post Office

From a sweet British Lady To Ibrahim Ebeid

I wonder why you left out the bombing of the Jerusalem Post Office in
1939. My father had an office in the building although he was out at the
Jerusalem automatic exchange at the time. I still have several pictures he
took of the damage. My memory tells me that one of the Arab postal staff
was killed but as I was only five at the time, I may have muddled that with
another incident.

Orde Wingate, a British high ranking officer, a general, was assigned
to Palestine since he was an ardent supporter of Zionism he trained the
Jewish paramilitary to be more effective in combat tactics and retaliation,
and the ethnic cleansing of Palestine started.

SYKES-PICOT AND ZIONIST TERROR 41

CHAPTER 5

MEMORIES AND THOUGHTS

“Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England be-
longs to the English or France to the French. It is wrong and inhuman to
impose the Jews on the Arabs.”

— Mahatma Gandhi

Anywhere and at any price was the aim of the Zionist movement to
have a Jewish state; many places were suggested beside Palestine.
Among those suggested countries were Argentina, Uganda,
Cyprus, Russia, and others.

In April 2014, the British Library revealed that Bahrain and al-Hassa
suggested a Jewish entity decades before its founding in 1948. The British
ambassador to France, at the time, Lord Francis Bertie, received a letter
dated September 12, 1917, with an appeal from Dr. M.L Rothstein, a
Russian-Jewish doctor living in France requesting the help of establishing
a Jewish State. He asked the British government to send 30,000 British
troops to conquer Bahrain then al-Hasa, which was under the Ottoman
rule. The Russian doctor suggested that he would assemble a Jewish fight-
ing force made of 120,000 men to join the British troops to occupy the
designated area to establish a Jewish state. He said it would be close to
reality when the first 1,000 men arrived at the area. The request was
rejected a month before Balfour declared his agreement to grant Palestine
a Jewish homeland.

Why were all other places rejected and only Palestine was chosen? Is
it because of the myth that God gave the Promised Land to the Jews? If so,
then what kind of God was he? Was he a real estate broker? Or was he a
prejudiced God? If God’s promise was to the old Jews who were known as
Hebrews, then who were the Hebrews? Weren’t they the sons of Abraham
as the Bible claims? Who was Abraham and where did he come from?
Wasn’t he a Chaldean from Ur of Chaldea? These “facts” prove to us that
the old Hebrews were indeed Chaldeans and the present Jews have no
relation to Abraham and they are not his descendants. The Chaldeans

41

42 MY ROOTS ARE DEEP IN PALESTINE

are old Arab tribes originated from Arabia and we were the intended
people, the chosen ones and the promised land is ours, not the Khazar
Jews who are Europeans and have no relation whatsoever with Semitic
people. We were living in that part of the world since humans first occu-
pied the area; we are the descendants of the Chaldeans, the Canaanites,
and the Phoenicians

One of the reasons the British and the West decided to usurp Pales-
tine and grant it to the Jews, was not to solve the Jewish problem as they
claim, but to get rid of them, and by doing so, we the Palestinians paid a
heavy price and a continuous holocaust was imposed upon us.

Ilan Pappé, in his book, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, stated
that the Jewish forces, whether Haganah, Irgun or the Lehi group, at-
tacked Arab villages prior to the May 15, 1948 Israeli declaration of inde-
pendence. He writes:

On a cold Wednesday afternoon, 10 March 1948, a group
of eleven men, veteran Zionist leaders together with young
military Jewish officers, put the final touches to a plan
for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. That same evening,
military orders were dispatched to the units on the ground
to prepare for the systematic expulsion of the Palestin-
ians from vast areas of the country … When it was over,
more than half of Palestine’s native population, close to
800,000 people, had been uprooted.

Ethnic cleansing of Jaffa April 1948

MEMORIES AND THOUGHTS 43

Summer 1948 to Be Remembered

As a result of ethnic cleansing, thousands of refugees, mostly women,
children and elderly, hungry, thirsty and overwhelmed with panic and
fear, filled the highway from Lydda to Birzeit. I joined scores of people
from the village to help them. We offer them water and food. Thousands
settled in caves and under olive trees. They made hasty shelters from rags
and bushes to protect them from heat and to give them some sort of
privacy.

The winter of 1948 was bitter cold. Most of those refugees, who had
never seen snow before, found themselves under a heavy blanket of the
white cold stuff that made them desperate and fearful for their lives.

Birzeit, with a population that did not exceed 2,000, swelled to 14,000
or more. Seeing this human tragedy befalling their brethren and the trag-
edy widening, the people of Birzeit opened their homes, schools, churches
and mosques to shelter the victims of Zionism and Western imperialists
who helped create this catastrophe.

Schools were closed and the situation was unbearable; everyone felt
pain and despair. Fear was dominant. The hope of the people for the
immediate return to their homes was shattered and they were forced to
live in permanent camps which lacked running water and other basic
facilities. Years later, the refugees started building their dwellings with tin,
mud, and stones collected from the surrounding areas. These refugees,
with their descendants, are still living in miserable conditions impatiently
waiting for the conscience of the world to wake up, if it ever does.

Help from the United Nations Relief and Work Agency (UNRWA)

Several months later, some humanitarian organizations started to help
the Palestinians cope with the new situation that was imposed upon them.
Tents were distributed to the refugees and monthly meager food rationing
started to arrive. The help consisted of flour, rice, sugar, margarine or oil,
but the amount was not sufficient. My brother, George, and I went to the
distribution center, which was in the open air, waiting in line to get what-
ever ration was allotted to our family of six and then loaded it on my
uncle’s donkey (or a rented one) and took it home. In winter, the cold
wind was piercing our tiny bodies and freezing us; many times we suffered
frostbite. In summer, the sun was very strong, and I remember once I
suffered sunstroke, I fainted and fell on the ground with face down. I woke
up surrounded by people who were helping me by pouring water on my
face, and my nose was bleeding. My nose kept bothering me until I had

44 MY ROOTS ARE DEEP IN PALESTINE

surgery performed to repair the damage in Mainz, Germany, in Septem-
ber 1960, three weeks before I headed to the United States.

Seeing the Palestinian tragedy unfolding affected me deeply and
radicalized my thoughts since childhood. The Western world, the United
Nations, and humanitarian organizations were treating us like beggars. I
felt at that time, we are not beggars nor are we waiting for the crumbs that
fall from the tables of the imperialists to fill our stomachs, and after all,
they were responsible for our suffering. We are very proud, very industri-
ous and very creative people. We have a country in which we were living,
in peace and prosperity, until the Western powers ripped the Arab home-
land apart in 1916 and Palestine was usurped and given to the Zionists in
1948.

School Under Olive Trees

In October 1948, the UNRWA opened a school under the olive trees.
There were few teachers and at the beginning, there were no books, pen-
cils or copybooks. Being eager for learning, I joined the school. Since we
had no benches, we sat on the ground and used our fingers as pencils. The
copybook was the smooth dirt in which we solved simple arithmetic prob-
lems. I remember the last name of my teacher, Abou Zeid, a young and
energetic man.

A few days later, the Latin Patriarchate School opened its doors and
many of us joined. Among the students was my good friend Mohammad
Wahbeh Mustafa, whom I met under the olive trees. He was a refugee
from the village of Abbasiyah near Lydda. Our friendship lasted until he
passed away in Las Vegas on September 19, 2003.

Soon after, the UNRWA School moved to a different area of the town
and established itself as a normal school for the refugees. Unfortunately,
my teacher, Abou Zeid, was assigned to another school near the ceasefire
lines. He was killed in an Israeli raid.

I spent two years at Birzeit Latin School. I was very religious and very
often participated in reading or serving mass as an altar boy. Father An-
tonio Buzo, an Italian priest, sent me to the Catholic seminary in Beit
Jala, near Jerusalem, within walking distance of Bethlehem. In school, we
learned French and Latin in addition to our regular classes and religion.
It would have taken me 12 years to be ordained as a priest if I stayed. Life
there was not easy, it was tough and I did not fit; I had to leave. There
were 26 seminarians in our class and only one continued to be ordained.
Unfortunately, a few years later, he was killed in a car accident.

MEMORIES AND THOUGHTS 45

Refugee camp Schools in refugee camps

Muhammad Wahbeh, childhood friend Me at the seminary

I was more moved by political events than concentrating on my stud-
ies to be a priest. I went back to Birzeit again. The two years I spent at the
seminary did not benefit me, I lost two years and when I graduated from
high school I was older than many of my classmates. Between the war and
the seminary, I graduated in 1958 instead of 1954. This did not affect me
because my entire childhood was engulfed by turmoil and upheavals; it
gave me the motivation to continue.

The violent events that took place in Palestine, especially in Jaffa,
where I witnessed or observed them, affected me and haunted each of my
friends. One day we were collecting some green almonds from a tree. I was
climbing a “sinisleh,” a crude retaining wall, to reach the fruits when the
sinisleh gave in and collapsed and made a noise similar to a crack of a
machinegun. In a panic, my friend shouted, “Take cover! Machinegun
fire.” Then, he took a prone position, I laughed and said, “No, Naim, this
is not a machine gun. you’re not in Jaffa. The retaining wall collapsed.”

I was obsessed with the news, so I bought the daily newspapers to
learn about the news of the battles that were occurring between the Arabs

46 MY ROOTS ARE DEEP IN PALESTINE

and Zionists. In Jaffa, I bought papers from a grocery store near our house
from Mr. Badawi Elhaj Issrif and in Birzeit, from a storekeeper who was
also a butcher. Uncle Shukri Nasser kept the newspaper aside for me. At
that time, I was an avid reader. There was no radio in my house because
we were not able to afford one. My maternal cousin, Suleiman Musallam,
who lived across the street from us, had one. I was able to listen to the
news in his house or in a nearby coffee shop.

I reached a conclusion that the Zionist occupation of Palestine was
not merely an invasion motivated by material greed, it was also a racist
religious invasion that has no parallel in history, except for the Crusades,
attempting to destroy our existence. The Zionist invasion was encour-
aged, coached and supported by the Western Imperialist powers, espe-
cially by Britain, then by the United States of America. It was encouraged
because the Zionist movement was born in the West. It is a product of
Western imperialist thought and philosophy built on racist ideology. I am
well aware of the dangers of imperialism and Zionism. I consider that
imperialism, new and old, is the first enemy and the Zionist entity, Israel,
is its consequence.

I believe that the fate of Israel is linked with the fate of imperialism.
It is not necessarily its sole tool; it is its partner and ally. When imperial-
ism is defeated and smashed, the Zionist entity will have no any ally to
depend on. The link between both will be smashed as well and the entity
will end. This does not mean that the Jews will be thrown into the sea.
Those who choose to be loyal citizens of Palestine will be treated as such.
Our nationalism is very humanitarian and open, it is not built on racism,
and it is very tolerant.

The Village of Birzeit

Living in Birzeit was very simple; most of the people depended on farm-
ing. Our house consisted of one room where all of us lived, but it was a
warm shelter. It was expanded later on.

When the refugees started pouring into the town, Antoinette Jallad
Asfour, with her daughter, moved to our house. We knew her in Jaffa and
she spent several months with us until she was able to return to join her
husband in Jaffa through the help of the Red Cross.

Birzeit was a strategic town in the middle of Palestine. When the war
started between the Arabs and the Zionist gangs in 1947, Birzeit became
the headquarters of the Palestinian irregular fighters, al-Jihad al-Moqadas,
where the Palestinian leader, Abdul Qadir al-Husseini, established the
central command. When Abdul Qadir was killed defending Jerusalem on

MEMORIES AND THOUGHTS 47

April 9, 1948, a huge gathering took place in Birzeit to eulogize him. It was
a sad day, a day that dwelled on me until these days.

Now, Birzeit is a city; it expanded and linked to other villages. It has
several high schools and the largest university in Palestine, known as
Birzeit University. It became a center of education and learning.

Vineyard and Olive Trees

Like the rest of the people of Birzeit, my family owned olive orchards and
a vineyard. My father and Uncle Yousef worked very hard all year around
to help the family survive. When the season of olive harvest arrived in the
fall we, the children, joined the family to help collect the olives put in large
sacks and loaded them on donkeys or mules to take home. We did this
hard work for several days and when the harvest was over, we had to
transport the olives to the oil processing plant, where the olives were
crushed and squeezed to extract the oil. The residue, called jift, was used
as fuel to keep us warm in winter time or to cook our food. The peasants
were happy and content because they were able to have a supply for the
whole year and sell some of the produce to pay their bills and earn some
spending money.

The most enjoyable part of the land while I was living in Birzeit was
Makatha, where our vineyard was located. It was within walking distance

Abdulqader Husseini Commander Section of old Birzeit, the village
of Jihad Muqadas

Section of the city of Birzeit 2018

48 MY ROOTS ARE DEEP IN PALESTINE

of our house. Each part of the land in Birzeit had a name well known by
the people of the town.

I used to spend days there in the summer and the beginning of the fall
without going to the house. My friends were accustomed to join me to
enjoy nature and eat grapes and figs, especially at night when it is nice and
cool. To protect ourselves from the sun and to have privacy, we built an
arisheh, a shelter, made with branches and flattened bushes with four
walls and a roof with an open door and one or two windows. This place
was our living and sleeping quarters. It was cool, like air conditioning,
when the breeze penetrated its walls.

Many people were there in neighboring farms, close to ours, and at
night, we built bonfires. We played, danced and sang around them. Be-
sides having fun, food was cooked and shared. They are happy memories
that cannot be erased.

We had a dog called Max. He used to accompany us and remain there
for the duration of our stay. He was very smart and knew the borders of
our farm. No intruder dared to step in and enter the shelter while we were
away. Of course, water and food were put aside for him to suffice for the
period we were away. When the dog died, we felt sad. I buried him in our
backyard.

My father made red wine every year. He was an expert and his wine
was delicious. When my Muslim friends, who are not allowed to drink
alcohol, came to the house to have some of that red stuff, it was served to
them in glasses with a teaspoon to make believe that they were drinking
tea instead of wine.

In addition to the wine, we made raisins and figs. They were our
candy that we filled our pockets with to snack on when we went out or to
school.

There was another piece of land called al-Saqi where we used to spend
time and it was used for picnics by many young people from neighboring
cities. Also, within walking distance, that area was full of natural springs,
including our land. Our spring was known as Ein Ebeid.

My grandfather grew various types of vegetables in al-Saqi, especially
broad beans, fava beans, string beans, tomatoes, squash, eggplant, okra,
sesame, chick peas, and lentils. Birzeit was also famous for various types
of fruits that grow around the Mediterranean Sea. The town was beautiful
and charming with its hills and valleys and it was popular as a summer
resort.

Now, everything is changed. A big portion of our land in that area
was confiscated by the Zionists for the highway that is used only for the
Jewish settlers in what is called the West Bank, the portion of Palestine

MEMORIES AND THOUGHTS 49

that was occupied in 1967 and hundreds of Jewish settlements were built.
Every village, town, and city became surrounded by those armed settle-
ments to make the lives of the Palestinians hard and miserable to force
them to leave. It is a plan of ethnic cleansing that started before 1948.

50 MSYYKRESO-POITCSOAT RAENDD EZEIPONINISPT ATLERSTRIONRE

CHAPTER 6

MEMORIES FROM THE 1950S

After the occupation of a large part of Palestine by the Zionist Jews,
the remaining part of Palestine was integrated with Jordan under
the Hashemite King Abdallah Ibn al-Hussein. The people of the
West Bank were given automatic Jordanian citizenship. The majority of
the Palestinians was dismayed and blamed King Abdallah for the loss of
Palestine and accused him of being a puppet for the British and a traitor.
A puppet indeed he was. At that time, the Jordanian army was controlled
by British officers. After all, the Kingdom of Jordan was created by the
notorious agreement of Sykes-Picot which divided the Arabs into mini-
states under the influence of the British and French.

Jordan became restless; King Abdallah advocated peace with the
occupiers of our homeland and was willing to recognize the Zionist entity,
the settler colonialist state of Israel.

The king was considered to be moderate by the West not by the
Arabs, or the Arab League. However, the Arab League and the Arab
states had also failed to support or arm the Arab irregulars to carry the
fight against the Zionist forces and put the blame of the loss of Palestine
to the king alone. King Abdallah was not innocent either; he hoped if he
signed a peace treaty with Israel to be the ruler of what remained of
Palestine and Jordan, it could be beneficial. In fact, his ambition was
beyond that realm; he was working to annex Syria and Iraq to his kingdom,
a dream that was never fulfilled or better to say, it was prevented by
Winston Churchill of Britain because he did not want to offend the French
who were ruling Syria. His brother, King Faisal, was expelled by the French
who occupied Syria and the British crowned him as a king in Iraq and
Abdallah was given Jordan to be the emir, then a king in I949.

On July 20, 1951, King Abdallah of Jordan was assassinated at the
entrance to the al-Aqsa Mosque, in the Old City of Jerusalem. The assassin,
who hid behind the main gate of the mosque, shot at close range and was
himself immediately shot dead by the King’s bodyguard. The assassin was

50


Click to View FlipBook Version