American, do you realize,
that the taxes that you pay
feed the forces that traumatize
my every living day?
The bulldozers and the tanks,
the gases and the guns,
the bombs that fall outside my door,
all due to American funds.
Gihad Ali, Palestinian-American, Chicago, Illinois.
Danish group Outlandish's Look Into My Eyes, based on Gihad's lyrics, which reached #1 on Danish charts.
Please continue to read Palestinian refugee Mahira Dajani's story.
The Institute for Middle East Understanding is publishing a series of Palestinian refugee stories in commemoration of Al-Nakba, the Catastrophe, which is commemorated by Palestinians on May 15. IMEU has granted me permission to reprint Mahira's story, Untold Stories: Mahira Dajani in full.
The people in America should press on their government to give us our rights; to not make us suffer. We hope one day they will feel for us and help us obtain our rights. Mahira Dajani
I have very little to add to the testimonies of the Palestinian refugees. Their firsthand accounts speak for themselves. For the next few days I will be posting refugee stories on DailyKos; my purpose is to provide context for the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, in which America plays and has played no small part.
As a Palestinian-American, I seek to reach out to mainstream Americans, whom I know to be good and decent people. All of my family were educated at the American Friends School in Ramallah. The Quakers established their presence there in the late 1800s.
My family and my relatives have prospered in America; America provided an opportunity for my father and his generation to re-create their Palestinian gardens in America.
I love America; I love American literature, which I teach abroad to military dependents, and I would never disparage its people or its institutions which provided so much for my family.
That's why I am hopeful for the future of America in the Middle East. Bruce Sakura recently had a letter printed in the Los Angeles Times regarding his Japanese-American parents, victims of misguided US policies toward Japanese-Americans during WWII. His sentiments portray the complex attitudes toward America amongst some Palestinian-Americans:
My father and his three brothers all returned safely from the war and went on to live successful and full lives. From the difficult conditions in the relocation camp, my mother moved to Milwaukee and was joined by my father after the war. There they stayed and raised four sons. Of those four, two are physicians, one is an investment banker with a doctorate in biochemistry and one is a commercial real estate broker. Although the United States treated my parents terribly, it also gave them and their children great opportunity, for which I am grateful.
And now Mahira Dajani's story:
Mahira Dajani knows what it is like to lose everything.
Born into a large, wealthy family in what is now West Jerusalem, Dajani fled her home in 1948 during the Palestinian "Nakba," or catastrophe.
In April 1948, 16-year-old Dajani returned home one afternoon after completing her high school exams to find her mother and younger siblings gone. Her father told her that they had fled to Hebron and that she should go, too. Word had reached the family of the massacre in Deir Yassin, where more than 100 Palestinian men, women, and children were killed by Zionist militias, and they were worried about what may happen in Jerusalem.
"I thought I'd be there two or three days and then return home," Dajani recalled, "I didn't take anything except for what I was wearing. I left for Hebron and never returned."
Her two older brothers stayed behind to guard the house while the rest of the family reunited at her aunt's house in Hebron. Further tragedy struck when on May 18, while her mother went to pray for the safety of her children, Dajani's 22-year-old brother was shot in the head by Israelis as he was defending their home.
As the Israelis approached Hebron, the Dajanis decided to flee again. They left for Damascus, but upon reaching Jericho decided to wait. Following the ceasefire, the family moved to Ramallah, where Dajani worked at a high school teaching Arabic, English, religion and sport.
Now living in East Jerusalem and volunteering at an orphanage, she recounted when her father took them back to visit their home in 1967. "We found only a marble basin and the ruins. Our house was demolished. My treasured books given to me by my teacher were nothing but a pile of burnt paper, which broke my heart. I left everything. Someone took my jewelry, one with my name on it. We don't know what happened to it."
Fifty-nine years later, Dajani is seeking understanding. "We want the whole world to know about us," she said, "Even now, when I go to my old home, I feel like a knife is going through my heart. The people in America should press on their government to give us our rights; to not make us suffer. We hope one day they will feel for us and help us obtain our rights."