Author: Norcal ISM Editor

Date: April 2016

Amena and Mariam

Amena and Mariam

Photo Credit: Samir Salem

We are strong in spirit and we know that justice is on our side. We believe that our exile will end if we do not give up.


Byline: Mariam Fathalla and Amena Ashkar are residents of Palestinian refugeecamps in Beirut, Lebanon.

As we go to print, the North America Nakba Tour has returned to northern
California for the last few speaking engagements before Mariam Fathalla and
Amena Ashkar return to Lebanon. They began here in the Bay Area in April and traveled throughout the continent by car, speaking in cities and towns across the country.

Mariam, now 86 years old, has spent the last 68 years in a crowded, makeshift refugee camp in Lebanon.  She has raised three generations in the same camp, all waiting to return to their home in Palestine. She has lived through five Israeli invasions of Lebanon, as well as the 1976 Tel al-Zaatar camp massacre that killed more than 2000 of the refugees there. Amena Ashkar is the granddaughter of Nakba survivors. Amena has known no other home than her refugee camp in Lebanon, and Mariam not since she was expelled from her home in Palestine in 1948.

Amena and a friend at the White House

Amena and a friend at the White House

Photo Credit: Samir Salem

The Nakba

On May 14, 1948, as Zionist leader David Ben Gurion was proclaiming a Jewish state in Palestine, his heavily armed troops seized the ancient Palestinian Arab town of al-Zeeb and drove out most of the inhabitants.  17-year- old Mariam Fathalla was one of them.  She and her young husband, Mohammed Atayah, and their families were forced to flee to Lebanon, along with most of the town. By the end of the year, the 4,000-year- old community had been leveled to the ground.  More than half the Arab Palestinians in Palestine were killed or expelled and more than half of the cities, towns and villages of Palestine were made to disappear, a crime that Palestinians call al-Nakba (the Catastrophe).

The Speaking Tour

Mariam and Amena brought a different message from other Palestinians that Americans often hear.  They are not living under Israeli occupation. Israel does not allow them to visit their homes, much less live there.  Amena never met an
Israeli or a Jew until she came to the US, and Umm Akram not since 1948. As exiles, they have a different perspective from Palestinians in Jerusalem, the West Bank, Gaza and the part of Palestine that became Israel. The Free Palestine Movement, NorCal ISM and the al-Awda Palestine Right to Return Coalition organized this tour because we think their perspective is important for Americans to hear.

Interview with Amena Ashkar

Amena took time to speak about the tour during their stop in Washington, D.C., after they had traveled through and spoken in northern and southern California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Mississippi, Georgia and Virginia.

Q: Do any cities or experiences really stand out for you?

A: Each place has something special. The African American community in Jackson, Mississippi was really a high point, though. The people there were so lovely. They knew about the Palestinian issue, but not about the refugees outside
the occupied West Bank and Gaza. When we described life in the camps there, they told us the root cause of our struggle is the same as the one their community has faced for generations — imperialism.

Q: What are conditions like in the camps in Lebanon?

A: Our camp is only a third of a square mile and densely populated. In recent years, 25,000 refugees from the war in Syria moved in with us and there are now over 50,000 people sharing our small space. The infrastructure is very poor and especially during the winter when we have floods, the poorly built houses sometimes collapse. There is no school in the camp and no place for children to play either. The only place for them to play is the cemetery.

The Syrian war has made things much harder. Before the war, Palestinian workers took jobs in the shadows, at lower wages than Lebanese. We are not permitted to work in 72 different professions or to own property outside the camps. Since Syrians began arriving, they have been taking many of the jobs we formerly got, leaving less and less for us to survive on. To make matters worse, UNWRA is facing a funding crisis and cutting back on many programs, even
while the need is growing much larger. Things are very difficult.

Q: What questions do people ask you and Mariam at the Nakba Tour talks?

A: People often ask what we would like them to do. My answer is that you here should know better than us what needs to be done. You are citizens of the great power that is bankrolling Israel. Learn about what your taxes are paying for and if you don’t like it, use your influence to change your government’s policies. And we ask them to please support the right of Palestinians to return to their homeland.

The other question we often hear is how we manage to have hope after so many years in exile. Our people have lived with oppression for a long time, even from before 1948. We are strong in spirit and we know that justice is on our side. We believe that our exile will end if we do not give up. I am from the third generation in the camps, and my home in Palestine means as much to me as to Mariam.
We will never give up.