Great article in yesterday’s NY Times.OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR Not All Israeli Citizens Are Equal By YOUSEF MUNAYYER Published: May 23, 2012 I’m a Palestinian who was born in the Israeli town of Lod, and thus I am an Israeli citizen. My wife is not; she is a Palestinian from Nablus in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Despite our towns being just 30 miles apart, […]
Me at Al Manara Square,the center of Ramallah. Wow, did I love Ramallah. The Rafeedie hometown is actually Al-Bireh, another great town, but the city center of Ramallah was only a 10 minute walk away and is the hub of activity, commerce, culture, tastes and smells. As you consider the state of Palestine, and how all cities are still really […]
Today I visited the Rafeedie family cemetery and mausoleum in Al-Bireh, directly next to Ramallah. My family has lived in the West Bank for at least 300 years. They have lived in Al-Bireh for at least that long after migrating there from the town of Rafeedia, which is now part of Nablus. One thing on my list of things to […]
I quickly found out that when people refer to Israel in the West Bank, they refer to it as “the land of 1948,” meaning the cities and towns that were part of historical Palestine before Israel was created as a Jewish only state. Towns in “the land of 1948” include Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Haifa, Yaffa, Lod, Akka and Nazareth, among […]
Catastrophe is a strong word. In the United States, that word conjures up horrible images of unimaginable proportions. Israel’s “independence day” is today, May 15. I didn’t know it at the time I booked my trip, but I am here in Palestine on the 64th anniversary of the founding of Israel. In Palestine, that day is called Al Nakba, which […]
In 1967, Israel preemptively attacked its Arab neighbors. At the time, the West Bank was under Jordanian rule. It was like that since about 1948, after the creation of Israel. Before that, the West Bank was under British control, along with the rest of historical Palestine and Gaza. Even before that, before World War I, historical Palestine was part of […]
Wow, what a day! It started out early saying goodbye to my wife and kids. Although my boys will miss me, they were a bit annoyed I was distracting them from their morning cartoons and breakfast. My wife, Karen, is a trooper. She is slammed at work and I’ll be gone for 10 days. I’m sure she’ll be fine but […]
My boys. Hi boys. It’s the night before I go on my trip to Palestine. You have both asked me why I’m going so far away and the answers are many. First and foremost, I want to go see family I haven’t seen in years — since I was about your age! That’s a long time ago. I want to […]
Here’s a short video of my mom and I before our trip to Palestine. My mom is incredibly excited to travel there with me — something she hasn’t done since 1972 when I was baptized in my father’s house — the house my grandfather built in the 1930s, and the house where my cousin and his family still live. The […]
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