Toughness found fertile soil in the hearts of Palestinians, and the grains of resistance embedded themselves in their skin. Endurance evolved as a hallmark of refugee society. But the price they paid was the subduing of tender vulnerability. They learned to celebrate martyrdom. Only martyrdom offered freedom. Only in death were they at last invulnerable to Israel. Martyrdom became the ultimate defiance of Israeli occupation.

في محنة تاريخ دُفن حياً, سقط العام 1948 في فلسطين من الرزنامة إلى المنفى متوقفاً عن حساب العد السائر للأيام والشهور والسنوات, ليصبح بدلا من ذلك ضبابياً لا نهاية له! الشهور الاثنا عشر لتلك السنة أعادت ترتيب نفسها، والتفَّت كالدوامة بلا هدف في قلب فلسطين!

We wereexisting somewhere between life and death, with neither accepting usfully.

Dr. Shammaa’s story was a dreadful one and her voicebroke as she told it. “I had to take the babies and put themin buckets of water to put out the flames,” she said. “WhenI took them out half an hour later, they were still burning.Even in the mortuary, they smouldered for hours.” Nextmorning, Amal Shammaa took the tiny corpses out of themortuary for burial. To her horror, they again burst intoflames.

He took in a premeditated breath, closed his eyes, and exhaled into the nye at his lips, playing a new tune.It was not the sad music of waiting. Norwas it a melody of his heritage. It was a call to the earth. To Allah. Tothe country within him.

Arab society revolves around the extended family.No one had “no family.” But Palestinians, who became scattered anddispossessed following the Nakbe, proved so many exceptions to Arabsociety.

لا أحد يمكنه إستملاك شجرة. يمكنها أن تنتمي إليك، كما يمكنك أن تنتمي إليها. نحن نأتي من أمنا الأرض، نمنحها حبّنا وجهدنا،وهي في المقابل تُغذِّينا، وعندما نموت نعود إلى الأرض. بطريقة ما، الأرض تمتلكنا.. فلسطين تمتلكنا،نحن ننتمي إليها!

رابطتُنا كانت فلسطين، وكانت لغة قمنا بتفكيكها لنشيَّد وطناً.

How was it that a man could not walk onto his own property, visit the grave of his wife, eat the fruits of forty generations of his ancestors’ toil, without mortal consequence?