North America Nakba Tour: The Exiled Palestinians
The Institute for Policy Studies, in cooperation with the Free Palestine Movement, International Solidarity Movement-Northern California, al-Awda Palestine Right to Return Coalition and Pan-African Community Action (www.pacadmv.org) invite you to an intimate sit down with “Stateless Palestinians from the Camps in Lebanon.”
On May 14, 1948, as Zionist leader David Ben Gurion was proclaiming a Jewish state in Palestine, his troops drove out the inhabitants of the ancient Palestinian town of al-Zeeb. 18-year-old Mariam Fathalla was one of them. She and her young husband fled to Lebanon. By year’s end the 4,000-year-old community had been leveled. More than half of all Palestinians were killed or expelled and more than half the cities, towns and villages disappeared, a crime that Palestinians call al-Nakba (the Catastrophe).
Mariam, now 86 years old and respectfully known as Umm Akram (mother of Akram), has spent the last 68 years in crowded, makeshift refugee camps in Lebanon. She has raised three generations in the same camps, 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. Please listen to what she has to say. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaNxZcQcRzY (2 minute version)
Umm Akram wants meet you and tell her story in person. So does Amena Ashkar, the granddaughter and great granddaughter of other Nakba survivors, who has known no other home than refugee camps. Umm Akram and Amena have a different message from other Palestinians. They are among six million Palestinians not living in Palestine – more than those who are. They are citizens of no government at all, not even the Palestinian Authority. They are not living under Israeli occupation. Israel does not allow them to visit their homes, much less live there. Amena has never met an Israeli, 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.
ALSO, Umm Akram and Amena are available to speak in DC area on April 27 and 28. If you wish to host an event in your university, house of worship, support group or other community organization, get in touch with us at 510-232-2500 or info@freepalestinemovement.org.