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| Palestinians: Mahmoud Jadallah stands near a bunker outside Jerusalem where he fought in the 1948 war. Debbie Hill/Special to The Christian Science Monitor |
An Arab veteran of 1948 recalls Palestinian 'catastrophe'
While Israelis are celebrate on Thursday their Independence Day, Palestinians prepare to mark what they call the 'nakba.'
from the May 9, 2008 edition
Page 3 of 3
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Reporter Ilene Prusher talks about Palestinians observing "Nakba," their name for the birth of Israel 60 years ago.
 An Arab veteran of 1948 recalls Palestinian 'catastrophe' - 05/08/08 |
| Israel's never-ending struggle for security - 05/08/08 |
| Opinion: Israel at 60: So vilified, yet so deserving of praise - 05/08/08 |
| From our files |
| Jews to rule 'own state' in Palestine - 05/10/1948 |
| Israel recognized by U.S.: Nation launched minus pomp - 05/15/1948 |
In pictures: Two sides to sixty |
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And so in an area that Israel counts as part of its capital, Jadallah can still, in a short walk from his home, visit the very sites where he once fought.
First he passes the school that his men used as a base, which is, once again, a school. Then he goes by a hill where some of the heaviest fighting took place, where there were casualties on both sides.
"This was one of the trenches," he says, pointing to a hidden cement box embedded in the hillside, with two holes through which guards would watch or shoot. "It was called 'mujahid,' " Arabic for one who wages holy war. "You can see how crucial this one was, because all of the Jewish settlements nearby were exposed to it. Every night, I would come and supervise the trenches. There was a password for anyone who came near."
They changed it all the time, but it always started with a hard Arabic 'h' – one that they could count on most of their enemies to mispronounce because Hebrew has a different, more guttural 'h.'
"The years of 1948 to 1950 were years of sacrifice. We lost a lot of colleagues, of homes, of land. All of this makes me sad," he says, "because it makes me feel like we didn't achieve anything."
Jadallah went on to have a large family – seven girls and three boys – and now has close to 70 grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
To many of them, living with Israel is a reality with which they grew up. Jadallah's son, Nihad, has worked with Israel's ambulance service, Magen David Adom, for 27 years. He speaks excellent Hebrew and is clean-shaven. Still, Nihad says he feels there's still great discrimination in how he's treated at work.
Not long ago, he says, when his father was feeling well, he couldn't get his own ambulance company to enter Sur Baher without an Israeli army escort, causing a half-hour delay. He still feels suspect, the "other." He is expected to come to an Israeli Independence day celebration for all employees and was struggling with whether to go. But earlier this week, when colleagues at work were receiving free Israeli flags to put on their cars, he drew the line. "It's not my flag," he says, "and it's not my state."
• Part 2 of 2. Thursday's story: Israel's never-ending struggle for security.
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