Tonight I went to a book party on the Upper West Side for the posthumous memoir A World I Loved, by Wadad Makdisi Cortas, late mother of Mariam Said, at whose apartment the party was. Cortas was a Lebanese educator who died in 1979. Her life was devoted to girls of the Arab world. A secular missionary, by her daughter's description, and a liberated woman. Worked all her life. Handed her memoir, in English, to her son-in-law Edward Said, and died soon after.
Ham Fish of Nation Books spoke, charmingly, about Mariam Said's mother making her children take their shoes off in the house. I saw Eric Foner, Eric Alterman, Mona Khalidi, Carl Bromley, Walter Moseley and Katrina vanden Heuvel of the Nation. Robert Simon of 60 Minutes was there, I congratulated him for his amazing West Bank settlers piece that helped change the moment a few months back. We talked about the hateful Nablus scene in the piece, when the Israeli soldiers take over an Arab house.
I sat with three Arab-American women for a while. Najla Said, Mariam and Edward's daughter, who has a one-woman show called "Palestine," and Cherien Dabis, who directed Amreeka. The third woman was named Nadia, a blonde Palestinian-American whom I squeezed into an armchair with, the sort of person you can talk about anything with forever. We talked about the Arab-American moment. Her parents fled Jerusalem during the Nakba. Her father used to stare at the television in pain as the Israeli line went out to American homes. "I'm Palestinian," Nadia told her schoolmates in innocence, and they asked if her parents were terrorists. Nadia agreed with me that the moment feels new; Julian Schnabel is now directing a movie about Deir Yassin.
I read alot of the book on the train going home. Wadad Makdisi Cortas was a very upright woman, not glamorous like her daughter. She didn't like religion, didn't like guns. Loved secular education above all, and Quaker meeting. She was a workaholic and fretted as her society was torn apart in the unrest after the war. When girls started showing up at her school who had been forced out by the Nakba, she had the presence of mind to record their stories. She knew it was important.
"The greatest issue on the Lebanese scne was whether Lebanon was an Arab country. The second was whether the Palestinian tragedy was our concern. I was clear in my mind that Lebanon was Arab and that the Palestinian tragedy was of primary concern to us. I felt I shared the opinion of the majority."
The whole Arab world turned to U.N. negotiator Folke Bernadotte as their savior in summer 1948. Then Bernadotte was gunned down by the Stern gang in Jerusalem. "His assassination, on September 17, was like an earthquake…'Of course world opinion will not stand for this,' we muttered among ourselves.'.. After Bernadotte's murder the Arab press declared, 'The conscience of the world is dead.'"This has been the eternal puzzle to the Palestinians: why world opinion has stood by, when the issue is so clear. Why the UN could pass the right of return of refugees in 1948 and reaffirm it every year and nothing has happened.
And now world opinion is at last changing; I could see it at the party. Like it or not, it matters that Jews are on board. Jews have incredible cultural power in America, and now Jews, appalled by Israel's behavior, are getting behind the issue. Max Blumenthal was at the party, I hugged him for all the traffic he brought to this site for Feeling the Hate in Jerusalem (which has been taken down by youtube, he says), then walked out with him. We talked about his funny line about self-hatred in Haaretz, he has other reasons for self-hatred than the fact he's Jewish; I told him it reminded me of Hannah Arendt saying she didn't love the Jewish people, she only loved her friends. Schnabel, Blumenthal, Bob Simon–they are all Jewish necromancers, and they like this story and want to hear the Arab side. A long way from Erica Jong writing that Arabs are animals.
In her introduction, Mariam Said writes that 9/11 changed everything; it was time to publish her mother's memoir. It's an Arab moment now, culturally, politically, and in some part because Jews are moving along with it. There is a joy in thinking you can help change the paradigm of Arab-Americans, as we changed the paradigm of Jewish-Americans. There's a thrill in sharing an armchair with my cousin and believing, tonight, that we can change the world.
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{ 23 comments }
Jong said she regretted naming a chapter "Arabs And Other Animals," because when freedom-hating Arab extremists take over the world they will execute her for that. Now there's a real light to the world.
Your portrait of Wadad Makdisi Cortas reminds me of many Arab women of that generation. My mother knows Edward Said's sister, Jean Said Makdisi – another educator. I will look for Wadad's memoir – it sounds very important. And I will also remind you that secular, liberated Arab women who hate guns have been living and working as Wadad did for 70 years and more.
The Julian Schnabel movie will be a whitewash. There is no Arab moment. As long as the political economy is funded by the MIC and the Jewish Establishment there will never be peace in the ME and the Palestinian will continue to suffer. What the fuck are the Arab-Americans going to do about this? Boycott more produce produced in the OT? Big fucking deal.
Re:when freedom-hating Arab extremists take over the world It'll be just like old times when the Muslim Turks came and taught the filthy Christian Europeans how to bathe, and more importantly introduced them to brewing coffee rather than drinking beer all day and night because they couldn't figure out how else to kill the bacteria in the water. And cured their plague for them too. Us westerners will be in the dark ages again (we are well on our way) and will be in need such assistance from the Arab Muslims (oh yes, you did say extremists so that narrows it down to something like a blind sheihk) after he conquers the world. Personally I think it will be some Chinese dude. Not blind. And more than one.
I now see the problem. The Arab world can not read plain english. "'This has been the eternal puzzle to the Palestinians: why world opinion has stood by, when the issue is so clear. Why the UN could pass the right of return of refugees in 1948 and reaffirm it every year and nothing has happened. " Actually, the UN certainly did not pass any 'right of return' in 1948.
From author Donald Neff's unpublished chronology for 1948: "December 11—-U.N. CREATES CONCILIATION COMMISSION AND CALLS FOR REPATRIATION OF REFUGEES/SAYS JERUSALEM INTERNATIONAL CITY The U.N. General Assembly passed a resolution refusing to accept any change in the terms of the 1947 Partition Plan, repeated its decision that Jerusalem was an international city and called for the repatriation or compensation of the Palestinian refugees by Israel….Article 11 stated: Resolves that the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property of which, under principles of international law or in equity, should be made good by the Governments or authorities responsible. Instructs the Conciliation Commission to facilitate the repatriation, resettlement and economic and social rehabilitation of the refugees and the payment of compensation, and to maintain close relations with the Director of the United Nations Relief for Palestine Refugees and, through him, with the appropriate organs and agencies of the United Nations." The State Department publicly reaffirmed U.S. support of the resolution in 1992…" This is completely documented, of course.
Hey, Beavis. You might want to read below.
Phil, I loved this post. Were you shocked to see your blonde Palestinian cousin? In our town, there are many blondies with blue eyes, remnants from when the Crusaders raped their way through our village.
Arabic goes multicultural in the Netherlands?
The Crusaders were not the only Aryan people to invade the lands of Palestine. There are blue and green eyed blondes throughout Persian and Turkic lands as well.
I read it butthead. It states, for you and those Arabs who can not read english, "Resolves that the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date," That is not a "Right". That is a conditional proposal. The Palestinians decided they could not abide the condition. Another opportunity lost. Too bad.
The right is enshrined in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as adopted on December 10, 1948. In part: Article 2.__Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty. Article 9.__No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile. Article 13.__(1) Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state. __(2) Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country. Article 15.__(1) Everyone has the right to a nationality. __(2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality. Article 17.__(1) Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others. __(2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property. Under these rights, and the UN Partition Plan, every person with residency in the territory that became the state of Israel was and is entitled to full citizenship rights in that state, or entitled to choose to decline that citizenship and receive just compensation . Israel has ignored that right for over 50 years. Thousands of Palestinians sought to peacefully return to their homes after the 1948 War, and Israel's response was a shoot to kill order for anyone crossing the border, even though IDF archival records prove that they(the government and the IDF) were well aware that over 90% of the border crossings were made by those Palestinians who were not violent and were only attempting to return to their homes. There was no "opportunity" offered by Israel, unless you consider being shot and killed while traveling to one's one home is an opportunity. Your sophist's parsing of human rights only shows that you have no respect whatsoever for real meaning in the English language. You should not attempt to "teach" others what you cannot grasp yourself.
Er, wasn't the Balfour declaration a conditional proposal too–explicitly telling Rotschild not to be at the expense of the local Arabs? And from Balfour derived the Mandate Partition, which was ignored in 47-48 by the Jewish colonials even though they got a disproportionate share of the total area to be divided? The 48 war was fought almost entirely (exception Jerusalem) on the UN proposed Arab side of the partition…
There is no reason to believe that Palestinians would not have been willing to live in peace and mutual respect with Jews willing to respect Palestinian human and democratic rights. Genocidal Zionists began the ethnic cleansing and the expulsion of Palestinian villages, whose inhabitants were not involved in violence and simply wanted to farm their own land, right after the UNGA voted for partition. Racist Zionist apologists like Ali Baba use pilpul to twist the plain meaning of the text of the Right of Return Resolution to give Zionist genocidaires license to commit any atrocity against Palestinians as part of the ongoing Zionist program of genocide. When Palestinians react in anger, racist Zionists say, "See. They do not want to live in peace with us" and then claim they have no obligation to repatriate Palestinians. In fact, as a signatory to the International Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide, the USA probably has the obligation to remove the genocidal Zionist conglomeration and probably to obliterate it if it resists. However one looks at issue the Palestinians must be repatriated either so that Zionists can prove that Zionism is not an ideology of genocide or so that the USA and other anti-genocide states can fulfill their obligations by removing or by obliterating the criminal conglomeration of Zionist genocidaires and by restoring the victims of Zionist genocide to their homeland.
I assume you are for the repatriation/compensation of Arab Jews rendered apatride by their governments at any date since the creation of the State of Israel as well. And starting with the modification of the line "those resident in Palestine, not being Jews" in the Jordanian citizenship law. You make absolutist claims only when it undermines Israel. I am not a humanist, having been subjected to suicide terror. They should not have tried to return, knowing the risks. It is possible that Israel could have extended its ex gratia offer of 100,000 returnees to anyone returning unarmed for domestic purposes, but to cross a border in an active war zone is foolishness, as many Israeli civilians murdered by security services or raped and murdered in the West Bank by locals in the post-war period discovered. ("See Petra and Die", to paraphrase Goethe's potential take on that type of thrill-tourism of the 50s.) Israel is not going to give citizenship to people whose intent is to undermine it, although more Palestinians have received citizenship by family reunification in Israel than there are native-born Arab Jews still holding their citizenship of origin.
Maybe if Zionists returned the country and property that they stole, Palestinians would not want to blow up the criminal racist murderous genocidal invaders, interlopers and thieves that infest the Palestinian homeland Under Nuremberg Law, Palestinians have every right to blow up any Zionist colonial settler anywhere in Stolen and Occupied Palestine, and as a signatory to the International Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide they USA should aid Palestinians in that endeavor.
." A long way from Erica Jong writing that Arabs are animals." I tried to read "Fear of Flying". I don't think she has much room to talk.
I'm not sure if this is correct, but I prefer to believe it is: You and the person furthest from you on earth are, at most, fifth cousins. And not even once removed, whatever that means. So if all men are not quite my brothers, they are sure as hell in the family, and will attend the reading of the will with great interest.
"Arab Moment"? Lots and lots of people from the Middle East (and all over lesewhere) have been coming to America for at least a hundred years. I would get ready for at least an Arab Afternoon, or maybe even a whole Arab Weekend. My youngest sister's best college friend was an Arab-American girl from a locally prominent Arab family, owned upstate NY department store. Watch out, it might even be a whole Arab Month! I, for one, welcome our new Arab overlords, and volunteer to compare all the best Middle eastern foods, for a start.
I am not making "absolutist claims", I am quoting from the UN Declaration of Human Rights. I am for the principles of the declaration and their implementation, regardless of who is affected, and that includes Arab countries as well as Israel. I'm am not aware of any Arab state that refuses to allow its former Jewish citizens to return as Israel has refused to allow the Palestinians to return, but if there is such a state it should allow them to return if they wish. My understanding is that Morocco, for one, which has lost a substantial portion of its Jewish population, has been encouraging their return for decades. As for compensation, if it is warranted then it should be offered as an alternative. However, as the the various organizations set up to receive compensation have shown, it is hard to even get the Jews who left to agree that they were refugees fleeing their countries rather than Jews seeking aliyah in Israel. If Israel is truly such a draw for Jews all over the world then it is rather silly to insist at the same time that Arab Jews came there merely because they were forced to come. Most of the literature that I have read, including that written by Israelis and Arab Jews, indicates that Israel had a major and direct hand in encouraging and facilitating the aliyah of Jews from Arab countries, through stoking fear and through enticement. Many times the return of Arab Jews was precluded by Israel's policies of immediately conferring citizenship on these Jews, which resulted in their lost of citizenship in countries that didn't allow for dual citizenship, and by placing hefty tariffs on travel out of the country in the 50s and beyond. On an individual basis those who truly fled persecution should have the right to petition for compensation, but it should not be a blanket assumption that all Arab Jews, or even necessarily the majority of them, qualify for compensation simply because they are Arab Jews, especially when they themselves insist that they came to Israel because of a "longing for ZIon". Do you think that Brooklyn Jews should be "compensated" if they choose not to return to the US from Israel? "I am not a humanist, having been subjected to suicide terror." Cop out. You are not a humanist because you choose not to be. There are plenty of humanists that have been victims of violence. Instead you embrace the tribalism that leads to such violence, and think you should somehow be congratulated on it. I am sorry for your pain and suffering, but it does not excuse bigotry, hatred and tribalism. And of course I am talking about the early 1950's, when Israel was not at war with Jordan or Egypt so it was not "an active war zone" as you claim. In fact, most of the hostilities were centered around the fact of Israel's refusal to let the refugees return in peace. This is a perfect example of the logical circles that Zionists tread. "Israel couldn't let the refugees back because there were still hostilities going on." Of course the reason that some hostilities were going on was because Israel refused to let the refugees return after the war was over, so its a perfect Catch-22 to justify never letting the Palestinians return. Israel and its apologists are full of those Catch-22s. It is certainly not "foolish" to seek to return to your home when you have lost everything and are hungry and downtrodden. For someone who constantly seeks sympathy for your troubles, you continually make remarkably unempathetic pronouncements. "Israel is not going to give citizenship to people whose intent is to undermine it." It isn't about the Palestinians' "intent". Most of them just want to live in dignity, equality and peace. Its all about the Palestinians' very existence. Israel at present is a Jewish supremacist state. Too many Palestinians and the supremacism will crumble into the dust it deserves. It could no longer pretend to be both Jewish and democratic and thus would lose its fig-leaf of legitimacy. That is the "threat" of the Palestinians' return.
@ Eurosabra "I am not a humanist, having been subjected to suicide terror." Are you suggesting there are no self-proclaimed humanists who have been subjected to suicide terror? Is this your version of " a liberal is somebody who has yet to be mugged"? Just asking. Please connect your logic dots. Thanks. I see an analogy in the refrain that everyone is all for free speech unless it's free speech they don't like. Of course, that's the only time free speech even matters. An eye for an eye, or eye for an eyelash–is easy; that's always totally understood by any tribe, civilized or not. Are you suggesting it's easy to be civilized? To be a humanitarian? Are you suggesting limousine liberals are the only ones in the ranks of declared humanists? Again, please clarify. I will add, it's easy to be for the proposed good if one does not have to pay a personal price. That's a given. It's called politics as usual.
There's also the 6th degrees of separation, and the fact that humans share most of their DNA with monkeys or apes. I love your reading of the final will scenario, Mooser. God, what a concept for a book or play–somehow I think a play would be better. I can just see the script getting longer, longer, longer…. And of course nobody would finance it. Eraserhead had only a 20 page script. Can someone do the same with the other end of human reality?
Geez, I'm not even a semitic person; just a bland and pale average Irish-German American, you know, when we mix we are the part that our kids know nothing about, the other half having the victim narrative strangle lock? We are "just (working class) Americans." This told to me by my own children. I'm a bit confused at the moment, Mooser, help me out. Once, back in the day, I read this coffee table book called Family Of Man…
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