Mosque in Tiberias with "Death to Arabs" graffiti. (Photo: Sam Kestenbaum)
Zochrot is a Hebrew word which means “remembering.” It’s also the name of an Israeli NGO founded in 2002–during the Second Intifada–to collect stories and personal narrativesof the Palestinian Nakba, Arabic for "catastrophe," referring to the displacement and exodus of Historical Palestine’s Arab population in 1948.
What Zochrot sought to do then was to preserve the Palestinian history of Israel, a history that for decades has been obscured and ignored. This is what they’ve been doing for the past nine years. The Nakba is ongoing, the group’s website reads, it wasn’t just the exodus and persecution of the Palestinian people following the creation of the state of Israel – the "catastrophe" is able to continue because most Jewish Israelis don’t know the pre-state, Palestinian, history of their land.
On a sunny November day, a group of Israelis–both Jewish and Palestinian–walk through the streets of Tiberias. They are here to learn about what this northern city was like, before the founding of Israel.
Touring Tiberias with the pre-Nakba generation
Two elderly Palestinian-Israelis lead the group. Both of them grew up here and lived through the Nakba, when all of Tiberias’ Palestinians were driven away.
The city of Tiberias slopes towards the Sea of Galilee. Today it’s a cluster of modern, Israeli buildings. All municipal signs are written in Hebrew and English. At the center of Tiberias -- on the shore of the lake -- there are ruins: old foundations, synagogues, two boarded-up mosques and crumbling stone walls of the old city.
The tour is conducted in Hebrew and Arabic. The speakers carry one small, hand-held microphone and amplifier and take turns addressing the group.
Nuwal Saleh is 75 and she wears a black dress and a white hijab. She remembers her old home, which was on Fish Street, in the center of the old city. When she was eleven, the British Mandate ended. The day after the British pulled out of the city, the Haganah, the paramilitary Zionist forces, entered.
After the British left, she says, the Haganah started shooting.
They came carrying guns, Saleh says, near her home. She points down the street as she remembers, "They came from there," she says, "over the hill."
Saleh and her family fled, fearing they may be killed. They had heard stories of whole Palestinian villages being massacred. They didn’t want to be one of them. Saleh remembers she returned to her home years later, knocked on the door and was met by an Algerian Jewish family. She told them, "this used to be my home," and cried.
Remembering Tiberias, then and now
What used to be the center of the old city of Tiberias is now a parking lot. There are hotels and shopping centers. Some Palestinian neighborhoods in the city were completely flattened; others are still standing, but owned by Israeli Jews.
Ali Abu Hosni is in his 80s and was also born in Tiberias. His family–like Saleh’s–now lives in Nazareth. He wears a neat gray suit and thick glasses. Most of the Palestinians living in Tiberias fled to Nazareth, he says. Others went to Syria and Jordan. When the Haganah invaded, he explains, they set blockades on all but one side of the city. "This is how they drove us out."
Abu Hosni shifts between Hebrew and Arabic as he speaks. He does not speak English. When he was growing up, he says, Jews, Christians and Muslims lived together here side by side. In what used to be the market of the old city, Muslims, Jews and Christians did commerce together. He paints an almost idyllic picture. They had a very good relationship, he says. This was before the Zionists came.
The Jews who live here now? Abu Hosni shrugs. He doesn’t have too much to say about them. The character of the city has changed. Some of the street names have changed. Everything is in Hebrew.
Road in Tiberias. (Photo: Sam Kestenbaum)
An Israeli Nakba
The Nakba isn’t spoken about often in Hebrew. This past spring, a bill was passed in the Knesset which legislated the withdrawal of state funding from any Israeli institution that commemorates the Palestinian day of mourning. Tours like this–Israelis learning about Palestinian history–are not common.
On the tour are five middle-aged Jewish Israelis from Tel Aviv. One woman, with short, cropped hair wears a Zochrot T-shirt and listens intently. She is a regular.
There is a family of Palestinian-Israelis who takes pictures with their cell phones and cameras. A red-haired Jewish Israeli says that this is her first time on a tour with Zochrot. Her friend had come before, and recommended it.
Norma Musih, the co-founder of Zochrot, writes about the importance and immediacy of Nakba remembrance, for Israeli Jews, like herself, specifically.
"The Nakba is not the story of another people that took place somewhere else. It is a story that we, as Israeli Jews, are responsible for," she writes. The next step after remembering, Musih continues, is honoring the Palestinians’ right of return.
She knows that this would change Israel’s demographics. "The Israeli state would not continue to exist in its current form,” she writes, but believes “that in this new state life would be better, for both Palestinians and Israelis."
Abu Hosni takes us to what used to be the central mosque of Tiberias. It’s boarded up now. Iron bars block the entrance. Trash has been thrown inside and someone has written in Hebrew, "Death to Arabs" across the door.
This mosque was called the "Upper Mosque," because it’s further up on the hill. Synagogues were on the other side of the line of shops.
On Eid al-Fitr, the festival marking the end of Ramadan, he remembers that they would fire a blank shot from the town’s cannon. This is how they would begin the celebrations.
This was a bustling market, Abu Hosni says, and points at nearby shops. He remembers coming here as a kid. On market days you wouldn’t be able to tell the Jews, Muslims and Christians apart.
Sam Kestenbaum is an American writer and editor based in the West Bank. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Jerusalem Report and The World of Chinese. He is a regular contributor to The Palestine Monitor and Tikkun Daily.
very good documentary : The History of Palestine
link to youtube.com
More Nakba stories.
link to palestineremembered.com
link to nakbasurvivor.imeu.net
“The Nakba is not the story of another people that took place somewhere else. It is a story that we, as Israeli Jews, are responsible for,” she (Norma Musih, the co-founder of Zochrot) writes. “The next step after remembering”, Musih continues, “is honoring the Palestinians’ right of return”.
She knows that this would change Israel’s demographics. “The Israeli state would not continue to exist in its current form,” she writes, but believes “that in this new state life would be better, for both Palestinians and Israelis.”
This voice of one Palestinian brings hope of what so many want to see worked out somehow:
SONG OF PEACE (by Haaretz talkbacker Ali Abdeghani, USA):
I am not an Arab, I am not a Jew,
You are me, I am you.
I am not white, I am not black,
I am all colors, light and dark.
I don’t live here, I don’t live there;
earth is my home, I live everywhere.
The warm sun, the fresh air:
for me, for you, for those in despair.
Give me your hand, feel my heart,
share the pain and the joy, see the light.
Thank you John for quoting my Song for Peace that I posted in Haaretz a long time ago. The fact that you have brought it up now after all this time brings joy to my heart. Someone out there has really captured the depth of my feelings and beliefs and is spreading my message of peace. Here is another message: See what you are looking at, and listen to what you are hearing. If you are human, the sights and sounds of suffering of Arabs and Jews will crush your heart…….
Thank you Sam. For your respect of history.
History is not always written by the violent victor. Sometimes it is written by the truth-seeker.
Could not agree more. Norma Musih is a visionary, a realist, and most of all, a humanist. These stories are similar to what my grandparents would tell us about. Christians, Jews, and Moslems living together in mutual respect, harmony, and peace … until the Zionists came in.
There will not be peace in Palestine until Zionism is stopped and Palestinian rights returned. Israel must issue a sincere national apology, express true repentance, implement just restitution, and initiate honorable reconciliation to bring the two peoples together. Only then would there be peace and the full potential of Christians, Jews, and Moslems realized in Palestine.
Ramzi, I’ve just read all you’ve written since coming here; much appreciated.
Hope you’ll get to write an article or two, including more about your own family, people, and experiences.
Looking forward to your sourcing of those many telling quotes.
“Israel must issue a sincere national apology, express true repentance, implement just restitution, and initiate honorable reconciliation to bring the two peoples together.”
Will never happen…..Unless Israel and or zionism is brought to it’s knees like nazi Germany was and has no other survival option. Sorry to have to be pessimistic but zionism a la Israel will not be change any other way. None of the nazis at Nuemberg expressed any remorse for what they did, only for losing.
“This is how they drove us out.”
I seem to remember that the Arab evacuation of Tiberias was largely orderly and bloodless. I believe the evacuation was conducted under the auspices of the British.
Am I wrong?
(Benny Morris, The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947 – 1949, P. 71)
Cliff.
You neglect to mention that one of Tiberias’s Arab militia leaders, Subhi Anquah, used threats and force to ensure the evacuation of Tiberias Arabs.
And while your quoting Benny Morris,…. “The Jewish troops had not been ordered to expel the Arab inhabitants [of Tiberias], nor had they done so.”
Birth, second ed., p 185.
It doesn’t matter whether or not the Jewish terrorists explicitly expelled the Palestinians of Tiberias.
They caused the panic by attacking the city with mortars and dynamite.
The excerpt was sufficient. You’re simply being intellectually dishonest by citing a superficial truth (intentionally devoid of context).
” When he was growing up, he says, Jews, Christians and Muslims lived together here side by side. In what used to be the market of the old city, Muslims, Jews and Christians did commerce together. He paints an almost idyllic picture. They had a very good relationship, he says. This was before the Zionists came.
Yes. The 1938 Tiberias pogrom was an idyl.
A lengthy annual report of the British Mandate, 1938, included these three sentences:
“On October 2nd 1938 there occurred a general raid on the Jewish quarter of Tiberias. It was systematically organized and savagely executed. Of the 19 Jews killed, including women and children, all save four were stabbed to death.”
Actually, a British soldier, an eyewitness, recorded in his diary that the Arabs had doused a children’s nursery with gasoline and burned the children to death.
You are taking things out of context to point score. Typical Zionist intellectualism.
And burned children alive, huh? Cite it.
Here’s the cite:
One Palestine, complete: Jews and Arabs under the British Mandate
By Tom Śegev, page 414.
The eyewitness was a British Army lorry driver named Alex Morrison.
You need to take a few lessons on how to read.
This was before the Zionists came.
The speaker in Mr. Kestenbaum’s article , Abu Hosni, is in his 80′s, which means that he would have been about 10 years old when the Arabs slaughtered the Jews in 1938.
I read quite well thank you.
He was the same age when Jews were ‘slaughtering’ Arabs. Or when Jews were raping Palestinian girls after invading a village. Or after capturing a father and daughter. Killing the father, then raping the daughter.
Cliff, notice that pz doesn’t mind saying “THE Arabs” slaughtered “THE Jews” in 1938, but you said “Jews” likewise slaughtered “Arabs”. Collective guilt and maligning all Arabs for the actions of a few is kosher to pz, doing the same with Jews is not.
I was trying to mirror his language.
I noticed that too though.
The ‘THE’ part.
EVERY single Zionist does that. They all know what they are doing – emotional blackmail vis a vis the political capital of Jewish identity (Holocaust, history of antisemitism, Jewish exceptionalism, blah blah) whereas Arab identity has no weight.
I don’t mind them worshiping themselves but don’t impose your bullshit editorializing on me or any other individual who does not judge people by whether they are Jewish or not. Or whether they have ‘truly suffered’.
No, you are not suffering.
Notice that he also said that the Arab armies didn’t commit as many atrocities because they were defeated militarily. He doesn’t explain why the Jewish terrorist groups and the newly formed Israeli army did though.
It’s like a non-apology apology, or when some liberal Zionist disassociates Israel’s actions from itself (‘fight the delegitimizers’).
I’ll say it again, the only NON-Jews (first filter) who support Zionism are Christian nuts, political opportunists (bought and paid for congressmen or presidential hopefuls for example), and racists/bigots.
People who are NOT Jewish (first filter, again), but mean well usually come around and end up being perceived as pro-Palestinian (even if they say that’s simply where their conclusions lie as opposed to some emotionally charged idealism).
Tell me Cliff. Did you follow up on the cite I provided you?
Did Arabs burn Jewish babies in the nursery in Tiberius?
Yes or No?
More than 6000 Jews died as a result of the civil war in Palestine that is now remembered as Israel’s War of Independence, or nakba. Roughly 9000 Arabs died.
As in most wars, civil or otherwise, terror was employed by both sides.
The Jews won the civil war.
The Arabs were further victimized by their hosts in the surrounding Arab States.
The Jewish refugees from the Arab States who fled after 1948, became integrated into their host countries, mainly Israel and France.
Not to mention that at the end of the same month, Arabs murdered the Jewish mayor of Tiberias. He was mayor 15 years before being murdered. Yes, the relations were great. The Arabs of the city made normal relations in Tiberias impossible. In the case of Tiberias they cruelly over played their hand and lost. What is the word again that people often use here? Ah yes, karma is a bitch isn’t it?
Yes, eee, after Zionism.
How many massacres did the Arabs commit during the 48′ War? How many rapes? How many expulsions?
There is no comparison between what the Zionists did and then their Palestinian counterparts (led by various Arab armies).
Arabs committed at least two massacres i 1948. At Gush Etzion, 121 dead, and the Hadassah hospital convoy massacre, 80 dead.
What stopped the Arabs from committing more massacres? Well. Their abject losses on the battlefield prevented more massacres.
The Arab armies did not commit as many massacres because they chose not to.
Just as the Jewish terrorists and the newly formed Israeli army chose to commit many massacres.
Not to mention that at the end of the same month, Arabs murdered the Jewish mayor of Tiberias.
The link says it was a lone assailant. I guess that murder justifies ethnic cleansing of Palestine the same way that “Jews” killing Ernst Von Rath justified Kristallnacht? So, karma is a bitch, as you say? Because “cruelly overplaying their hand” is a perfect description of Zionist actions over the last 63 years.
Zionist Special Night Squads had already long been using targeted assassination as a terrorist technique to murder the native leadership and anyone that stood in the way of the program of the Eastern European invaders to steal Palestine from the native population.
The Special Night Squads were not ‘Zionist’. They were created and lead by the British in response to the Arab Revolt.
Most of their duties were aimed at protecting the Iraq-Haifa oil pipeline. Some of the squad members were Jewish. They operated from June-October 1938.
The Special Night Squads were not ‘Zionist’.
Of course they were Zionist.
Wikipedia, for the short answer:
link to en.wikipedia.org
“FOSH regulars” refers to a Haganah unit.
link to en.wikipedia.org
The Special Night Squads were lead by a British officer enamored of Zionism, Orde Wingate, as counter-insurgency units, and as such they engaged in reprisals, collective punishment and torture. As my link stated:
The 1938 Tiberias pogrom was an idyl.
The attack on Tiberias was NOT a pogrom, and it was not committed by the Muslims or Christians of Tiberias. The attaackers were Palestinian insurgents from outside of Tiberias, who attacked the Jewsliving there as well as the British encamped in Tiberias. This was in the later part of the Arab Revolt, which began in 1936 with a Palestinian general strike, seeking independence. The British proceeed to violently quash the revolt, and the Zionists sided with the British against the Palestinians. For a bit of background on the Revolt, and the ensuing violence, this is useful:
.
link to books.google.com
pages 47-51
So, in other words, during this era, the British and the ZIonist paramilitary units committed atrocities and acts of collective punishment against Palestinian civilians, as did some Palestinian combatants against Jewish civilians. Both sides. But to hear the Zionists tell it, no Jew ever hurt a fly, they all just lived peacefully until “the Arabs”, with no rhyme or reason, became homicidal maniacs. And its the fault of ALL ARABS when an Arab kills a Jew, but not the other way around. Always remember that. Collective responsibility or guilt always applies to Arabs but not to Jews.
“The attack on Tiberias was NOT a pogrom, and it was not committed by the Muslims or Christians of Tiberias. The attackers were Palestinian insurgents from outside of Tiberias”
Wingate’s Night Squads determined that they ‘insurgent’s” were from the Arab village of Hittin, located roughly 5 km. from Tiberias.
pz, could you rephrase that? what is your point about insurgents?
I added italics to the word, insurgents, because the men that knifed and burned babies in their beds and not insurgents. They are cowardly child murderers.
But burning children alive in their beds and blowing them into bits is just “defending yourself?”
” They had a very good relationship, he says. This was before the Zionists came.
Yes. The 1938 Tiberias pogrom was an idyl.”
1938 was after the Zionists came.
Yeah right. The guy is in his eighties. Let’s assume 89. He was therefore born in 1922. That was already after the Zionists came. The Zionists were already there when he was born. So what is he talking about? An idealized past that never existed.
This is what he is talking about:
Tiberias was unique among Palestinian mixed cities for its unusually harmonious Arab-Jewish relations, even during periods of extreme tension like the 1936–39 Arab Revolt.
link to palestine-studies.org
link to books.google.co.nz
You must be joking. A source that completely ignores the 1938 pogrom. How can the relations be describes as “harmonious” when 4 Jewish kids are burned alive by Arabs in their nursery in 1938?
You haven’t disputed the editorial of the source nor it’s facts.
The quote in john h’s comment says ‘despite the tension’ – hence, it does acknowledge the violence.
And it goes on to say that despite the violence the Arabs and Jews lived harmoniously.
I know how desperate you are to change history though. Too bad for you, hater.
You didn’t even bother to read the links. The second is a book translating Jews writing from Tiberias. It includes the events in 1938 and confirms that in the minds of the Jewish writers the killings were a horrific aberration born of the Revolt, that relations were mostly good prior to then and returned to that more harmonious state until 1947-48 with the Zionist Revolt .
The first link is only available in full through purchase and something tells me you didn’t bother to cough up the $12 to read the full article.
Ok, have it your way. Arabs kill 19 Jews and murder the Jewish mayor of Tiberias = harmonious relations. You guys are unbelievable.
You are the unbelievable one. You read right over this as if it means nothing:
All of the informants emphasized that most of the instigation and provocation, as well as the murderers themselves, came from outside the city.
Surprisingly, most of the Jewish informants regretted the historical fact that the Arabs left the city, and every now and again they told stories about the “innocent time”, when harmony and peace had characterized the two neighboring sides for hundreds of years.
Your response already proves that, like proudzionist, you don’t know how to read.
A one-track mind means that is the only track you see; everything else may as well be written in Japanese.
There is no proof that the murderers came from outside the city. Wingate’s forces took their retribution to Hittin, a village less than 5km from Tiberias.
Doesn’t mean that all/most of the murderers were ‘outsiders’.
“So what is he talking about? An idealized past that never existed.”
ROTFLMSJAO!!!!! Yup, is there anything worse than worshipping an idealised past that never existed? Thank God Zionists don’t do that!
Compare and contrast with the Israeli deceptions about what happened at Itamar.
eek, He was mayor for 15 years, which means he was popular with the Arabs-until the zionists changed that relationship. Zionist terrorist activities were relatively isolated when he would have first become mayor, however in the last five or so years of his life the violence had escalated. Large shipments of smuggled arms had been discovered in the last years of his life, which led many to the conclusion they were intended to be used against Arabs. Irgan and allies had been bombing Arab gatherings, markets, cafes, etc., which were designed to divide the idyllic relations between indigenous Jews and Arabs. The Zionist believed non zionist Jews were their enemies. Perhaps your grasp of history and the progression of events are weak or could you be intent upon deception?
ah hittin, pz, you should visit it while you still can, if you know ‘your’ countries history, the horns of hattin, or hittin, Guy and Baldwin thirsty and confused on the plain.
but then history aint your strong suit clearly, except deceptively selective citation, what was the retribution visited on hittin by wingate, who killed himself after years of doing the empires dirtiest work, strange that zionist freedom fighters would associate with that type of a guy, imperial storm-trooper. strangely i am told its unmarked in israel, we will infect your dreams with madness.
so see ya at the horns.
I’ve seen the Horns many times while hiking. Have you?
proudzionist777: I’ve seen the Horns of hattin …. while hiking.
In zionist parlance, what is this “hiking” exactly? Aren’t you phonetically mistyping, for “while takin’ “, “while strikin’ “, “while [price] taggin’ ” ?
Eguard is projecting. I hike Israel Trails by myself and birdwatch. I tend to avoid people altogether when I hike.
Your “hiking” is illegal trespassing.
Birds must get creeped out when they see you “hiking”.
Because birds know freedom, they also know and loath occupiers and jailers.
” Birds must get creeped out when they see you “hiking”.
And Taxi is projecting too!
No deary, Taxi ain’t “projecting”. Taxi is taking you for a ride to the REAL wilderness.
You remind me of the nazis who so admired the beautiful scenery that surrounded their despicable death camps.
I’ve already been to the wilderness, thank you. Keep the change.
Nestled under the Horns of Hattin is the Arab village of Hammud. I once had tea with a Bedouin mukhtar in his large, artfully decorated home. Nice industrious, apolitical guy. When he goes on his terrace and looks around, I doubt he sees your death camps either.
You just don’t know what the Mukhtar says about you behind your back zionist deary heheheheh. (A Mukhtar is a kinda village mayor).
So gullible to think that a Mukhtar would be “apolitical”, living under occupation and all.
But hey thanks for telling us which part of Occupied Palestine you’ve violently stolen and settled in.
Take ‘em rose-tinted zionist shades off and look around: nothing but death camps and executioners in your (stolen) neck of the woods – and fortunately for me, there’s no death camps in Southern California where I live so I’m keeping my rose-tinted Dior shades on uhuh.
And by the way, them birds you so admire, belong to Palestine, are in fact Arab birds. They’re free. Till you shoot them down with envy and covetousness that is.
That you would have an appreciation for Palestinian nature yet despise the people who planted them trees there is a measure of your fascist tendencies.
You’re one sick bullshitting colonialist thug. Your ridiculous jackboot name defines you. No escaping THAT fact.
I don’t think you take this “avoiding people” nearly far enough, considering the Israeli tradition of Nakba.