When thinking through Jewish identity and exploring the outer layers Jews need to jettison, know they are just that – outer layers. 

The outer layers – empire, colonialism, capitalism, whiteness.

Jews of Conscience know these have to go.  The question remains:  Are these outer layers only? 

The question is posed from outside in the conspiracy theories that went global in the pre-historic pre-Web age.  They continue as we advance into our post-livable Global Warming age.

The question is posed inside by Jews who’ve had it up to here with the Jewish establishment in America and Israel.  The Jewish establishment strikes the pose of innocence and redemption while using empire violence and Jewish ascendancy as cover-ups.

Is there any other identity analyzed from inside and out as much as Jewish identity?  The Jewish Identity Network (JIN) is like 24/7 cable news.  It never shuts down. 

JIN can be frustrating at times, for sure.  There’s too much time to fill.  But, if you like to be where the identity action is, there’s no better place to be than Jewish.

“If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen” - the old maxim applies here but with a twist.  As a Jew, you’re in the kitchen whether you can take the heat or not. 

There isn’t any way out of the Jewish kitchen.  That’s one of the lessons of Jewish history.

Is that why Jews are always trying to find a way out or around the kitchen, constantly expanding and contracting its width and depth and remodeling its features?  But no matter how hard we try – the new cabinets look fantastic, don’t you think? – the long and short of it all is that Jews are still having more or less the same Jewish identity discussion we had three thousand years ago. 

So, after the external and internal probing – what can be said about Jewish?  Are the outer layers add-ons or are they part of the package we desperately want to escape but can’t? 

If the outer layers are inner layers, too, and we can’t escape either, perhaps it is the inner struggle with the outer layers that defines us as Jews.  Wrestling with the inner and outer is the essence of what it means to be Jewish.

Empire, colonialism, capitalism, whiteness aren’t new issues when their larger contextual meanings are factored in.  Like Jewish identity itself, the struggle against oppression is perennial.  Therefore Jews and Jewish identity have a memory of these struggles that can be applied to the present. 

Why jettison our muscle-memory?

Even the mode of address, the escape routes and fate of the Biblical prophets and the prophets throughout the ages is important to consider. 

If you think we’re reinventing the Jewish identity wheel, forget it.  Sure, the rims need attention and the tires are low.  Reinvention is a conceit. 

To many Jews, Jewish history seems anachronistic.  Like reading the Hebrew Bible as a primer on the discussions we’re having - that originated in ancient times. 

I find it fascinating talking to Jews who were attracted to Latin American liberation theology in the 1980s and the role it played in the struggles in Central America.  In part, the Nicaraguan revolution was fueled by liberation theology.  Many Nicaraguans’ resistance to injustice was rooted in the very Bible most Jewish activists wouldn’t crack open if they were stranded on the proverbial desert island.

Yet just because we don’t read the Bible, doesn’t mean it isn’t woven into our Jewish DNA.

When a commentator on Jewish identity recently wrote “J” is for justice rather than Jewish, I couldn’t agree more.  Except if she wrote that they’re inseparable.  Or should be.

There isn’t an identity out there where that claim could plausibly be made as the essence of what it means to be part of a tradition.   Christianity and Islam have their own special claims but the inseparability of Christianity, Islam and justice is not one of them.  At least, it’s not their primary claim.

That justice isn’t practiced in our time by many Jews, especially those who hold the levers of power, is the perennial conundrum of being Jewish.

The real – essential - Jewish question.

Funded by Boston’s Combined Jewish Philanthropies to the tune of roughly $75,000, this is part of an effort to “provide people with a Jewish response to helping victims and their families recover from this traumatic event,” said Gail Weinberg of the Jewish Federation of Greater Kansas on its website. Interestingly, Israeli trauma teams have been active all over the world, from post-earthquake Haiti to post-Katrina New Orleans, from Mumbai, India to Toulouse, France. Coalition director Talia Levanon explains in The Times of Israel, “You are meeting different people in different parts of the world, but they all have the same fears and issues and responses. The world has become a small place and we derive a lot of strength when we work together. We speak the same emotional language all over the world.”

So why does this make me uneasy? While I have no doubt that the experience and broad community focus of the Israeli team has been helpful, Boston is a major medical center with world-class hospitals and trauma teams and strong community resources.

An Israeli team in Boston provides Israel with a feel good moment and well-publicized appreciation, from the Massachusetts governor on down.

But there is a powerful disconnect here. I just received a note from Rabbis for Human Rights about 40,000 Bedouin Israeli citizens who are being removed from their homes and sources of income to artificial townships. I am troubled by the steady stream of Palestinian prisoners on hunger strikes in Israeli jails, trapped for months without trials in endless administrative detention.

Then there is the news from the West Bank town of Budrus, where years of nonviolent protests led to a change in the path of the Israeli-built separation wall. Last week, after the release of a graphic novel by Just Vision documenting that struggle, the Israeli army arrived, shooting tear gas and starting a fire in the village’s olive groves. And the 1.7 million inhabitants of Gaza, over half of whom are children, live on the edge of hunger, deprivation, and uncertainty due to the ongoing siege and frequent Israeli incursions.

There is also the issue of asylum seekers. In February, Israeli authorities deported over 1,000 Sudanese refugees to North Sudan despite the fact that, “[Sudan] has vowed to punish any of its citizens who ever set foot in Israel.” Ironically, many of the Sudanese who fled to Israel left from Darfur where there is an ongoing struggle by Jewish US activists against the genocidal policies of the Sudanese government.

But to return to the Boston victims, I have no doubt that the Israeli trauma team was filled with good intentions as well as expertise, but this feels like an opportunistic political moment where good deeds are actually part of a larger intent to manipulate image making.

What about the victims that are not an ocean away? Do they not “all have the same fears and issues and responses?” Do they not “speak the same emotional language all over the world?” I can only ask, are they not deserving of the care, expertise, and attention of Israeli trauma teams? Why come all the way to Boston?

This piece first appeared in the Boston Globe under the headline, The politicization of trauma care.

And Jeffrey Goldberg is some careerist. As the Jewish democracy slides into rightwing oblivion, he's managing to stay relevant. Ahead of the curve! The Washington curve anyway. Does Goldberg ever pay a price for being wrong about Iraq, wrong about Iran?

Sixth & I Historic Synagogue (Washington, DC)

Tuesday May 28, 2013 7:00pm $15

The complexities of Israel now and in the future will be discussed in depth during the program Will Israel Survive as a Jewish Democracy?. This provocative discussion, moderated by CNN Chief Washington correspondent Jake Tapper, features Israeli columnist Ari Shavit and The Atlantic national correspondent Jeffrey Goldberg. The trio will discuss the many questions facing the country, including its relationship with the United States and American Jews. This promises to be a thoughtful, engaging talk on one of the most intriguing international issues of the day.

By the way, Tapper gets it. As Annie Robbins reported, he grilled Jay Carney about the fact that Israel does whatever it wants and never suffers any consequences. So will they talk about the Israel lobby?

Thanks to MJ Rosenberg.

The original report is here. The revised report, which is on the Church website, is here

 “The Inheritance of Abraham?” was scheduled to be presented to the General Assembly of the church today (May 18), but it has now been postponed until next week, according to the church website.

The central thesis of the document remains unchanged.  It states that promises in the bible should not be used to support Israeli “claims of exclusivity or privileged divine right to possess particular territory.”  

After the church withdrew the report, it stated that a new introduction would be added which would explain, contextualize and answer the objections that were raised. However, in addition to the introductory remarks, the new report does include significant changes to the body of the document.

Despite the revisions, my cursory initial review leads me to the conclusion that the basic content and purpose of the report have not been substantially altered. However, there has been a clear attempt to remove controversial parts of the report in order to placate the critics.

Also, the revision includes the addition of an excerpt from columnist Marc Ellis (see below).

There are many reasons why this report may be rejected by the General Assembly. Many church members are pro-Zionist and others may just want to avoid conflict with their Jewish opponents.   But one can hope that the unfair criticism, which included charges of church anti-Semitism and opposition to Christian theology, will cause a backlash, and the passage of the report.

I compared a number of excerpts I had previously marked as possibly objectionable to the pro-Israel critics with the revised edition. What follows are a few changes I found.

The conclusion in the revised version reads:

... Christians should not be supporting any claims by any people ... [to Palestine]

In the Bible, God’s promises extend in hope to all land and people. p. 12

Here is the original conclusion.  What is in bold has been deleted. 

… Christians should not be supporting any claims by Jewish people or any people…

In the Bible, God’s promises extend in hope to all land and people.  Focussed as they are on the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, these promises call for a commitment in every place to justice in a spirit of reconciliation. p.9

The next passage was one that many thought would be deleted because of its reference to Jesus’ teachings, which contradicted Old Testament truths.  That was objectionable to some religious Jews.  The idea that some Jews would object to voicing a central belief of Christianity seemed to me the pinnacle of intolerance and chutzpah. I am glad to see that this central theological argument remains, although it was altered and softened by the deletion, as shown in bold.

Revised version: 

If Jesus is indeed the Yes to all God’s promises then for Christians the promise to Abraham about

land is fulfilled through the impact of Jesus. Jesus gave a new direction to his followers, one which did not feature nor was it confined to a special area of land for them. p. 9

 Original:

If Jesus is indeed the Yes to all God’s promises the promise to Abraham about the land is fulfilled through the impact of Jesus, not by restoration of land to the Jewish people. Jesus gave a new direction to his followers, one which did not feature nor was it confined to a special area of land for them. p. 8

Quite a bit of the criticism of the Jewish writer and critic of Zionism, Mark Braverman, has been deleted, including a call for Jews to repent for the Nakba and a plea to Christians to not use guilt about the Holocaust to stifle criticism of Israeli abuses.  But the new report adds the writing of Marc Ellis, the author and Mondoweiss contributor, (misspelled as Mark), who cautions Christians against permitting pro-Israel Jews to use interfaith dialogue to silence their advocacy for Palestinians.  Here is Marc Ellis with a very fitting remark, which can be understood as specifically relating to last week's pro-Israel attack upon the report.

It seems late in the Israel/Palestine political game – and it is late indeed – but the mainstream Churches are breaking what I have called the interfaith ecumenical deal. That deal is usually referred to as the interfaith ecumenical dialogue, the post-Holocaust place where Jews and Christians have mended their relationship. Israel was huge in this dialogue. Then as Israel became more controversial with their abuse of Palestinians, Christians remained silent. Nonsupport and, worse, criticism of Israeli policies, was seen by the Jewish dialoguers as backtracking to anti-Semitism. That’s where the dialogue became a deal: Silence on the Christian side brings no criticism of anti-Semitism from the Jewish side. p. 8

*For Somoza: ("Our Own Backyard: The US in Central America, 1977-1992 " by William LeoGrande, page 24)

A bill pushed by the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) that critics say would codify Israeli discrimination against American travelers is still on the table. But Palestine solidarity activists and their allies are ramping up their campaign to thwart it.

The bill in question is a reciprocal visa waiver program with Israel. But the legislative language would effectively give Israel the go-ahead to continue its practice of pointing to security concerns when it denies Palestinian- or Arab-Americans entry to the country.

The U.S. Campaign to End the Occupation and a host of other groups are now making a concerted effort to make sure the proposal doesn’t become the law of the land. The campaign against the legislation is being spearheaded by a coalition of peace and justice, Palestine solidarity, and Arab and Muslim groups.

Yesterday, the group sent out an open letter to all senators that was signed by 52 other organizations. The letter blasts the United States-Israel Strategic Partnership Act, the name of the AIPAC-backed bill that includes the visa waiver program.

It reads in part:

Currently, all 37 countries participating in the Visa Waiver Program must grant reciprocity to U.S. citizens and allow them to enter their countries without a visa. However, S.462 would exempt Israel from this requirement, holding it to a lower standard than all other countries. Instead of guaranteeing all U.S. citizens a reciprocal visa, the bill would allow Israel to enter the program after the United States has certified that it “has made every reasonable effort, without jeopardizing the security of the State of Israel, to ensure that reciprocal travel privileges are extended to all United States citizens.”

As is well documented... Israel systematically discriminates against
Palestinian-Americans, Arab-Americans, Muslim-Americans and other U.S. citizens from all ethnic and faith backgrounds who support Palestinian human and national rights by frequently denying them visas to travel to Israel and Occupied Palestinian Territory. When denying these U.S. citizens entry, Israel often subjects them to humiliating searches, intensive interrogations, and invasions of personal privacy, including demanding access to private email accounts.

Rather than hold Israel accountable for its ethnic, religious, and political profiling of U.S. citizens, S.462 would codify into law U.S. acceptance of Israel’s discrimination and allow it to continue to deny visas to U.S. citizens through its unique catch-all “reasonable effort” and “security” loopholes.

The U.S. Campaign to End the Occupation is also urging supporters to write and call their senators to oppose the legislation. “Your calls, emails, and media activism are critical in our effort to ensure that Congress does not bestow legitimacy on Israel's apartheid policies,” wrote Mike Coogan, the U.S. Campaign’s Legislative Coordinator, in an e-mail today. Other provisions of the bill include making Israel a “major strategic partner”--a designation not granted to any other country. 

The renewed activist efforts come as the case of Nour Joudah, a Palestinian-American teacher denied entry by Israel twice on the basis of unspecified “security” concerns, has received more attention in the form of a Daily Beast article. As we have reported, Joudah was stopped, interrogated and denied entry by Israeli border authorities twice, despite the fact that the Friends School, where she taught, has been extensively funded by the U.S. government. Congressional officials tried to facilitate her entry to Israel, but it was to no avail. Currently, Joudah’s case is being handled remotely by the Israeli Ministry of Foreign of Affairs, a move that came after she fought with the Israeli bureacracy and appealed her denial of entry.

Yesterday, Open Zion editor Ali Gharib and Ma’an News’ George Hale authored a detailed piece that gives voice to opponents of the AIPAC-backed bill.

Under the pending bill, Joudah’s discriminatory experience at the hands of Israel would be blessed by the United States. Gharib and Hale point out that the office of Senator Barbara Boxer, the lead sponsor of the bill in the Senate, has said that the United States-Israel Strategic Partnership Act would “certify that Israel is taking appropriate action to ensure that Americans receive reciprocal travel privileges.”

But if that were the case, Gharib and Hale point out, it’s unclear why “the language specific to Israel's entry into the program remains necessary.” Indeed, as the Jewish Telegraphic Agency’s Ron Kampeas noted, the bill would grant Israel entry into the visa-reciprocity program, in which American and Israeli travelers going to those respective countries would not need a visa to enter.

But Boxer’s bill includes this provision: Israel would become a member of the program after the U.S. government certified that the country “has made every reasonable effort, without jeopardizing the security of the State of Israel, to ensure that reciprocal travel privileges are extended to all United States citizens.” No other country has that security-related language attached to legislation granting them entry into the visa-waiver program.

Here’s more from Gharib and Hale, including striking information that the Arab American Anti-Discrimination Committee shared with them:

The special language for Israel in Boxer's bill, critics contend, would codify this discrimination against American citizens. Abed Ayoub, the director of legal and policy affairs with the Arab American Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), said his group tracked Israeli entry denials from 2007 until late 2011. "We were getting somewhere around 100 calls a year when we were tracking this," he said, noting that all the complaints were from Americans. "One of the main reasons to cut back on those efforts was that the State Department was not listening to us. We were collecting the information, but nothing was happening with it." Other prominent Arab Americans agreed discrimination was a major problem: "I personally have undergone this behavior at the hands of the Israelis and it's totally unacceptable," said James Zogby, the president of the Arab American Institute in Washington, who is campaigning on the Hill to get co-sponsors to withdraw support from the bill. "Members of Congress need to know what they're doing." A centerpiece of the influential pro-Israel group AIPAC's legislative efforts, the bill has languished in committee since early March. But just this month four new Senators added their names to the bill, bringing the total to 28 co-sponsors. "The question is: does AIPAC decide to make a full court press?" Zogby said.

Joudah's case is all the more fraught, and the discrimination more acute, because she's an American citizen of Palestinian descent. Her ordeal tugs at the loose threads not only of the Israeli-American relationship, but at the core of the very conflict with the Palestinians. Palestinian Americans, though their families originate from the area, frequently complain of ethnically-tinged questioning and being denied entry to Israel or the Occupied Territories. U.S. citizens with Palestinian identification don't enjoy the same freedom of movement their American compatriots do in Israel and the land under its control. For all Palestinian Americans, Congress seems to heap favor on Israel at their expense.

Reham Barghouti, another Palestinian-American teacher at the Friends School and a friend of Joudah’s, told me last month:

“This is the only place in the world where I feel that it means nothing to be an American. It means absolutely nothing. If there was any other place that dealt with American citizens in this kind of way, there would be this whole giant uproar, right? But because it’s here, I guess, it doesn’t really matter.”

The Boxer bill is the clearest sign that Barghouti is right. Israeli discrimination against Arab and Palestinian travelers is routine--but that fact, as Barghouti notes, "doesn't really matter."

There’s a sadness about it all, what we Jews have become, at least on the American and Israeli side, where most Jews live.

But if we’re holding out for some nostalgic return to a European/Arab/North African pre-Holocaust/pre-Israel Jewry or an internationalist postcolonial Frantz Fanon Left– as if there’s a purity in either - it’s unlikely to happen.  

Traveling back in time is for the cinema.  Back to the Future is unreal for any identity, including Jewish.

Besides, geographically and ethically, Jews were all over the map then, too.  Ethnicities and religiosities are like nation-states.   Memory makes them better than they were.

Is European – American – Israeli – and every Jewish group sucked into that now normative vortex we might call Empire Jewish – fated to declare war on everyone outside of Europe, America and Israel?  Sometimes it looks like that. 

When I read Joseph Massad, the intrepid Jordanian-born Palestinian and professor at Columbia University, I try hard not to extrapolate from his analysis.  Read him for yourself, you’ll see it’s easier said than done.  I consider this a tribute to his challenging words. 

I’m also following a series on Mondoweiss regarding Jewishness and how Jewish activists wear and/or discard their identity.  It’s fascinating to read how Jews identity Jewish.  Even when they distance themselves from Jewish, they do so in such an identifiable – Jewish - way. 

Mossad and the Mondoweiss series challenge Jews everywhere.  What is Jewish identity and where do certain Jewish identity configurations lead?

Even in the most intimate of circumstances being Jewish is rarely simple.  As a Jew, have you ever been with someone who loves your Jewishness when you take on the Jewish establishment but values you personally in so far as your Jewish identity doesn’t exist beyond being born Jewish? 

If it hasn’t happened to you yet, it will.  When it does, think how far we’ve travelled in identity’s Time Machine.  Moving forward, you find yourself experiencing the past you thought was left behind. 

Palestinians need all the allies they can get.  Nonetheless, I would be wary of those who prize Jews as fighters of the Jewish establishment only.  When Palestinians come into their own, these same folks will expect Palestinians to be street fighters in public and universalists at home.

The Palestinian cause has never been a human and political rights issue – only.  The Palestinian cause has never been a non-White world issue – only.  The Palestinian cause has never been an Islamic and Arab cause – only.  First and foremost, the Palestinian cause is a Palestinian cause.  Palestinians shouldn’t apologize for this, should they?

Palestinians shouldn’t be Palestinians in public and universalists at home.  Nor should Palestinians be universalists in public and Palestinians at home.  If either option is adopted we’re back to the European Enlightenment wherever Palestinians live.  We’re back to 18th and 19th century Europe and Jewish “emancipation.”  Talk about traveling back in time!

There’s a discourse out there that sees Euro-American White Zionist Jewishness as criminal in and of itself.  Like there’s something inherent in Jewishness that pre-disposes Jews to criminal alliances when the opportunity arises.  Historically, though, I’ve noticed that every particularity, including Palestinian, faces the same alliance temptations whenever that opportunity presents itself.

Massad is clear on this when he speaks of the Palestinian Authority and Arab dictatorships.  Jews who seek to jettison their identity for justice – and who know Massad to be right – are caught up short here.  Because if every identity configuration is tempted to align itself with unjust power, including the universalist Left, where are identity’s resources to break this headlong fall into power’s original sin?

I doubt that jettisoning Jewishness will accomplish the “I’m not complicit” trick.  Even that jettisoning is historically identifiable as Jewish. 

Here’s what I think about identity and justice: 

When an individual can’t locate her resistance somewhere beyond her individuality, she needs to broaden her search.

Without a rooted identity, there is no resistance. 

No man is an island – as the saying traditionally goes.  No dissent is an island either.   

All of this goes for Palestinian dissent – and Jewish dissent as well. 

Where does this lead?

Much more reflection is needed.  What we should know by now is that neither particularity without universalism nor universalism without particularity will move us closer to a justice that is achievable and livable.

The computer technician tells me stories with a little smile because he knows he's getting under my skin. He said he has a client who gets to fly free on Qatar Airways because her sister works for them, and he told her not to fly on Qatar because the Emir is helping the people in Gaza. Does she listen to you? I asked. No she just laughs. Well are you going to stop working for her if she flies Qatar. No no, he said. That little smile. Though I believe in taking action. You're really not going to like this. But when I see those Halal food stands in the city, I never buy from them. I go right by. Because you know Hamas gets money over here and I don’t want even a little bit of money maybe ending up with people who are trying to hurt me.

I merely nodded. I wanted my computer back, and fixed.

The dentist is an assimilated Muslim who got out of Iran before the revolution. He keeps trying to get me to go out for a drink. We have a lot to talk about. OK, let's talk, I said. Have you ever considered that the root of the problem is that these countries have done nothing for 500 years, he said, so they’re envious of the west and western progress? I said, I like to focus on my own country’s responsibility. Why are we invading them? He said, But you have to understand the Muslim mind, they’re envious. I said, I’m trying to understand the Jewish mind, we came up with Zionism. It's not helping. That’s what I’m focused on. He said, But do you realize all that Israel has created? I shrugged. The racism really upsets me. He said, I don't know; why can’t they be left alone, why don’t these societies look at their own problems?

I said, I’m sure you’re right but the issue is occupying and stealing land. That’s going to upset people whether they’re backward, forward or sideways.

You don’t understand the effect of Islam.

I’m sure I don’t. I don't know that it matters.

Once anti-semitism was just this acceptable. Anyone got to express the ideas because you didn’t pay any price for them. Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, Tolstoy, Ernest Hemingway, they all caricatured Jews. Henry Ford put out anti-Semitic literature and sold cars. Because Jews were different and had a different culture, different ways and values, and Jews were assuming a new role in western society. It’s no different with Muslims today. The anti-Muslim feelings are completely acceptable. The government acts on them, and so do the people. No one's paying a price for prejudice.

Back when Jews were persecuted, the Jewish community and friends of Jews had to organize. The American Jewish Committee got started after the pogroms. The ADL started because of the Leo Frank lynching. The New York Times crusaded for Leo Frank, and the Methodist bishop in Atlanta refused to lift a finger to help: "I have been annoyed by letters from all over the country trying to draw me into the case on behalf of Mr. Frank.” There was a real reason for the organizations fighting anti-Semitism. They changed American attitudes, and government policy too. People of conscience have to do the same thing now for our Muslim brothers and sisters—kill the bigotry, fight the evil policies, show that Muslims are just part of the human family.

Mandy Patinkin is to receive an award from the American friends of an Israeli medical center at their gala at the Harvard Club in New York next month, and the award is rankling the right guard.

The Jewish Press-- the same Jewish Press that published Lori Lowenthal Marcus's bizarre rant about Dustin Hoffman's Semitic nose and Emad Burnat as an alleged "Israel-hater"-- seems to be demonizing Mandy Patinkin in the green-bearded image above. Because Marcus is ticked that an honor is going to someone who supports boycotting the settlements, "an American Jewish celebrity who supports economic warfare against Jews living and working in Judea and Samaria."

Working off the original image of his impassioned speech at the Peace Now Conference in Tel Aviv last spring (at which he described America as his homeland and said, "I am certain that this peace process will prevail"), the Jewish Press morphs Patinkin into the very opposite of who he is.

Look at the original:

Lori Lowenthal Marcus knows it; she says "It is hard to listen to Patinkin and imagine anything other than that he has a warm, loving soul and just wants everyone to get along."

But the award worries her-- another soldier in Israel's delegitimization:

Now we learn that the American fundraising arm of a wonderful Israeli institution – Soroka Medical Center – is poised to honor yet another soldier in the delegitimization war against Israel.

...........And now Jews are left with the choice of not going to a fundraiser for a wonderful, non-political medical center in Israel, or going and watching as an American Jew who encourages the economic boycott of a Jewish town is given an award.  It’s a tough choice that Jews should not make other Jews make.

Palestinian filmaker Wafaa Aburahama packs a lot into this stirring 8 minute Nakba film, intertwining emotional testimony and educational narration and imagery. Halfway through is footage of refugee camps showing actual conditions inside these supposedly temporary communities. 

The testimony of centenarian Naifeh Abu Ayadah beginning at 5:25 ensures this little video will be viewed long into the future.

We were happy back then, our land was really beautiful and had big fortune. When you see our homeland you cry because of being away. If I had to choose between the wealth of the world and going back home I would go back to smell it. One grain of sand is better than all the money. If they ask me to go back I will crawl only to see it.

Aburahama is a refugee living in Gaza. An English language lecturer and translator, she is originally from Aqer village, Palestine.

(Hat tip Mondoweiss contributor Yousef M. Aljamal)