Years of no decision chapter 3 alia story

1. 3
But I wonder if they realise the full extent of the suffering they cause. One example will
perhaps make my point. In time it begins in 1948; it came to my attention in 1965 when I
was at the Jordanian Embassy in Cairo and its end, as known to me for perhaps it still
continues, comes in 1967.
As I opened the window of my office one day in 1965 1 saw a car draw up
outside. Hurriedly, an old man clothed in a long Arab dress with his head covered by a
kuffiyah stepped out. I saw him rushing towards my office. Depsite the heavy burden of
age he ascended the winding stairs of the building with astonishing agility, lie entered the
office and emotional threw himself at my feet. I found he was crying, with tears falling
on his long thick silver heard. I felt perplexed and overwhelmed by this dignified man
with tears flowing from his eyes. His look was that of a distracted heart-broken human
being, lost in a world full of cruelty and pain. I began by calming him.
He started telling me a tragic story. In the next hour I heard a tale which filled me
with diverse emotion: sometimes calm, sometimes

2. The Massacre of Kufr Kasim and the Shooting in Bedrus
rebellious. His name, he told me, was Ahu Falah. He said: “My tale opens at the moment
Palestine was lost on 15th of May 1948. The area around my village. El-Sheikh Muannis,
was occupied. Words reached us of savagery, assaults on women, and the murder of
children. We panicked. Our tribe started to move out. Evacuating the women and the
children was our first duty.
“It was fated that my pregnant wife should at that moment give birth to a girl,
Alia, My wife died a few hours later. I was lost in a whirlpool of tragedies. My wife must
he quickly buried in her birthplace. The child in the cradle was in immediate need of
nursing. There were also other children awaiting departure. And there I was standing in
despair. not knowing where to start and how to find a solution. What to do? Where to go?
My mind was going round in a vicious circle.
“My neighbour. an Egyptian Haj Husein, who used to come annually during the
orange season and live on my land free, while in search of a livelihood, came and said:
„Do not worry. Attend to the burial of your wife and give the child to me. My wife will
care for her and consider her as her own child, for she is mother to another nursing
infant.‟
“He then repeated: „do not despair. Do not be sad. God is bountiful. Your
kindnesses toward me have been many. I assure you that Alia will receive the best of care
and supervision. Whatsoever God wills for us will be for her, too. Now go. God be with
you.‟
“I kissed Alia who was wrapped in a half-metre of black cloth, and gave her to
him,
“A few hours later, pressure had increased. Word of murder, torture, and terrorism
found its way to us. We escaped and scattered. Later saw me in the refugee camp in
Nablus. No more than three days had passed since my wife‟s death, but I knew absolutely
nothing of where my daughter Alia had ended up.
“For years I lived the life of the tents, of humiliation and of need. I awaited news
of Alia, my daughter. Where was she‟? How was she‟? I would wake up at night and talk
of my woe to the stars scattered in the skies. I would ask in the night‟s darkness: Where
are you. Alia? And how are you Alia?‟ And I would talk to myself in the darkness of
many things. I would end up by saying that one place could reunite me. my village of
Sheikh Muannis. There we had parted and there we would sometime meet again.
“Our stay away from our homeland was prolonged, our return delayed. My
daughter Alia was growing up in a world I knew not. I was lost not knowing where to
turn. I knew, of course, that she was

3. Years of No Decision
with the Egyptian family somewhere in the Sinai desert. I therefore spread word among
all those leaving for the Gaza area, adjacent to Sinai, to enquire about my daughter.
“Finally, after fifteen years, a refugee came to inform me that my daughter Alia
was in Egypt living in a farm called Axe in Mansoura. He told me that he had met her
adopted father in one of the cotton fields, lie had seen her there collecting cotton with
some other refugees who had come to earn their bread, just as Ilaj Husein, the Egyptian
step-father, used to do in the orange groves of my own beautiful country. I found myself
jumping to my feet joyfully embracing this herald of good tidings.
“I collected my clothes and took a little money from my son, then a soldier on the
battlefield, and prepared to leave for Egypt. Suddenly, however. I found myself in a
dilemma. The relations between two countries in one Arab homeland did not allow travel.
The journey must he postponed. I then considered authorizing someone to bring the girl
to me. I thought that it was that easy.
“I sent a proxy to a relative of mine. After receiving permission to cross the
borders and to overcome impediments, he made use of the police, and my daughter was
brought to him under police protection. It disturbed her that her first contact with her
father should he through police and security forces. She pictured her father as a merciless,
cruel man who knew no affection. Immediately upon her arrival at the police station she
declared that she had no other father hut her adopted one, and that she wanted no
substitute for him. Being mature now, Alia was given freedom of choice. The police
escorted her „back to the farm in Mansoura.
“The news of her rejection of her true father reached me and my unhappiness
increased. Sorrows, memories, and despair again shared my life. Again I started living in
an atmosphere of pain, amidst the fears and regrets of the past. 1 would look up at the
sky‟s justice and say: my wife lost her life, my daughter Alia has denounced me and
decided not to return”. Thus the cruelty of fate had it appeared snatched my land, wife,
daughter and all I owned in the world from me.
“1 realized that the only chance left was to try again, hut this time by myself. Perhaps
God would will success for me. But this trial needed travel, and travel was tied up by the
change in relationship between two Arab countries in the one homeland.
“The days passed and the impact of my disaster increased. 1 would wake up each
morning to listen to the news broadcast from Cairo and Amman. I would walk around the
camp. Whenever I found a refugee reading a newspaper I would stop and beg him in

4. The Massacre of Kufr Kasim and the Shooting in Bedrus
the name of God and His greatness to read me what news there was of the relations
between the country I was staying in and the country my daughter Alia was in.
“Two whole years passed and at long last the first rays of hope began to appear.
Things eased between the two Arab countries. I came to Cairo and here I am before you.
This is my story. Here is my daughter‟s address. I plead with you, help me for I cannot
sojourn here too long. I only have limited funds and do not want to be a burden to
anyone. God has deprived me of everything hut my pride. You would not want to deny
me this and let me lose my self-respect at this advanced age. I beg you.”
This is a literal translation of what the old man. Ahu Falah told me. His story pained me.
When the next morning started drawing its first breath, 1 was with this virtuous
man driving quickly to Mansoura. In my pocket I was carrying a letter from the Egyptian
Ministry of Interior to the authorities in Mansoura to facilitate my mission.
The authorities sent for Alia. They were careful to he especially nice to her.
Hours passed. We kept waiting. Every time a girl came by, Ahu Falah, Alia‟s
father, would jump to greet her, then say, “this cannot he my daughter!”. Later Alia
arrived and immediately her father recognized her. how. I did not know.
Maybe it was the “call of blood” as we Arabs say. She did not recognize him. Her
father broke down crying when he saw her. She rejected him and refused the relationship.
She declared that she did not know or want him — he had on the previous occasion sent
police with rifles to fetch her, she had on that occasion spent several hours among women
of had reputation.
The old man‟s tears increased. It distressed him that Alia knew nothing of his own
story.
Alia said: “If you are in truth my father, why did you not seek me previously? Why did
you remain silent for seventeen years before remembering me? Was it because I am now
grown up and can be of help to you that you now came? No, I do not want you.”
Slowly the local Mansoura police officer, a kind and experienced man, familiar
with the peasant‟s mentality, began explaining to Alia what had happened — the
suffering her father had gone through, the long tiresome days, the restlessness, his
sleepless nights and his agony. I, too, started telling her of the disaster, of the
circumstances and of her share in it all. I reassured her that she would not be taken by
force or be abducted as she imagined. I told her that I would

5. Years of No Decision
protect her against any violence — the police would not interfere save for her own
good. Her father and 1 would not take her except following her full consent and
positive willingness, and only after a written guarantee and commitment to secure
her safety had been obtained. This calmed the girl tremendously.
Then came Haj Husein, the Egyptian step father‟, lie was no longer able to
walk without the help of a long stick cut from a branch of an olive tree. He wore a
white gallabiyya, his head covered with a woollen cap wrapped in a scarf made of
smooth, translucent cotton. He had a long mustache and a short beard. The years
had disabled and weakened him; the needs and requirements of life had broken
him! His eyesight had become weak, lie could see hut little, he whispered in my
ear that he was Alia‟s adopted father. I thanked him for all what he did for Alia.
He smiled and said:
“Alia is now everything to us. It is she that cares for me, an old and
disabled man. She also cares for my wife who nursed her and brought her up. She
is the organiser of our life and the one that waits on our comfort. You can see what
pain her departure would cause us after she has grown up and matured among us,
after we have learned to depend only upon God and her. But despite all this, she is,
after all, the trust left in our hands, after the Zionists had displaced her father, the
Palestinian Abu Falah. Today she is as my own flesh, blood and honour. She is a
trust for whose protection I would give my life. I would not give her up for
anything. Every year 1, myself an old and disabled man, would journey to Cairo to
renew her permit of residence, for she is a Palestinian. I would save piasters all
year round to cover the expenses of the journey and for payment of the fees. I
would go through these difficulties, and I am such an old man as you see before
you, for no other reason hut to protect her real name and nationality for I expected
a day such as this one. 11cr father, Abu Falah, is a kind man; he was generous to
me in Palestine in the old days and treated me well. What is the reward for
kindness hut kindness? I am happy and joyous for seeing him hut nonetheless I am
sad and I feel the whole world with its horizons is closing in on me because Alia‟s
departure is now obvious. My one request however is that you should not take the
girl against her will. Let her father live with us for two or three weeks. His
daughter will see him daily and will grow accustomed to him. He could give her
clothing for the Bairam feast, and fatherly presents. Then he should leave and start
corresponding with her. She will get used to him and her fear will soften. I
guarantee success and God be with you.”
I was impressed with this wise Egyptian. He was rather slow of

6. The Massacre of Kufr Kasim and the Shooting in Bedrus
speech, but had the wisdom of the old. Abu Falah lived with his daughter for a few days,
then returned to his own camp, leaving the girl behind. I would take the girl‟s cousin to
the farm in Mansoura once in a while till Alia realised the truth of her situation and
stopped asking difficult questions. Strangely enough, this girl, though illiterate, was
worrying all the time that she, her absent father and the whole refugee camp he lived in
would be thrown in the arms of Israeli occupation. She was the victim of fear all the time.
Later, she started asking about her real father. She began to miss him. Finally, she asked
that Abu Falah should come back to take her to the camps of the „returning‟.
Many other developments added to the complications and I need not mention them
here — problems of identity, passport, visa, departure etc., but suffice to say that Abu
Falah came and took his daughter back to the Palestinian camp. Haj Husein refused to
accept any money for the maintenance of Alia all this time. His only request was that
Alia should come and visit them every year during the Bairam. The father promised Haj
Husein that Alia would come to him during the feast each year. I also assured Haj Husein
that I would see to it that the promise would he fulfilled.
The day that Alia departed was a kind of feast for the little village of Mansoura
with mixed feelings to its people. All rose crying together, then singing, and then
laughing at one another. With sunlight beating down on them, their sad sweet and pure
voices cried:
“Good-bye Alia, God be with you, Alia, go with peace, Alia, remember us, Alia!” The
mayor and the Chief of the Ghafar (the village police), came out, expressing words of
congratulation and phrases of joy, mingled with the sadness of parting. Everyone was
calling out good-bye to their beloved Alia; the whole farm and the hearts of the good
hearted Egyptians were celebrating Alia‟s rejoicing.
The tale did not end at this point. The same year, late 1965, I was transferred to
New York as Ambassador and Permanent Repres entative of Jordan to the United
Nations. I was still there when, on the occasion of the first Bairam after Alia had left the
house of Haj Husein, I received a letter from the disabled adopted father, Haj. It
requested me to fulfil my promise “pledge is a responsibility” the letter said. His step-
daughter had not come to Mansoura from her camp as he had been expecting.
The poor man did not know that on 5th June 1967 Israeli forces occupied the
remaining parts of Palestine, thus making travel to Cairo difficult if not impossible. What
that simple, illiterate, innocent, girl predicted had come true. Haj Husein did not know

7. Years of No Decision
that Alia‟s residence and the whole area was cut off from other parts of the Arab
homeland; that Alia now lived behind barbed wire, that Israel had committed another act
of aggression and occupied more Palestinian land and displaced more people.
Haj Husein said in his letter that he wanted to see Alia again before he died. Lie
wanted me to fulfil my pledge, reciting from the Quran: “a pledge is a responsibility that
has to be met.”
I could not answer his request because the Israelis had the answer. Haj liusein died
two years later. He never saw his step-daughter and I never told him why she did not
show up. I wanted to explain this to him in person when I visited him. But when I went to
him he was dead.
What happened to Alia? I do not know. Hers remains a typical and poignant true
story of a Palestinian child of her day, one of many hundreds.
Yet it seems that the effects of their actions leave the Israelis untouched and by
some compulsion they are driven to continue with the policies of their leaders who
cannot, or will not, curb their cupidity even though it must he clear that they cannot take
from the Palestinians their determination to survive.
4
Toquote Jacobo Timerman, an Argentianian-born Israeli writer:
“Nothing can replace the need of a people to organize into a state in the
territory in which they live and which belongs to them. The alternative our government
offers, no matter how it masks it, is to continue repressing the Palestinian people until we
destroy their will to live and liquidate their national identity. It‟s incredible that such a
policy is being considered by the very people who demonstrated that this is impossible,
that it is immoral, that it is criminal .„„3
One wonders if the Israelis want to treat the Palestinians in the same way that the
Americans treated the Red Indians. By virtually eliminating them. But there are four
million Palestinians. I don‟t know whether the Israelis who committed those crimes
realise that the children of their victims in Bedrus, Kufr Kasim, Khan-Yunis
3. The Longest War. Israel in Lebanon, Jacobo Timerman, Vintage Books. New York.
1982. p. 77

8. The Massacre of Kufr Kasim and the Shooting in Bedrus
and Deir Yassin are today grown up. As I predicted in that Security Council debate, many
of these children have joined the Palestinian resistance in South Lebanon.
They were united in their suffering, conviction and determination to crush Israeli might,
to put an end to Israeli arrogance and liberate their homeland from Zionism so that the 1-
loly Land might become a land of peace for Jew and Gentile alike. They realised that
Zionist occupation was a new kind of colonialism. They were young and fresh. Some had
only High School education. Others left their refugee camps. Obtained their university
degrees and came back to fight for their homeland with better technique and expertise.
I hate to see such people die. I hate to see other people die in senseless war.
Many young Palestinian fighters have never known a proper home or shelter. They
have been born in either a hut or a tent, living on seven cents a day offered by the United
Nations, while the Israelis enjoyed their homes and farms, picking the fruits of trees they
never planted in lands they never owned. These young men open their eyes every
morning and look across electric barbed wire to see the Israelis trespassing on their land,
dwelling in their houses and making a mockery of United Nations resolutions. A fence
separates them, the owners, from the Israelis the trespassers. If any Palestinian crosses
that fence to pick fruits of which he is the legitimate owner he finds a Zionist bullet
waiting for him. Who, I wonder, is the thief and who is the victim?