[نصيرة تختوخ]

Samia Khoury on her family's displacement after the Six-Day War.
Christopher Brown
On June 8, 1967, the Israeli army began its occupation of East Jerusalem, the West Bank, Gaza Strip, the Sinai, and the Golan Heights. More than 200,000 Palestinians were displaced. Although eventually withdrawing from the Egyptian Sinai in 1979, the Israeli invaders illegally annexed the Golan Heights in 1982, and continue to militarily occupy the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem to this day.
On June 3 I spoke by phone with Samia Khoury, whose family was displaced as a result of the Six-Day War, about what life was like during that fateful time.

Christopher Brown: Samia can you talk about what happened to your relatives on the day the Israeli army forced them out of their home?
Samia Khoury: We had to leave because there was no security for us at all in that area. We were living near a Jordanian military camp and my father thought that it would not be safe for us so he called me and asked me to get the children and come over to their home in Birzeit where it is safer.
The roads were not safe. It didn't take six days, it took 24 hours. They [the Israelis] just walked all over the place, and cars were being crushed by military tanks. So we all huddled, my sister-in-law and her children we are gathered in Birzeit.
What worried us really was that it would be another 1948 exodus and we will not be able to come back home. This was the basic worry. But fortunately after it settled down, and after 10 days we were able to go back to our home.

Can you describe the dangerous journey that your family took from East Jerusalem to Birzeit?
Luckily I left before the tanks arrived. But the neighbors -- some of our neighbors -- were really threatened. And they were very worried that they would not be able to make it, and some people did not.

In Ramallah, where my sister was living at the time, people got killed near them basically from shelling. There were planes shelling the area, it was a residential area and two girls from the evangelical school were killed in the shelling.

Two hundred thousand people were displaced as a result of the Six-Day War. What has life been like for those whom you know that were displaced as a result of the war?
Up to this day they ended up in Jordan, most of them ended up in Jordan. They were afraid. They saw the army coming in and they saw that they had no security, and they left to Jordan.

These became refugees for the second time. And some of them happened to be in Jordan, some of them happened to be in the states, studying. And suddenly there was a new reality for them. And they had to go through a long process in order to come back home. Some of them had to wade through the Jordan River to come back. And they were shot at and by a miracle some of them made it, some of them did not.
Jews from around the world who wish to immigrate to Israel can do so with no problems, but Palestinians who live just a few miles from, and once lived in, Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa and other Israeli cities are forbidden to enter without proper documents, which are difficult to receive. What are your thoughts on this?
It is so unfair. I mean the whole issue of Palestine is an issue of injustice, blatant injustice that the world has allowed to continue for almost 60 years. It's a matter of occupation, dispossession of a whole nation, dispossession of our rights, of our humanity. You are talking about people who are outside (the country), who are not allowed inside.

Now we have people inside the country who are not allowed. My daughter is married to someone in the West Bank and he cannot be unified with his family. Since 1984 she has been applying for his reunification, and no way! It is the most inhuman act anybody can do. And there are thousands of couples like this.

So people are starting to worry. Yesterday I was talking to a young girl from Nazareth and she said, "I started a relationship with a fellow from Bethlehem area and he cannot come live with me in Nazareth and I don't want to give up my home in Nazareth and come and live in Bethlehem."

Nowhere in the world is it systematic, a part of the system, the right to be with their spouses

Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Avigdor Lieberman has called for the expulsion of all Palestinians from the territories. The apartheid wall that is being built on Palestinian land continues to go deeper into the West Bank; the wall is affecting those in the territories and even Palestinians who did not leave East Jerusalem. Samia, do you feel that the Israeli government wants to carry out what Lieberman says?
Definitely! It is systematic, and has been going on way before '67. Ever since the euphoria of winning this victory in '67, the plan is continuing. If you read The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine by Ilan Pappe you will see how the seed was planted before the state of Israel was created.

It was created for Jews only. And by any means they are going to try to empty this land. It's very sad because I feel we are destined to live side by side. My generation lived in Palestine before '48 and I knew the Jew as a neighbor. Unfortunately, this new generation doesn't know the Jews, except as a military occupier. They have no experience with the Jew as a neighbor or friend.

And it is very sad that this conflict has dehumanized the occupier as much as it has dehumanized the occupied.
Finally Samia, June 8 marks 40 years of occupation by the Israeli army. There are marches planned all over the world to protest. Recently the Congress of South African Trade Unions has called for a boycott of all Israeli products. Academic boycotts in Canada, Ireland and the U.K. are seriously being considered, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter's book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid is being praised and discussed in many circles. How have Palestinians received this news?
It gives us such hope that eventually people see but its not enough. It's not enough until the United Nations plays its role and lives up to its duty and not continue to be hijacked by the American veto.

There is no way that Israel will change its stand. All the United Nations resolutions need to be implemented, and Israel has to accept that but it doesn't. It does things with impunity and they get away with it!

And as long as they get away with it they're not going to stop. And these are very good signs [the protests] and we really appreciate it. And you know the Israeli soldiers who are refusing to serve in the army these are another sign of hope for us. We feel that if the Israelis see what this occupation is doing to them and is damaging their spirit, and their humanity, maybe they will realize that this occupation has to come to an end. We just have to find a way to live side by side together.

Christopher Brown is an independent journalist living in San Francisco. He produces and hosts a weekly podcast titled "Crossing The Line: Life in Occupied Palestine."

[عبداللطيف أحمد فؤاد]

What a sad postion we are in