My grandmother is 90 years old. Twice exiled, first by Israel during the Nakba, then by Assad’s regime in Syria, her memory is no longer whole. Of her life today in Sweden, she holds only the last few minutes. Of her long decades, just flashes.
Yet her childhood in Kfar Sabt, a Palestinian village in the Galilee depopulated in 1948, burns bright. She grins, almost mischievously, as she recalls playing in the fields, running around with the other children, and spying on a Jewish farmer whose sudden arrival in the village — and the noisy tractor that came with him — stirred curiosity and suspicion.
I was born a refugee, my grandmother’s family from Kfar Sabt, my grandfather’s family from the nearby village of Lubya. Today, from my home in Ramallah, I wake each morning to the sight of an Israeli flag in the nearby settlement Beit El, a clear reminder of the apartheid regime that dictates every aspect of my life. ….more
