I had a house – a shelter, a small garden and a well. I had built it with my own labor and the sweat of my brow. I lived, I had enough of everything. Remember: my name is Palestinian, I do not bear any other title. My lot is a tent in a field, although I live in the age of the atom. I don’t have any passport, they don’t even recognize that I exist! Write it down, history! Write it down, history of humanity!
Still, I had a home – a shelter. I built it with my own labor, by the sweat of my brow. I lived, I had enough of everything"
This song and these pictures were written by Ibrahim Hassan Ghannam, a Palestinian. He had a father, he had a mother, he had a house and an orchard. 30 years ago, Israeli soldiers mutilated his legs. Afterwards, there was paralysis, 6 years in a UNESCO hospital, and nevertheless, immobility. From memory, he paints landscapes of his homeland, scenes from the life of his people, from that peaceful life. “Write it down, history! Write down, history of humankind: my destiny is a tent in a field, although I live in the age of the atom! I don't have any passport. They don’t even recognize that I exist!”
Skilled artisans and farmers found themselves cut off not only from their homeland, but also from everything that made up the meaning of their lives. Hands were hungry for work. Could these pitiful patches of plantings replace their plantations, gardens, and vineyards? This went on for 10, 20, 30 years...
How could all this happen: treachery, betrayal, cynical violation of treaties, trampling on the rights of the entire nation. So, the whole world and international organizations were silent? No, they even acted! The United Nations General Assembly established a special Middle East agency to assist Palestinian refugees. The size of this assistance can be judged by only one figure: child mortality from malnutrition and lack of doctors has reached 32%. Every year, the same General Assembly renewed a resolution calling for the return of Palestinians to their own land.
The Arabs hoped and waited, but “those chosen by God” did not think of giving up the loot. They have decided to exploit the most profitable human emotion, fear. They did everything they could to paralyze the will of the Palestinians.
But those who had sowed the wind were bound to reap the whirlwind, sooner or later. Palestinian guerillas... In 1964, the Palestine Liberation Organization was created, and the first units of the Palestinian resistance movement emerged.
That was just the beginning. The Palestinian people took up arms. They understood: this was the only way to regain their homeland. March 21, 1968, the Battle of Karameh. Israeli troops, who had launched a raid into Jordan with three armored brigades supported by aviation, were completely defeated here by the Arabs.
The long-awaited victory lifted the spirit of the Palestinian people, but also provoked a response from the Zionists. There were voices about further expansion in the Arab world; of all possible continuations, Israel decided to choose escalation. But first, there was a demonstration in front of film and photo cameras. “Look, how poor and unfortunate we are. Palestinian bandits are forcing us to arm ourselves, even our women and girls! All for the defense of our new-found Motherland!” Is it only for defense? Arm yourself, more and more! Buy weapons, assemble, build planes, missiles, tanks! More, more, more! So that there will be enough not only for Palestinians, but for all Arabs. So that, if needed, Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan will have no escape!
Where did Israel get this entire range of modern weapons? Where did it get the funds? There are no secrets. Everything was done openly: capital came from here, from the safes of powerful banks in the United States of America. The longtime ally and patron of Zionism, American imperialism, did not skimp on equipping its own superiority in the Middle East. The protest movement grew in Arab countries. Glass rattled and shattered in the embassies of the United States of America, but the American-Zionist alliance, meanwhile, was developing new plans to suppress the Palestinian resistance movement.
These bombs were not intended for Palestinians, or rather, not only for Palestinians. Let the Lebanese, Jordanians, Syrians suffer along with them, and then “Arabs will kill Arabs.” Thus began a new round of Palestinian drama, according to the classic schemes of the colonial policy of imperialism. Rather than fight on their own, they preferred to push, provoke other peoples and tribes, social groups into internecine war. Let them do it themselves: right, left, Christians, Protestants, northern, southern ones... Tried and tested politics.
One of the most beautiful and richest cities in the Middle East is Beirut, the capital of Lebanon. Just a few years ago it was the center of banks, a center of tourism and international trade. What astrologer could predict his current fate? What prophet could see here breaches instead of windows, blood on the walls, sidewalks and the smell of burning instead of the fresh air of the Mediterranean Sea?
And it all started like this: with street provocations by unknown persons and arson.
Then like this: with a direct attack by Israeli terrorist saboteurs on the Beirut airfield. Then there were the murders of famous figures of the Palestine Liberation Organization. Terrorists, like pirates, broke into their homes at night and shot entire families, not sparing children. This is how Gamal Nasser and his comrades, prominent representatives of the Palestinian resistance movement, were killed. The list of victims of Israeli state policy is long. Famous journalist and writer Ghassan Kanafani. The bomb exploded as Kanafani turned the car's ignition key.
This kindergarten named after Ghassan Kanafani was organized in Beirut by the writer’s widow Anni Kanafani. Danish by nationality, Anni came to the Middle East in 1961. Here, she met Ghassan Kanafani, became his wife, assistant, and his widow.
A children's teacher by profession, Anni took on the responsibilities of a mother for children who had lost their parents.
“The Palestinians will live as long as they do not forget that they are a people,” Kanafani wrote. “Our task is to preserve the culture and traditions of the people of Palestine, to educate a young generation of fighters for a just cause.”
In these ornaments and costumes, as in the paintings of the artist Ibrahim Hasan Ghanem, there is a memory of the Motherland, of the land that these girls did not have the chance to see.
30 years is a long time for a person. But what about a nation with a long history? The Zionists convinced the world: the Palestinians as a people had dissolved themselves. They allegedly dissolved and assimilated in the Arab countries that sheltered them. Here is evidence to the contrary.
And this is another piece of evidence. The Palestine Liberation Organization is a reality. The Palestinian resistance movement is also a reality. Over the years of its existence, the Palestine Liberation Organization has gained wide recognition in the international arena as the legitimate representative of the Arab people of Palestine. The nation that allegedly does not exist and has never existed, through the Palestine Liberation Organization, declared that it does not intend to give up its right to a homeland and its state.
“We have a long and hard battle ahead of us. But at the same time, we, representatives of the Palestinian revolution, are confident that we will repulse all these attacks, which are directed not only against the Palestinian people, not only against the Lebanese people, but also against the entire Arab nation, against all progressive forces in the world. Because what happens in the Arab region has a direct impact on the entire international situation, on international harmony, and has a direct impact on security in Europe and in the world. Hence, we must be very vigilant towards these dangers. Yes, our Palestinian forces heroically resisted the aggression and overturned the military calculations of the Israeli invaders, inflicting powerful blows on them, as a result of which the enemy suffered heavy losses. This was admitted by himself.”
At the end of 1974, an envoy of the Palestinian people appeared at the podium of the United Nations for the first time. It was an act of recognition. Only the Israeli delegation refused to listen to Yasser Arafat, chairman of the executive committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization. Speaking here, Arafat emphasized: in the recognition by the world community of the rights of the Arab people of Palestine, great merit belongs not only to the Palestinians’ own resilience, but also to all those who took their side in a just struggle, and above all to the socialist states.
“The point of view of the Soviet Union,” said General Secretary of the CPSU L. I. Brezhnev, “is well known. The only reliable path to lasting peace in the Middle East is the complete liberation of all Arab lands occupied in 1967, the realization of the legitimate right of the Arab people of Palestine to create their own statehood and to self-determination.”
There is the same sun, the same sky above the land of the Palestinians. The same sea washes the shores of their homeland. Things are getting more alarming in Beirut. The Palestinians are organizing security for their camps to avoid new provocations from the Zionists and their best friends in Lebanon, the Christian right. These are right-wing Christians. They are right. Everyone else, especially the Palestinians and their sympathizers, are wrong or deprived of rights, without the right to land, to air, to life. This is how the Zionists and agents of the Central Intelligence Agency taught them, taught them to think, shoot, set fire, cut hiding behind masks. They incited, as expected, Christians. They started without a reason: they just took and shot this bus with people. The provocation cost the lives of 26 innocent people.
It started in the spring of 1975. Like this, day after day: on the one hand, right-wing Christians supported by Israel, on the other, Palestinians and national-patriotic forces of Lebanon. In the middle and everywhere are civilians in Beirut and Palestinian refugee camps. However, this is an incomplete list of participants in the drama. Behind, or even next to, the rightists all this time were the true instigators of the massacre, the Zionists. In essence, the rightists were only performers in the play that was written and staged in Tel Aviv. Weapons, ammunition and instructions came from there. The ultimate goal was extremely simple - to weaken, or better yet, completely destroy the Palestinian resistance movement. To do this, shoot everyone, armed and unarmed.
One of the worst tragedies of recent years is the shooting of Tel Zaatar, a Palestinian refugee camp. 30,000 people were trapped in a blockade over an area of one square kilometer. Artillery and tanks spent two months shooting the defenders of Tel Zaatar, and at the same time everyone else. It was the worst genocide. Every conceivable and inconceivable method was used. Only twice did the International Red Cross manage to obtain a moment's respite to evacuate the wounded and small children… Those children who survived...
The carnage continued.
When the defense finally collapsed, the rightists burst into the camp and mercilessly destroyed everyone: everyone who still held weapons and who could take up weapons in a year, two or five years.
"That's my mom. We lived in Tel Zaatar. Mom went to get water for us. There was no water in the camp for many days. When she was returning, a tank came out and killed my mother.”
“If I fall in the struggle, take my place, my companion in arms, and take my weapon!
Do not fear my blood.
Look at my closed lips that will never feel the stormy wind.
Look at my eyes that will not see the morning light.
I have not died.
I still call you from beyond my wounds.
Take up my weapon, companion in arms!
You will know the fire of battle!
Bang your drum so that the people might hear your call to battle.”
How many people died in this fratricidal war: Palestinians and Lebanese, men and women, old people and children. Ordinary people, like you and me, like those who managed to escape. The Palestine Liberation Organization ran a boarding school and named it “Fortitude Tel Zaatar” in memory of that shooting camp. It gathered the surviving children and replaced them with those who would never return: mothers and fathers. It gave everything it could give. To make everything feel like home, children of different ages were united into family groups. At the head of each such family is a teacher, the children call her mom.
Born on a foreign land, left orphans on a foreign land, they have never seen their own land…
How many of their peers have already died from bullets and bombs! Maybe even no less than adults. He was a husband, brother, father. Cinematographer Hani Jawhariya. It was his camera that was pierced by fragments of an Israeli mine. His friends and colleagues Umar Mukhtar and Mutiʿ Ibrahim were captured by Israeli commandos and executed.
There were five of them, the organizers of the Palestinian film studio, three of them are no longer alive. These are their photographs, a chronicle of the struggle of the Palestinian people. At the cost of their own lives, they showed what terror is, what genocide looks like. Footage taken during the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon. It was a long-standing idea of the Zionists: to grab a piece of Lebanon for themselves. But the Palestinian resistance movement stood in the way of the expansionists. They stood to protect their fellow tribesmen and the Lebanese Arabs. They turned against regular Israeli troops, superior not only in numbers, but primarily in weapons, because the Palestinians had no planes, no missiles, no ships. The center of gravity of the Middle East problem has shifted to Lebanese territory. To solve this problem, President Carter proposed: it is necessary to guarantee all rights of Israel and ensure its security. That’s what he said: not “the rights of Palestinians and the security of southern Lebanon,” but precisely “the rights of Israel” and “the security of Israel.”
Really, what does this have to do with South Lebanese refugees? Is it worth the effort and benefit to take care of homeless tent dwellers? Is this how the real owners of the land live? These Israeli villas, built on occupied lands, are a completely different matter. This is property, this is capital, this is trustworthiness. All this needs protection from all Arabs, external and internal, those who could not survive. Today, about a million Arabs live in the lands captured by Israel. The Zionists hoped to tame them and subordinate them to their influence, but in the 1976 elections, 80% of Arabs in the occupied lands voted for representatives of the Palestine Liberation Organization. This is how the Israeli police responded to the Arab slogans: “The Palestinian revolution is against Zionism, not against Jews, we are fighting so that Jews, Christians and Muslims can live in conditions of equality and freedom from racial and religious discrimination. No to Israeli occupation!”
Yes, while the Palestine Liberation Organization was only a military organization, it could not only be slandered, but also put under pressure and destroyed. But as soon as it became a powerful political force, the Zionists felt uneasy. Help, as always, came from overseas patrons. It was through the efforts of American politicians that this meeting, which outraged all Arabs, took place in Jerusalem: Israeli Prime Minister Begin and Egyptian President Sadat. After Jerusalem came Camp David, Washington. Oh, how long have the Zionists dreamed of such a meeting! They were waiting for at least one traitor to finally appear in the ranks of Arab unity. Really, the event was worth it to be captured on a body shirt. The peoples of the Arab countries rejected the capitulation deal. These are Arab protest demonstrations: Syria, South Yemen, Libya. A National Front of Resilience and Opposition to Israeli aggression and the reactionary plans of the imperialists emerged. He announced decisive resistance to Sadat's capitulatory course.
The principled position of the Soviet Union is firm. “No matter what framework it has,” said L.I. Brezhnev, “the separate conspiracy that covers the capitulation of one side and secures the fruits of the aggression of the other – the aggression of Israel – can make the situation in the Middle East even more explosive.” The assessment of the separate negotiations at Camp David given by L. I. Brezhnev in his speech in Baku found a warm response from the progressive world community. Only in an alliance with the USSR and other socialist countries do the Arab peoples now see a real way to counter the plans of imperialism and Zionism.
The assessment of the separate negotiations at Camp David given by L.I. Brezhnev in his speech in Baku found a warm response from the progressive world community. Only in an alliance with the USSR and other socialist countries do the Arab peoples now see a real way to counter the plans of imperialism and Zionism.
Tell us, who needs this - the Palestinians, the Lebanese, the Syrians? Maybe, old people, women, children here in Beirut? Aren't they tired of shooting and fear? Don't they want to live calmly, peacefully? Who needs an explosive situation, what people? After all, there are no evil and good nations, just as there are no aggressor nations and slave nations. Racism, fascism, genocide have no nationality. They are a product of social ugliness, a product of imperialism, which only hides behind words about peace, humanism and philanthropy.
Here are the first signs after Camp David: the imperialists and Zionists continue to solve the Middle East problem, to achieve complete dominance in this area in the usual way: with missiles and bombs.
When will all this end? After all, a blatant injustice is happening! 3.5 million Palestinians are deprived of their homeland, deprived of the opportunity to create their own sovereign state.
The rights of millions of Palestinians, Lebanese, and Arabs have been sacrificed to Zionism and American imperialism. “Until the consequences of Israeli aggression are eliminated, there will be no reliable peace in the Middle East,” declares the Soviet government. The only way to a fair solution is to satisfy the legitimate right of all states and peoples of this area to exist. Of course, first of all, the legitimate right of the Palestinian people to create an independent Palestinian state. Children deprived of childhood are preparing themselves for new battles for their Motherland, for freedom, for independence.
“I have a machine gun on my shoulder. I don’t care about belongings and food. All the property is in one hand, and the address is stamped on my gun. I can't stand it anymore, I can't! Death doesn't scare me. Write my name down, history! Sign me up as a fidayeen with Yasir. Death for the Motherland is not terrible!”