I just got the latest mailing from the great Israeli organization Zochrot, about a tour they organized last Saturday to the ruins of the Palestinian village al-Damun.
This report is written is such a vivid and humanistic way, it really brings to life the pain and other emotions of those ethnic-Palestinian Israelis who took part! (Scroll down to see the photos there, too.)
The report says,
- All those who participated in the tour received a copy of the booklet, “Remembering al-Damun,” prepared especially for the occasion. The refugees requested many additional copies to send to those who were exiled from their land and now live in other countries. Most of them are in Lebanon, and some are in Europe and the United States. “This booklet will reach Canada,” said one of the refugees. In 1948 lived in al-Damun more than 1500 residents. About half of them remained in Israel, and, together with their descendents, live nearby, but they’re forbidden to return and are unable to reclaim their property.
So those are the Palestinians who, along with the courageous Jewish Israelis of Zochrot, were interested in rediscovering and marking the remnants of al-Damun village on Saturday.
The other sons and daughters of the village– the ones from families that crossed the not-distant border with Lebanon during the fighting of 1948– have not been allowed to return anywhere near their ancestral homes in the 61 years since then, and have been living stateless in the ever-insecure refugee camps and gatherings of Lebanon.