Memories of the catastrophe and the catastrophe

Twenty days separate the anniversary of our catastrophe in 48 from our setback in 67. I lived in the first as a young child and witnessed the second as a ten-year-old boy, but the turning point in my life began after I obtained a high school diploma with a very good average, equivalent to today’s high rates of just under 100%. On that day, my father offered me, with some humiliation and remorse, to teach me the profession of a barber or a driver. At that time, three of my older brothers were studying medicine and engineering, including my sister Naima, who was in a college for teachers in Jordan. It was clear that he could no longer teach more, but I realized the meaning of The offer (driver or barber) later, knowing that these two professions reap their profits immediately and daily without having to wait a month like the rest of the professions and jobs, I did not like the “pharmacy” scholarship in Greece that he suggested to my older brother who is a medical student there, “we are building a two-storey building, There is a clinic on the second floor, and there is a pharmacy on the ground floor. I rejected the idea of a “pharmacy” because it is not much different from a shop. Nevertheless, I traveled to Jordan to join a mission to Iraq, but my uncle, whom we loved with sacred love, advised me not to be alienated, especially since a new university had opened. in Bethlehem; Stay with your family and take care of your younger brothers.

But the decisive reason was: If you, the students of Palestine, do not join the nascent Palestinian university, how will you become universities? I immediately returned to Bethlehem a few days late, but the priest, Brother Brendan, the first dean of the university, when he saw my diploma, welcomed me warmly, and I told him that I was poor and my father could not pay my tuition because he spent on three of my brothers. The so-called honors. Since that day, I have not paid any installments for the following four years. I faced the problem of integration with the rest of the students who come from rich families, who join the university for the sake of prestige and not because of the need for a certificate and a job, and I discovered early on that the problem of integration also suffers from another group of colleagues, I was looking for them after the end of the lecture, but I could not find them, and When I asked each of them, they said that they leave the university because they do not find a place among the rest of the students, especially female students, and they cannot go to the cafeteria because they do not have money for food or drink.

One of them is from Husan, the second is from Beit Ummar, and the third is from Surif. They revealed to me that they go out to the market, and one of them to the mountain opposite the Dheisheh camp (Doha today), so I told them that the best solution is for us to stay inside the university and bring our food with us from our homes. You bring two loaves of taboon bread that your mother prepares daily, and you bring tomatoes or onions from You brought thyme and I brought olives, and we began to eat collectively in the open. Little by little, the scene pleased us, and perhaps the food was given to others from Beit Sahour, Beit Jala, and Jerusalem, and they began to share our food with us. At the end of the school year, we had invaded the Student Union Council. And later we nationalized the cafeteria.