Nakba

by Lloyd Philip Johnson

  “That’s us,” Jamal exclaimed. “They are cleaning out the dirty Arabs.”

  “Right. Villages are being destroyed surrounding us. They kill or expel the residents and take their houses, or flatten them with bulldozers so there is no home left. Nothing to return to. Some people here are already taking in refugees from nearby villages.”

  “So we are waiting for this too?” Judith asked.

  “No we are not!” Khalid shouted, shaking his fist. “We’ll fight to the last man. Remember, we do have a non-aggression arrangement with the Hagana to not harbor Palestinian and other Arab irregular fighters. In exchange, they will leave us alone.”

  Everyone became silent. “Thanks be to God,” Ilias said, raising his hands to the sky.

  Chapter 30

  Eldad nodded in satisfaction at the bulletins in their headquarters building. The Hagana intelligence had intercepted frantic telegrams from Dr. Husayn Khalidi, the secretary of the Arab Higher Committee in East Jerusalem’s district of Shaykh Jarrah. Eldad stood at a corner of a desk in a captured house in West Jerusalem reading the reports dating back to January in which Dr. Khalidi had reported to crowds of people calling for help and demonstrating in front of his house. Hospitals bulged with injured. Not enough shrouds to cover the dead bodies, anarchy and panic. The news of Deir Yassin had spread like a forest fire terrifying the people throughout the country.

  The time had come to complete the cleansing of West Jerusalem, which in the partition would be part of the Jewish State. The orders had been given. The three-inch mortars used in Haifa had already begun to pound the Arab neighborhoods. Eldad and his company would go in to mop up what remained, and expel any Arabs as long as they did not resist. If they did, of course they would be shot. He had no problem with that after the thrill of victory against Arab resistance at the Castle.

  Eldad had learned that the only neighborhood that refused to surrender was Shu’fat. It would not happen in Qatamon. He had his orders and would see a successful operation.

  When the shelling stopped, Eldad led his company of 100 men into Qatamon. They began to fire into homes without the Star of David flag. The few homes in which Arabs still lived were torched as the residents fled. Occasional sniper fire lasted less than a minute until they eliminated the source. With their advance, families who were left in their damaged homes fled.

  At one point he ordered Lieutenant Goldman to lead the troops ahead while he remained to find the one sniper they couldn’t seem to locate. He had shot one Jewish soldier dead. The enemy fire seemed to come across the street from a villa, unmarked, that had been spared from mortar blasts. He couldn’t tell whether the house was Arab or Jewish, but he assumed friendly, as it was an expensive and large place. Any residents still there would be in hiding. He quickly ducked into the front courtyard and sought shelter behind a low wall. Suddenly a shot rang out and a piece of the wall shattered right next to him. Eldad returned fire at the upstairs window of a partially-destroyed house across the narrow street. He kept looking, and noticed a bit of movement and then a flash of a rifle being fired. He started to squeeze the trigger of his automatic weapon when a thunderclap went off in his head, and everything turned black.

  ***

  Valerie had just one Arab family left in her home. They moved to a small storage building at the back of the property a bit away from the house. The others she sheltered had fled Qatamon before the shelling began. Without a Jewish flag, Valerie wondered whether her villa would be destroyed along with all the other homes without the Star of David displayed. She determined to go down with the ship if necessary.

  She had watched in horror as the explosions seemed to erupt randomly through the neighborhood. The few neighbors who fled in fear dragged and carried their children and occasional seniors down the road hoping to reach safety from the bombing. They carried little if anything with them. Most of them had already left.

  Then she saw troops, her fellow Jews, coming down the road in front. Occasional bursts of rapid gunfire accompanied them, shooting into homes or what was left of them. Somehow her villa escaped gunfire or the bombs. She watched at the window, terrified, incredulous, immobile. She heard occasional single shots as the large group of soldiers passed. One soldier lagged behind, scanning a house across the street as he stopped, rifle held up ready to shoot. A shot rang out. The man turned, vaulted over her courtyard wall, and crouched behind it. A sudden exchange of gunfire and the soldier crumpled backward to lay on the ground unmoving.

  Valerie stared, suddenly short of breath. But the soldier breathed although he didn’t move. She stood frozen at the window, waiting for him to get up. He didn’t. He laid there for what seemed like an eternity, still alive. No blood on the ground. No one appeared to help. She thought at least one of his fellow soldiers would find and rescue him. Her telephone had been dead for several days. No matter what she thought of the suffering Zionists caused, here lay her fellow Jew needing immediate help, maybe dying. A fellow human being on the wrong track. No one else in sight. Only she knew what had happened to him. Could she stand and watch and not help. At least bring him inside to see whether she could be of some assistance until she could find some medical care for him. She could not stand letting him die alone when she had a possibility of helping to save his life.

  And yet, he was part of the Jewish forces that had inflicted so much suffering to thousands of Arab citizens for no reason except to take their land. The sniper who shot him was doing it to protect his people. Was he wrong to do it? Whose side was she on? She loved the Arab people she knew and had assisted in their evacuation. The whole conflict escalating into a battle had become a horror to so many, including her. And now this soldier had become a victim of it as well.

  Valerie slumped into a chair, holding her forehead. What should she do? She didn’t know.

  ***

  Lieutenant Goldman led his troops down the narrow Qatamon road firing into any houses that remained standing that might contain Arabs. He enjoyed being in command and not having Captain Eldad constantly barking out orders. It probably wouldn’t last long as he’d be catching up after dispatching that sniper. As Goldman and his men rounded a turn in the road heading toward the monastery of San Simon, they ran into withering fire. Just before he was fatally wounded Goldman saw the flag of Jordanian troops that had come to the aid of their Arab Palestinian brothers. His men scattered to hide behind any shelter, and fire back into the monastery compound. The battle lasted about ten minutes, with the remaining Jewish troops scattered. One of the sergeants tried to gather them for an attack on the Jordanians troops but it was too late. Most of the soldiers had fled and the rest hid. The mission ended in a rout. No one even thought about their absent Captain. He was not a popular commander of men. It became every man for himself.

  Chapter 31

  May 1948

  Haifa residents continued their flight overland as well as by sea. Sabria’s good friend, housemate hostess, and fellow Arab student Amira, told Sabria she should be home in peaceful Acre with her family during this difficult time. Since the historic seaport city of several thousand years and more recent Crusader fame was only a few kilometers north of Haifa, she invited Sabria to come with her and stay in the family home.

  The buses heading north, crammed with riders sitting and standing, crept along the road. Sabria wrote some notes for her journal, people massed everywhere, streaming north from Haifa with whatever they could carry from the homes they had just left. Some with dogs, many with children whose faces bore the sadness of being forced to leave the comfort of all they had ever known. Their parents adrift in the uncertainty of what would happen to them would intensify the anxiety of the young. An endless procession of people headed for an unknown future. Many rumors had it that new refugee camps might be coming, some of them further north in nearby Lebanon.

  ***

  On the first day of May Sabria woke up in the middle of the night hearing explosions in the distance. She had arrived in Acre just yester
day thinking it would be a place of peace away from the disaster of Haifa. Amira aroused from sleep rubbed her eyes and looked at her friend.

  “Oh no!” Amira cried out. “It must be coming here as well.”

  Sabria listened, heard more booms and then heard people moving in the house. “It sounds like your family is up.”

  “I think so,” Amira replied, voice shaking. “My father is part of the volunteer resistance force that has been preparing to defend the city if it should ever be attacked. So I suspect he is up and heading to meet the others.”

  ***

  Over the next two days, fierce fighting raged between the militias and the volunteer Arab resistance group in the city. Neither side prevailed in what seemed to be a standoff. Amira’s father didn’t return home until the third day of fighting, and then appeared pale and gaunt, barely making it to the house. He flopped down on his bed, and then almost immediately staggered to the bathroom. The remainder of the afternoon continued like that, the family helping him to the bathroom, dehydrated with diarrhea that seemed unending.

  Sabria found out that typhoid bacteria had produced an epidemic in Acre. Rumors circulated that the water supply had been poisoned. A neighbor came running to tell the family not to drink the water. Apparently lab analysts had found Salmonella contaminating the water supply. It flowed through an aqueduct from an open source ten kilometers north, the Kabri Springs. The Red Cross had reported this immediately and suspected contamination of the water supply. After seventy local casualties and fifty-five British soldiers sickened, the local authorities determined the aqueduct as the source and switched to the use of artesian wells and water from an agricultural station to the north.

  Sabria remembered hearing from her grandfather of Ben Gurion’s setting up a biological warfare team in the last few years. She couldn’t remember the names, but their leader called it the “Science Corps of the Hagana.” She wondered whether it could have been the source of the outbreak. Someone had apparently introduced Salmonella bacteria into the aqueduct.

  Sabria stayed for one more day to help take care of Amira’s father and then left to go back to Haifa on one of the buses returning to Haifa for another load of refugees.

  Amira’s family packed up the essentials they would take if they had to leave their home, and made arrangements with a neighbor who had a truck with room for them and their goods in back. They would head for Lebanon and a new refugee camp just across the border.

  By May sixth when the bombs began exploding in their neighborhood, the militias followed shortly ordering people out of their homes. Loudspeakers warned, “Surrender or commit suicide. We will destroy you to the last man.” The time had come. The epidemic had broken the resolve of the defenders remaining. Loading their family and essential goods into the truck, they left just ahead of the Jewish militias. Amira’s father, on an improvised stretcher held high the key to the house as they loaded him into the back of the truck. He shouted weakly, “We shall return someday.”

  ***

  Caleb knocked on the door of Sabria’s rooming house on the edge of Technion University. It had been spared destruction so far, as had his own apartment building nearby. Otherwise, the city looked like a tornado had destroyed so much of the city, rubble everywhere from the bombing. The streets, where passable, seemed eerily quiet. Jewish soldiers roamed the streets with automatic rifles held in both hands across their chests.

  Returning to their favorite small restaurant surprisingly still open, Sabria related what had happened in Acre before she left. “I am not sure what has happened since then.”

  “I heard on the radio that Acre has fallen today. The militias are apparently looting the city as we speak.”

  “It’s the sixth of May now and most of the cities of Palestine have been taken over.” Sabria shook her head and took a deep breath. “Unbelievable.” She then sat in silence.

  “I’ve heard Jaffa is still free,” Caleb finally replied. “That Arab city we hope will last. They can have next door Tel Aviv as a Jewish place.” He watched a couple leave and realized they were alone at three in the afternoon.

  “How do you know all this? Sabria smiled wanly while wrinkling her nose.

  “I read the paper,” he said with a wink. “Lets go to the student lounge for coffee. I’ve never seen a Jewish militiaman there.”

  “I have.”

  Caleb looked at her with a frown, and then laughed. “You mean that Jewish guy you told me about?”

  “Yeah, Eldad.”

  “What’s happened to him?”

  “I don’t know. He came back here from the Jerusalem area and I think left to return to his unit in the Hagana.”

  “Really? What did you think of him?”

  “He’s an angry man that is working out his emotion in demonizing and destroying Palestinian people. You can justify whatever you do to your enemy as long as you think he is evil.

  “Does he think you are evil?”

  “No. He actually thinks I am Jewish and I let him think that. So he let down his guard and told me the goals of the Zionists and how they would accomplish the takeover of the land that the UN allotted the Jews in the partition.”

  “Do you really think they can displace the entire Arab population?” Caleb asked.

  “They have a Plan D that would try to accomplish that. So far it’s working. Our people are suffering greatly, and the world is letting it happen. The countries in the UN are powerless to stop it. Their eyes are apparently closed by propaganda. There is no convincing Arab voice. I don’t know what is going to happen to us. It looks hope . . . ” Her voice broke and tears filled her eyes. Sabria stopped and couldn’t continue.

  Caleb rose and walked around the table. He sat next to Sabria, and without thinking put his arm around her. She put her head on his shoulder as he felt her trembling. “I don’t know how to say this any better, but you have become very special to me.” He stopped as he felt her lean into his side. “I don’t know if I should tell you this right now, but I love you.”

  Sabria looked up through her tears and smiled. “Don’t leave me, Caleb. I’ve learned how much you mean to me. I’m frightened at the future, for our country, for my family, for me, for us. You could return to America and peace. I don’t have that option, nor would I want to leave my people. What do you think lies ahead for us?”

  Caleb sighed deeply and paused, holding her tightly to him. He smelled her hair and his heart speeded up. Resting his chin on her head, he closed his eyes. He had never felt like this. Finally he whispered, “I really don’t know.”

  Chapter 32

  Jamal, in his room in Tantura, began dressing for another day in the orange grove. His village had become an island of normalcy in a sea of disruption all around. He had not slept well that night, thinking of one of his friends from a nearby village who had died after being wounded in a shoot-out with a militia soldier. Their home had been destroyed with explosives in the middle of the night just as the family escaped into the darkness. His friend had managed to make it to Tantura along with his parents and siblings, but died in a few hours. Jamal couldn’t get the shock out of his mind. The tragedies he’d only heard about suddenly became personal.

  He thought of Sabria traveling to hot spots around Palestine to help where she could. And Judith with her children escaping from Haifa, which now had fallen. He had heard from Adnan that Jaffa remained free. By the first week in May it had become the only city left undisturbed, an Arab one purposely excluded in the U.N.-prescribed land for the Jews. But now it too felt the beginning of an attack. And yet here he remained in peaceful Tantura while others fled or died in the onslaught against his Palestinian brothers and sisters. Several of his friends had earlier volunteered for an Arab resistance force. He had no military experience, but why not help where he could? Being strong and able to fight, why not?

  Later after thinking all day as he worked, he arrived at Adnan’s home to discuss the plan that had been formulating in his mind. Jamal needed advi
ce and he knew it. This idea, prompted by the death of his friend, began to consume his thoughts until he could not concentrate on his work.

  He explained his thinking to Adnan as they sat with their afternoon tea. “I want Jaffa to remain free. I think I want to go there and help defend the city.”

  Adnan sipped his tea until his young friend had finished and began slowly. “I admire your determination to help our people. So many now have given their lives to protect their homes and land. You know how this land is our home. It is part of us. We live and breathe this land and never move. Our children get married and our sons raise their families on the land that has been our home for generations. When we are driven out to some other place, it feels like death. We have lost something very precious, part of who we are.”

  “So you think it would be good for me to volunteer to help defend it?”

  “That is your decision, Jamal. There is much risk. But there is risk everywhere, even in Tantura. I hope our negotiations with the Hagana will protect us, but we are becoming an isolated Arab village.”

  “Tell me about Jaffa. I’ve never been there. But I think I’d like to volunteer there.”

  “It’s a lovely setting on the sea, just south and adjacent to Tel Aviv, but despite that new Jewish city, Jaffa or Joppa, has remained an Arab conclave for thousands of years. The partition plan excluded it from Jewish territory. It is surrounded by over twenty villages and has nearly that many mosques. An Arab Christian, Michael al-Issa, a friend of many years, is developing a volunteer force to defend the city.”