{"id":14671,"date":"2010-09-13T12:05:31","date_gmt":"2010-09-13T18:05:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/?p=14671"},"modified":"2010-09-13T12:05:31","modified_gmt":"2010-09-13T18:05:31","slug":"mazin-qumsiyeh-a-palestinian-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/?p=14671","title":{"rendered":"Mazin Qumsiyeh: A Palestinian Story"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Kd17icOsDdo?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;fs=1&#038;hl=en-US&#038;autohide=2&#038;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\"><\/iframe><\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>Mazin Qumsiyeh<br \/>\n13 September 2010<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I met the family of Mohammed by accident as I offered them a ride  back to their home in Dheisheh refugee camp from Gush Etzion colonial offices  where they were seeking (unsuccessfully) a permit to enter Jerusalem for medical  treatments (and I was called for questioning).\u00a0 What I learned about this family  is almost unbelievable and could certainly be material for a book or at least a documentary.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>The father was 12 years old when Israeli soldiers shot him  in the head with a rubber coated steel bullet fragmenting his skull and damaging part of his brain. Ten years later, Israeli army officers severely beat and  tortured him. \u00a0He got married to his cousin immediately after. \u00a0The family originally comes from Al-Walaja village, the village was destroyed and ethnically cleansed in 1948. Most of this village land came under Israeli rule.  The part that came under Jordanian rule was used to build a new Al-Walaja where some of the relatives returned and built homes in the early 1960s.\u00a0 After having their first child, the young couple received a blessing in the form of a donation of a very small plot of land from their uncle and they built a humble one room house (literally one room) in Al-Walaja. \u00a0Both had jobs. \u00a0They moved out of the refugee camp and lived in this house for 3 years during which time,  they delivered their second child who then died at 18 days of age (by SIDS.)  \u00a0Then the Israeli army demolished the home saying that it was built without permit (Israel gave no permits for any houses in the village since the occupation began in 1967.)\u00a0 The family rebuilt the house but Israeli threats forced them to not live in it (Israel wants also some NIS 20,000 for the cost of destroying the home and wants to levy other fines on the family.) \u00a0So the young  family came to live in a small dwelling underground and without windows (bought with money from selling the wife\u2019s wedding jewelry) in the refugee camp of Dheisheh.\u00a0 There, the third child (second who is alive) was born and they named him Mohammed.\u00a0 He turned out to have Bardet-Biedl Syndrome (a genetic disease characterized by obesity, eye problems, kidney problems, hexadactyly or six  fingers and toes, developmental delay etc.) \u00a0An uncle and an aunt of \u00a0Mohammed  (refugees in Jordan) died before age 20 with this condition (we took blood  samples from the family for genetics study at Bethlehem University.)<\/p>\n<p>The first snow in years came and the roof of their dwelling collapsed.  The husband had developed a psychiatric disorder and was treated at a local hospital.\u00a0 Both he and his wife were unable to hold jobs anymore.\u00a0 They had one more son (healthy) and she is now pregnant. \u00a0Thankfully, UNRWA rehabilitated the  home in the refugee camp, and the home in Al-Walaja remains unoccupied and unfinished (and no water or electricity).\u00a0 The family is loving, hopeful and steadfast (we call it sumud in Arabic). \u00a0We spent a few hours during Eid Al-Fitr together and visited the home in Al-Walaja. \u00a0I personally witnessed how the  family cares for each other.\u00a0 Their eldest son Khaled (in 5th grade) is simply brilliant and very loving for his two younger brothers.\u00a0 A short video is at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Kd17icOsDdo\">http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Kd17icOsDdo<\/a><\/p>\n<p>This is one of millions of Palestinian stories of tragedy and  persistence after ethnic cleansing and under colonial occupation.<\/p>\n<p>Mazin  Qumsiyeh, PhD<br \/>\nA Bedouin in Cyberspace, a villager at home<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.qumsiyeh.org\/\">http:\/\/www.qumsiyeh.org<\/a><br \/>\nProfessor,  Bethlehem and Birzeit Universities<br \/>\nChairman of the Board, Palestinian Center  for Rapprochement Between People, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pcr.ps\/\">http:\/\/www.pcr.ps<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mazin Qumsiyeh 13 September 2010 I met the family of Mohammed by accident as I offered them a ride back to their home in Dheisheh refugee camp from Gush Etzion colonial offices where they were seeking (unsuccessfully) a permit to &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/?p=14671\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14671","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pdXTf-3OD","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14671","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14671"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14671\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14675,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14671\/revisions\/14675"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}