"A Footnote on the Complicated Pages of the Middle East"

"Being a Palestinian means you have no set identity. You are just a footnote on the complicated pages of conflict in the Middle East. Being Palestinian also means you have no set homeland. Yoou are raised to love a land you have never taken a breath in, but you live in a land you are taught to never assimilate in. My discovery of being a Palestinian began in 1948, decades before I was born.
My grandmother lived in a house by the sea, in the bride of all cities, Jaffa. She saw first hand the Hagana terrorists who bombed the city constantly in an attempt to epel the native people. To this day she can remember the sight of people throwing their children off of boats into the sea out of fear the Zionists would catch them, they believed that maybe there would be a chance they could flee to Egypt. At the young age of three, she and her family walked on foot from Jaffa to Cairo (252 miles). Halfway through, her father had a heart attack; he was in disbelief that he was being forced to leave his land.
At the same time my grandmother was being exiled from her home, my father's family was being forced off their land in Ramleh. Hagana terrorists shot a young man, who would've been my great uncle, in the chest infront of his parents on the night before his wedding. The day after, 5 chidren were killed when Hagana terrorists threw a grenade into a home. This terrorism forceed that entire village to leave, and to this day the village stands untouched in a closed military zone. The villagers were displaced 7 times internally, until 1967 when they were exiled permanently to Jordan. To this day, they remain in the ragged refugee camps, Al Baqaa and Wihdat.
I am a daughter of Jaffa and Ramleh, raised in America by pure luck, and exiled from Palestine by pure misfortune. It is strange that all though I have never stepped on its soil or breathed in its sweet air, my love for Palestine i as great, if not greater, than the llove for Palestine my grandmother has. My family continues to see misfortune in their host countries today, and maybe that is why the hope to return to Palestine is so prevalent for all of us." -Anonymous