When my father left Acre Palestine in 1948, he was eight days old.
He went out with his family smuggling on the back of donkeys on the basis of one week and they will return.. Because news reached Acre that the Jews will attack Acre, and they will praise its people... And they abandon them from their homes!!
My grandfather, the lawyer, came out of his house, carrying with him only the house key and the title deed. On the basis that he will return the next day to take a few things from the house when he believes on his family away from fear and death!!
He didn't think that this would be the last time he would see his house, his city and everything he had.. He lost everything..
My grandfather was pulled out and died of oppression.. My grandmother died in Damascus and her dream was to be buried in Palestine. And my father died four years later.. And his dream was to see the Palestine he lived in my grandfather's stories and her sweet novels ....!!
Palestine was my father's issue that he was committed to all his life and the ink of his pen did not dry while writing about his dream, which died before it was realized ... !!
Damascus was his homeland.. And his dialect is very old damask.. No one believed but that it was from the Levant...
!!
The love of Damascus.. And keep his dream.. And teach me the meaning of the homeland .....
Sometimes I felt alienated when someone told me you were Palestinian... And I'm not Syrian.. I was defending my Syria.. And I tell them that I am more Syrian than you, but I am mixed with Palestinian blood. And I have the honor that I have a national cause.
I grew up and got married and I could take the Syrian identity. But when they gave it to me, I had to give up my Palestinian identity. I felt betrayed for Palestine and my father.. I was sad and cried.. But my belonging and love for Syria was great... Too big.. And now.. I'm sitting in my house in America, I'm sorified for my house in Syria and I'm in pain for my father's dream to return to Palestine.
The displacement of people from their homes and the theft of their dreams and future have become repeated and normal scenes. It is as if it is written that we should leave our homes and homelands and that the homeland remains. Just a dream.. Too far .....!!
I know very well how a person feels when he loses a homeland. So ... I try to stick to my dream and pray so that no one loses his house and homeland.. And Syria and Palestine return ....!!