By Rev. Alex Awad

I WAS BORN IN JERUSALEM in 1946. In 1948, Jewish militias and the Haganah terror groups began attacking Palestinian Muslim and Christian neighborhoods in Jerusalem. In May 1948, my father, who was a civilian, was shot and killed by a Jewish sniper, right in front of our home in Musrara (a neighborhood in Jerusalem). This left my mother with seven children and a heartbroken mother-in-law. Soon after we buried my father, we were forced out of our home, leaving everything behind to the new invaders; we ran to the Old City for refuge. We were among 300,000 Palestinians who took refuge in East Jerusalem to escape the Zionist terror.

For those Palestinian refugees who survived, life became extremely challenging. My mother immediately went to college to become a registered nurse while volunteering in a hospital to sharpen her medical skills. New orphanages were established in Jerusalem to provide shelter for hundreds of Palestinian children who lost one or both parents during the Zionist invasion. My mother placed my siblings and me in these homes.

Through God’s grace, we survived to tell our story to future generations. In 1947–1948 nearly 800,000 Palestinians were ethnically cleansed and became refugees in neighboring Arab countries. Moreover, thousands of Palestinians were internally displaced and became refugees within their homeland in what is called the State of Israel.

I look forward to the day when my Palestinian compatriots and I will stop remembering this horrific catastrophe we call the Nakba. However, since Israelis continue to oppress Palestinians, besieging two million people in Gaza, stealing land in the West Bank, demolishing homes, incarcerating children and denying Palestinians their human rights, the Nakba continues, and so will Nakba remembrance.

On this occasion, my message to our Zionist oppressors is this: 75 years of killing, wounding, torturing, stealing, demolishing homes and destroying Palestinian lives and properties are enough. You have the power to make peace with us if you desire to do so. We have been waiting for decades for you to accept a fair and reasonable peace treaty. We are not calling on you to go back to Europe or to any other country you came from. Just accept us as equal citizens with equal rights either in a one-state solution or as good neighbors in a two-state solution. One thing is certain: we are destined to live together on this land and neither you nor we will succeed in getting rid of the other. Nor do we gain by postponing peacemaking.

I say to policymakers in the United States: through your iron-clad support for the State of Israel over the last 75 years, you helped create an apartheid state in the Middle East. Now it is time to reexamine the harmful consequences of your policies and implement strategies that would lead both Israelis and Palestinians to achieve genuine democracies.

To church leaders and laypeople in the United States I say this: take an honest look at what is going on in Palestine. See how your end-time theologies have caused much harm to Muslims, Jews and fellow Christians. Instead of accepting your calling as peacemakers and ushering in the Kingdom of God, you added to the death, destruction, and suffering of the Palestinian people. It is time to change course and stand with the oppressed.

We will celebrate freedom one day, along with all our friends and advocates around the world, and justice will embrace us. We will reconcile and live at peace with those who once oppressed us.

I look toward the horizon, and I see justice rising. I look toward the horizon, and I envision the near end of the 75-year-old nightmare. I look toward the horizon and see freedom thriving sooner than we ever imagined.

Rev. Dr. Alex Awad is a retired United Methodist Missionary. He and his wife, Brenda, served in Jerusalem and in Bethlehem for more than 25 years. Rev. Awad served as pastor of East Jerusalem Baptist Church, dean of students at Bethlehem Bible College and director of the Shepherd Society. Awad has written two books, Through the Eyes of the Victims and Palestinian Memories. Rev. Awad is a member of the Palestinian Christian Alliance for Peace (PCAP).

Reprint from Washington Report on Middle East Affairs