When our teacher asked us to interview our grandfather, I was not interested because my grandfather is a very old man; he can’t hear very well and sometimes he makes me angry because of his ideas. In the end, I was obliged to go. But when I finished

the interview I discovered that I was wrong because I turned out to have the kindest grandfather in the world. 

While I sat with my grandfather Mohammad who was born in 1900, I started asking him about our history and what happened in the years 1948, 1952, 1973… I asked him how they used to live before and after the Jews came, and he said:

“It was really a beautiful life. We were so happy although poor. We were happy with our lands which we used to plant. Our house was small although big enough for us. When the Jews came they took everything: our lands, our house, plants, our sons and us. In their religion God says that our lands are for them. Only God knows if they are saying the truth or not.”

Then my grandfather stayed silent for a while and I think I saw tears falling from his eyes. I felt sorry for him because everyone knows what it means to lose all one has. Then he started:

“I have never talked about this for a long time, you opened up my wounds. I lived in Kusan village near Bethlehem. We used to live peacefully. We lived together, both Christians and Moslems, until the Israelis came in 1917. I was only 17 years old and I didn’t know what would happen to us later. I never went to school. I used to go where the Jews were because they always bought ice cream from me. I was so glad that they let me forget that they wanted to occupy us. We lived that way until 1941, and I think that it was in that year that I married my cousin, Hilwa. In our tradition the man should not see his wife until one married but I used to go to my cousin’s house to see her, and I fell in love with her. I built a house in Kusan and we lived there. We used to have some sheep. We were so poor; our house was only 2 rooms. In 1948, we didn’t know what happened, we saw many Jews coming with their tanks and the soldiers walking in our street. Suddenly they bombed the houses, killing the men who were in front of them. That night I took my children, my wife and ran away to a safe place. It was a cave near the house.

We stayed there for nearly 7 days. Then we went out to see what happened to our house but we couldn’t find it because they had destroyed it. Later we heard about massacres in Deir Yaseen. We were afraid, and we ran to a place called Rafat which the Israelis didn’t know. I was wrong; later the Jews came and built a settlement there called Rafat. Again I was afraid, so I took my wife and my sons and escaped once more to Wad Shaheen near Bethlehem where we stayed  with a Christian man called Issa. He was so nice, God Bless him, and he gave us one of his rooms and let us live there.”

Then my grandfather stopped a while to take a breath and said: “Issa and I started to build a house for me near his house and when we finished, my family and I lived in it. We lived a quiet life until 1967, when we started to see Jewish people coming again, this time in a large numbers. When the small kids saw them, they started to say Shalom and thought they were only tourists. Then so many clashes happened and so many martyrs were killed, they confiscated lands. There were negotiations and massacres. They used to kill everyone who was a freedom-fighter or, as they said, a  terrorist. Until now I don’t like them, especially because they took away a toy from my child, Hamden. He was the first in class and as a reward I bought it for him. When they came to our house to see if we hid freedom fighters they took it and until now I wonder why they did that. I suffer from them and I wish they let us live in peace.

These words gave me a deeper understanding of what is nowadays happening around us. These were also the last words I heard from my grand-father because he died 2 days later in Ramadan, I felt guilty because I didn’t know my real grand-father before this interview and I was saying so many bad words about him.
                           
                                            Grandfather I am so sorry
                                                      God bless you
                                                         I love you 
                                                            Yara
                                                              **