April 28, 2015
Safad…. I can not find the right words to describe how saddened she made me feel. Sad is underestimated. I did not even think, this would be the way Safad will leave her impression on me. She was like the darkest cloud, shutting down all the lights of the sun from shinning. Safad is what they liked to name today as Tzfat. And Tzfat is a bleeding heart. It is what I decided to call as the Bleeding city, or Ghost town.
There are no Arabs left there. Nothing, Zero. Filled with Jews, and the very extreme ones. Racism is everywhere. It is so racist. There is no respect for any human being other than a Jewish one. The houses are all authentic and Arabian but with no Arabs in any of them. It is tremendously heart breaking.
A mosque is turned into an Art Gallery, A church into a home for a Jewish family. The hardest part is looking at these beautiful Arabian houses, and seeing all these extreme settlers walking in and out from them, not knowing how it feels to be in the place of an Arab Palestinian. It is like they have no idea, no sense of responsibility or humanity. It is like they truly believe these houses were made for them, problem is it does not look good, feel good or even fit. The equation is just wrong. It makes no sense.
Before heading to Safad, I went to the beach in Haifa for an hour, you can never get enough of it and this is where the photos of the beach came from. And then right after breaking my heart in Safad, we went to a destroyed village known as “Kafr Bir”im”. A beautiful place that is only about 3km away from Lebanon, and is located between mountains of the most beautiful greenery. You will feel like you are in a place you have only wished to be in before.
Yes this is just a glimpse of a story, and it was a little bit of too much information for me in one day. A village that was attacked in 1948, people were threatened to leave or killed and many were killed. The people had to flee, but kept returning and every time they return, they are attacked out again. They decided to go to court in 1951 and demand their right back, as they won the case, and were granted the rights of return to their village in 1952, the air force of the Israeli Army IDF, decided to go and bomb all their houses through air. Today, you will find left overs, and you will find the people from the Kfar Birim village visiting the village everyday and camping, holding on to demand their right of return back.
رحلتي الى صفد كانت كتير متعبة و بتأطع الالب. انا كنت متحمسة كتير لا اشوف شو هي صفد، و كانوا يقولولي انو رح تجرحني بس ما فهمت ل روحت. انا كنت بصدمة. صفد بطل فيها عرب، ولا واحد. كول البيوت عربية بوضوح، لاكن سكانها كولهم يهود، و لما احكي يهود مش ازدي بلعنصرية لاكن بل صهينية او الفكر الصهيوني. الناس متعصبة كتير، و مش مرحبين بأهل البلد الحقيقية الهمة العرب الفلسطنية، لاكن رافضين القبول بل واقع التاريخي، فردت فعلهم غنصرية شديدة.
في مسجد محزن كتير، لأنو البينو لا معرض فني، في قلب المسجد معلقين تماثيل و لوحات فانية بكل انواعها، كنت عم بفكر فل المعنا تبع وجود اسساس الاحترام، الي المفروض، كل الاديان بتنشدلها. صفد فيها متعصبين يهود بأرقام هألة، لاكن كيف ديانتهم ما بتتعارض مع الاحترام للاماكن الروحانية، زي المساجد و الكنأس.
انا قبل ما نروح لصفد و لحسن حزي، روحت عل بحر بي حيفا، و فعلا كنت بحاجه الها. و بعد صفد، روحنا على قرية مهجرة في الشمال ٣كم بعد عن حدود لبنان، قرية اسمها “كفر برعم” و هي من اجمل ما شوفت في فلسطين. لاكن كمان بتحزن. لانو، القرية مهجرة و مندمرة، مع آثار بتثبت وجودهت. و الناس متمسكين بروجوع الها. و القرية جنة عل ارض بس مسروقة، بين جبال و وديان و آثار بيوتها. و الاخص، تمسك اهلها بأرضها، زيارتهم اليومية من ١٩٤٨ لليوم و الشبباب الي بتقوم بخيم و التزمها للوصول الى العودة.
Razan Masri 