Palestine Once Upon Time

This post should have been published in May 2008 to remember the 60th anniversary of the Nakba , the loss of a land called Palestine. I did not post it then because when I started to prepare it I did not know that it would introduce me to a wonderful missing piece of our history. It was like a sea that you have to go deeper and deeper to know more about Palestine and its history and people.

It is not about the political history we learned by heart in our schools it is about that land; how it looked like before 1948 and how its people lived with that nightmare in 1917 till it turned in to a reality in 1948 and after it became undisputed fact in 1967.

I wanted to know more about the people and their life because I hate how in the international media and also history it was taken for granted that before 1948 there was nothing in Palestine.
Just bunch of Arabs living in some sort of clans and tribes here and there.

I wanted to gather and post Photos about Palestine Pre-1948 , Pre 1967. I wanted to show the world that there were normal people living their lives peacefully in their land that used to be Called Palestine.I wanted to see the Palestinians living their lives without war ,without agony ,without refugee camps, without Israeli guards and without tears . Unfortunately this is something rare to find in Palestine Post 1948.

I found couple of photos from old Palestine mainly from blogs but they were not enough and I could not find a better place , even better than Getty Images to find photos from Palestine ,the old country if I may say except at the Arab Image foundation. I wanted to thank those who made and operate this wonderful project that keep our 20th century heritage alive.

Here you can see and know wonderful things , how the Palestinians used to have outings on the Yarkon river and Tiberias lake , how there were dancing bears in the mountains on the borders with Syria. Through these photos I knew more about the Arab Liberation army and how the Armenians formed troops to protect their community in Jerusalem. In those photos I had a glimpse on how Palestine was so beautiful without checkpoints,invasion forces and ugly cement wall. In these photos I saw Palestinians smiling and having good time.

I want you to see  this set of photos ; by the way they are more than you think

By the way there is a collection of old photos released online lately mainly from the 1948 war time from Life magazine. Also here is another collection there.

I wanted to write more about the Nakba at its time but then I remember it has no time because we still are living it.

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