The Contribution of Women to Peace and Reconciliation

INTERVIEW WITH
LAMA HOURANI, RAMALLAH
I was born in a refugee family in Damascus in 1965; my mother is from
Safad, and my father from Al Massmiah, which is in southern Israel
today. They were transferred to Syria in 1948.
I always knew that I was a Palestinian refugee; even in school I intro -
duced myself as a Syrian-Palestinian refugee. I always knew I was Pales -
tinian.
My mother’s mother in Syria and my uncles always talked about Safad
and Palestine, and how they had to leave their houses; and my greatgrandmother
on my father’s side always talked about Al Massmiah and
about our relatives who fought for the village. They told me how the Haganah
came in and how they immediately – within two hours – had to
surrender, if not they would have been killed. My father’s mother fled
to Gaza and I dreamed I would meet her, but this was not possible. I
was raised with these stories.
My father was a journalist. He was independent, but at the same time
active in the PLO, and a politician. Even at school, we were told about
the Naqba of 1948. I was always convinced that I would go back to my
homeland and fight for Palestine. When I was six or seven years old,
one of my dreams was that I met Yasser Arafat, and he asked me to
join military operations in Palestine, to liberate Palestine.
One of my direct experiences with war was the war between Israel, Syria
and Egypt in 1973. I remember that we had to stop going to school. Our
life changed. We were happy that we did not have to go to school, but
we were always afraid of the bombings. As we had no shelters in the district,
we stayed in our flat during the bombing of Damascus. We stayed
in the big middle room without windows. We were afraid. My mother had
packed a big bag with all our documents, passports, school materials,
clothes and some food that was changed every day. Whenever the
bomb ing and fighting was distant from our district, our parents encour -
aged us to go to the balcony. During this time, the neighbours stayed together.
It made me happy to see that the Israeli Army could be fought.
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