Leila Khaled was born in al-Hayfa, or Haifa, Mandatory Palestine in 1944. In her autobiography, she writes that “Haifa is caressed by the sea, hugged by the mountain, inspired by the open plain … a safe anchor for the wayfarer, a beach in the sun,” that it is a place loved by all Palestinians, that her affection and relation to it transformed from the sentimentality of youth to the honor of knowing she was somewhere with a deep history of working-class struggle. Khaled was 4 years old when she was forced to flee al-Hayfa — one of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians whose lives were completely uprooted following the 1947 U.N. Partition of historic Palestine that gave 56 percent of the land to Jewish settlers.
Khaled is generally known for her involvement in militant hijackings in the name of Palestinian liberation between the years 1969 and 1972. Before that, she was an English teacher in Kuwait and, following 1972, she took on a variety of roles, ranging from assisting those living in refugee camps, working in women’s unions and participating in Palestinian parliamentary delegations. Although her political strategies are controversial, her story of displacement and exile is indisputable. Its value should not be up for debate — her personal tale details injustices that resonate with many in the Palestinian diaspora and must be centered.
At that time, the Arab National Movement was weak and incapable of mobilizing effectively against Zionists, who Khaled describes as having “camaraderie as well as gunpowder; they had well-organized armed forces and they excelled in psychological warfare. Their leaders were at the head of their columns; ours were securely ensconced in Mount Lebanon or Cairo.” This clear disparity in forces left many disheartened and weak-willed, like the commander of the Arab Legion of Jordan, who agreed to British plans of evacuating al-Hayfa in order for Jewish people to settle there, withdrawing his regiment. Violence against Arabs was described by Khaled as cruel and clever — the massacre of Palestinians in Deir Yassin followed by the murder of 254 people struck such fear and apprehension into the heart of Palestinians, and it seemed they must either leave or wait for death. Khaled recounts, though, that her “instinctive reaction was that I must remain at home. Nobody explained to me why we were leaving and I didn’t understand … My father bade us farewell, gave me a tearful kiss, and remained behind. I remember the figure of despair growing smaller in the distance. I also remember that this was the last time I saw the staircase of our house.”
I’ve lived in the same apartment my whole conscious life. I think about the yellow walls of my living room and the blue of my bedroom, the big green couch we had by the air conditioner and how I would just sink into it when I was a kid. I think about the carpet in the foyer that has never changed or all the plants my mom has on the windowsill in the kitchen. This ability to recount the changes my home has gone through over two decades, to love it in proximity, this position of not having faced insecurity or doubt when it comes to the roof over my head or the walls around me, which should be a common experience, separates me from billions of people alive on this planet and billions of people who have lived. I try and think about what it would be like if I had to leave my home under the threat of immediate violence and the last image I have of it, if I was ripped from the soil I was firmly planted in, if I was confined and denied the opportunity to develop. I simply can’t.
Khaled and her family ended up in Sour, Lebanon after they fled. Her father, who had initially stayed in al-Hayfa, had his business and their family home seized after al-Hayfa fell. Khaled recounts, “he had to watch Zionists moving into our home. He saw our furniture carted off. Then he, himself, was deported to Egypt … He arrived penniless after working hard for three decades as a storekeeper. Never allowed to become a Lebanese citizen … For eighteen long years, he lived in Lebanon dreaming of returning to Haifa.” This became the life of Palestinians, an endless longing and a complete disorientation. As of 2022, the Palestinian population stands at 14.3 million. Of the 5.4 million that live in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, more than 2.3 million are registered as refugees, internally displaced refugees. These are the people of Tulkarm and Jenin, the people of the West Bank who live under the threat of losing their homes at any point due to continuous settlement expansion.
Diasporic Palestinians have largely situated in other Arab countries, where they still face difficulty obtaining citizenship, and throughout South and Central America. The key has become a symbol of this status of exile, as many Palestinians still hold onto the keys to their houses back home, a home they carry with them forever. Edward Said wrote in his essay “Reflections on Exile,” that exile is that “unhealable rift forced between a human being and a native place, between the self and its true home.” I think it can be easy in academia to get caught up in abstraction, but when we’re talking about identity and autonomy, about relationships of all kinds, it really is as simple as land to walk on, a house to live in, food on the table, neighbors on the block and accessible and respectable work. Palestinians have largely been denied an opportunity to these material conditions.
In accordance with international law, Palestinian refugees, both diaspora and internally displaced, have the right to return. Yet, this right is largely undermined, rarely even integrated into conversations about Palestine. Why, when we talk about the fate of Palestine, the tangibility of a two-state solution, are the millions of Palestinians living across the world never brought into the conversation? We can talk about borders, we can talk about policy and we can talk about political governance, but still the people themselves are disregarded and unacknowledged, and there’s nothing accidental about this. Just think about whether you’ve ever heard mainstream media raising this tangible and honest question about whether Palestinians who were exiled or forced to flee can return to their native land with a legitimate status and dignity.
The right to return raises two uncomfortable points for those desperate to avoid questioning the integrity of the Israeli state. The first is one that Khaled poses — “We did not leave voluntarily, and if we did, what law or morality gave the Zionists the right to occupy our homes and take our possessions?” These testimonies, this living history, poke holes in preexisting narratives.
The second involves geography and demographics, which Ilan Pappé identifies as the impulse of colonial settlers through all of time — a projected Jewish majority. Israel denies apartheid, although it clearly and explicitly is proud of its ethnonationalist nature — that’s why Palestinians are inherently viewed as a threat to Israel’s livelihood. If Palestinian refugees were given the right to return, a Jewish majority would be threatened, in addition to the conception of an Israeli national identity built internally and on the global stage.
It is Khaled’s dream to “recover Palestine and make it a human paradise for Arabs and Jews and lovers of freedom.” It is also her sincerest intention to make a return to Palestine possible for her father and, if not for him, for her children. A whole life never forgetting the staircase of her house, a whole life fighting for it. There are millions of families still holding onto their keys, believing in the tomorrow where their families will eventually use them.
Kyriaki Yozzo is a senior majoring in philosophy, politics, and law.
Views expressed in the opinions pages represent the opinions of the columnists. The only piece that represents the view of the Pipe Dream Editorial Board is the Staff Editorial.