Palestinians’ Perceptions toward their homeland still hold a high sense of belongingness despite the negative media representation
A place is not only a geographical area; it’s also a state of mind. And trees are not just trees; they are the ribs of childhood, (Darwish 2oro: 15). Many Palestinians in Lebanon express differently their perception about their homeland in relative to their history’s memory. However, not all have passed in sensory experiences, but the big cause stimulates their belonging connection.
“I didn’t live any memorable events in Palestine and my memories are all here in Lebanon, though I don’t have troubled perceptions,” says Mariam Al-Khodari, a Palestinian Feminist, and Human Rights Activist. “My dad didn’t use to talk about past events about Palestine, but he used to talk about his childhood in Lebanon more.”
Alkhodari sees herself as emotional because the cause is humanitarian and not because she is Palestinian. She continued to hear about Palestine from TV, her friends, and the people around her. “My friend took a pic from the Yafa sea once and put my name in it. It was a nice gesture but it didn’t trigger me. It was normal,” she says.
“I like Palestine maybe because I didn’t find my total belonging here in Lebanon, after all, there is discrimination against us,” Al-Khodari explains. “Maybe if I were provided with all my rights here, I couldn’t go back because all I know is Lebanon.”
On the contrary, events related to memory are still palpable in the lives of those who lived them and think of the land's real owner’s identity. “We are the children of the third generation of the Palestinian Nakba, we live it in its finest details, we live it when we hear the word refugee, which is the description that the Palestinian Nakba brought to us,” says Ruwaida Al-Safadi, a Palestinian Journalist.
Al-Safadi can’t forget the day her ancestors were displaced and the day the black lie was lied to them, which says: “Get out temporarily from Palestine and you will return after seven days.” This lie became 72 years old, and during these years the Nakba generation and the subsequent generations lived the bitterness of distancing from the homeland and longing for it with every moment.
“Any Palestinian or anyone close to the Palestinian cause can never get over the incidence of 1948,” says Malak Khaled, Palestinian Journalist, and University Instructor. “We’re talking about mascara, evacuating people from their villages, and crimes against humanity,” she adds. “Everyone who felt it still feels it till deaths and few people from 72 years alive till now and they can swear by the horror they saw at that time.”
Khaled considers that there isn’t a misperception. She believes that the right perception to get as Palestinian because this is her cause and not receiving this legacy would have made her a big part of who she is as a person. Also, as a Palestinian, it’s a crucial part of her identity to know what happened in 1948.
“Home where love is. Where their respect for human rights more love to attain,” says Dr. Wael Abu Hamzeh, Social Psychologist and Gestaltist. “Where blood has flowed, the forgotten tree cannot grow.”
However, Dr. Abu Hamzeh sees that nothing ever goes away, but it’s about perception, although there is a kind of exaggeration in how people deal with the Palestinian conflict. “You’re talking about a people tragedy but the problem is how generations are raised to hate Jewish, for example, whom not all are bad,” he says.
Dr. Abu Hamzeh emphasizes the importance of consciousness after trauma. “Tolerance depends on where did you grow up and the community you lived in.” Factors like flexibility and adaptability to new circumstances play a big role in that. “The storm only breaks dry branches as Gibran said, so consciousness direction is always upwards and leads to perception change,” he explains.
According to Dr. Abu Hamzeh, troubled perception is due to the lack of wisdom. “Wisdom comes when people use both their right and left brains. People are either more rational or emotional.”
It is not easy for a Palestinian’s life to turn from pride into a miserable one. “There is always something that resembles or reminder of the original trauma, which color the perception negatively,” says Dania Dbaibo Darwish, a Licensed Clinical Psychologist. “There is a negative belief among most Palestinians that is still triggered so no tolerance can happen,” she adds.
The Palestinian trauma is still unresolved. “Each time when u remember what happened, you feel a disturbance in the body accompanied by a negative belief stuck in your memory especially if not resolved,” Darwish explains. “It is still ongoing, the consequences are worse and the experience is more negative, thus, the impact is graver.”
While asking Darwish about Al-Khodari’s perception toward her country Palestine, she sees that parents play a vital role in repeating what happened in Palestine in front of their children. “The children become traumatized (secondary trauma) even if they didn’t live the displacement,” she says. “Intergenerational trauma, the original trauma is passed down through the next generation by observation and only felt at the subconscious level. This sometimes happens and the more it’s talked about the more the impact,” she explains.
Besides the Palestinians’ perceptions toward their homeland, negative portrayal in media can help in creating troubled perceptions. So how much do Al-Khodari, Al-Safadi, and Khaled are aware of media representation and portrayal of Palestinians?
“Palestinians have always represented wrongly in the Lebanese media. Many Lebanese channels operated for certain political parties. Most of these affiliations are against Palestinians,” says Khaled. “Camps are always portrayed as a source of terror and trouble. This has been a historical case and never resolved and happened to be fair to Palestinians. Palestinians have always represented as if they wanted to take the role of the Lebanese and the reason for the civil war in Lebanon,” she adds.
For Al-Safadi, media platforms and some press pens created and conveyed a hideous image of the camps and the Palestinian people, specifically when they describe them as security outposts. “During the 72 years of the Nakba, many political and security events have passed which were a reason to point fingers at the Palestinians and the Palestinian camps, because that past formed a negative image and some took advantage of it,” she articulates.
Likewise Khaled and Al-Safadi, Al-Khodari believes that the media representation of Palestinians is negative, she considers that camps are often portrayed miserably. “I feel privileged that I live outside camps because of how poor is the infrastructure,” she says.
Accordingly, we can see how Palestinians are steadfast for Palestine and their memory. Many loved a homeland that they have never seen and clung to it through the words of their ancestors, although that some might not mean too much to them but they still like it. They carry from their forefathers’ beautiful stories to share.
“We Palestinians who live in Lebanon carry in our memories the story of a homeland, and we do not know about Palestine except that beautiful picture that they told us with passion and love,” Al-Safadi expresses thoughtfully. “How will these perceptions disturb our memory? I say that these perceptions are what strengthen us and strengthen our resolve to withstand all the disappointments that happen to Palestine and the cause.”
