CPTnet
April 1, 2004

HEBRON/AMMAN REFLECTION: Understanding the Need to Return

by Greg Rollins

[Note: Greg Rollins wrote the following reflection from Amman, Jordan, where
he is waiting to find out if the Israeli Ministry of the Interior will
reverse its decision denying him entry into Israel. See March 11 and 12,
2004 CPTnet Urgent Actions. While the Ministry re-examines his case,
Rollins will participate in a CPT delegation to Iraq.]

In the three years I have worked with CPT in Hebron, I have come to
understand many things Palestinians go through. Israeli soldiers have
detained me without giving me any reason. There were times when they denied
me access to Hebron when I was returning from a trip to Jerusalem and there
were times they denied me access to the CPT apartment where I lived. Now
that I have been denied entry to Israel and the West Bank, I have come to
understand one more thing that many Palestinians face, the right to return
to their home.

            Throughout Israel, the West Bank, Gaza and the rest of the
world, Palestinian refugees wait to return to the homes the Israeli Army
displaced them from during the various wars of the past century. Recently,
here in Amman, Jordan, I spent some time in a few of the Palestinian refugee
camps. The camps, like many I saw in the West Bank and Gaza, are mostly
temporary dwellings. Simple cement buildings erected quickly and crammed
close together. They gave me the sense that Palestinians did not build them
to last.

The right of return for Palestinian refugees is a heated topic in the
negotiations between the Palestinian Authority (PA) and the Israeli
government. The PA insists that the refugees be allowed to return to their
homes, The Israeli government insists they cannot.

Hebron is certainly not my "real" home, but for the last three years it has
been a home for me. I am not attached to the land or the buildings by
heritage, but I still miss the home I had there. It is a place where I put
down roots, a place where I grew and made friends. With the option of
returning to Hebron taken away from me, I can
understand why Palestinian refugees refuse to leave their homeland. While I
wait in Amman to see if Israeli security will grant me reentry to the West
Bank, I can't help but feel a sense of displacement myself.

Whether I am allowed to go back to Hebron or not, I cannot say, but I feel
more hopeful for Palestinian refugees. When I asked a few refugees in the
Amman camps if they thought they would ever be allowed to return home to
Palestine, they said that one day they would. If the Jews could return to
the place they called home after hundreds of years abroad, why can't the
Palestinians return after a few decades?