"So yes I am a Palestinian refugee and I am from Yaffa. Deal with it." Ambassador Majed Bamya

Ambassador Majed Bamya

 

Deputy Permanent Observer of the State of Palestine to the UN, New York. Palestinian from Yaffa. Refugee. The time for freedom is always right now!

@majedbamya

 

For those who keep sending me messages to mock the fact my bio indicates I am a Palestinian from Yaffa and a refugee, highlighting I am too young to have left in 1948 or that I was not born in Yaffa, which is precisely because my family is a refugee family who found itself in Lebanon then and, after the 1982 war, left for the UAE where I was born. 

 

I just want to point out that I am sure those writing these messages see no problem in claiming a right of return to Palestine 2000 years later but are outraged by any mention of the right of return of Palestinian refugees or the fact they are and their descendants still considered refugees 75 years after the Nakba or to see them proclaiming their roots that are still vivid in the memories of their parents and grandparents and still visible in their ancestral land, despite all the efforts to erase it. 

 

Part of my family home built by my grandfather still stands in Yaffa. I visited it as a stranger allowed a glimpse at it by those who now live in it. I still have conversations with Yaffa’s sea. I can imagine what my life could have been if it wasn’t for the Nakba. I can be for peace without betraying that part of my being. I am for peace not because our dispossession and displacement did not take place but despite of them. So yes I am a Palestinian refugee and I am from Yaffa. Deal with it.