Palestinian History in Conversation Between Father and Son
In 2018, Jordan Nassar found a photo album in his father’s office — a collection of images captured by Dr. Paul Nassar in Gaza shortly before the signing of the Oslo Accords.
Following the creation of a zine featuring those photographs, Jordan sat down to talk with his father about the events captured in the pictures. Happy for history to be stewarded, Dr. Nassar helped position their personal family stories within the greater historical context to demystify a moment previously filtered through history books. The conversation explores a subject matter which is at the heart of Jordan’s artistic work and cultural identity.
Jordan Nassar: What were you doing in Gaza in 1993?
Paul Nassar: I was attending a conference that was organized by an international group who was interested in the Palestinian movement toward autonomy. I was there to represent this group.
I had started coming to Palestine in 1990 when I was fifty years old. I had first encountered Majed Nassar who gave a lecture at Columbia University regarding the situation in Palestine, including the Intifada. I approached him afterwards and asked whether it was possible for me, in some way, to become involved on the West Bank, and he invited me to his place in Beit Sahour. So I first went there during the first Intifada and spent time with him both on the West Bank and Gaza. There, I consulted with the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme and did some consulting with various groups regarding the treatment of persons who had been traumatized. I also did some work with a group sponsored through the YMCA in Beit Sahour that was dealing with people who were injured, crippled, whatever by the Israeli reaction to the Intifada.
JN: What was it like to be in Gaza and the West Bank before the Oslo Accords were signed?
PN: There was always tension going through the checkpoints, but once in Gaza I was impressed with the spirit and the beauty of the people there. I was particularly impressed by the assertiveness of the women, even though they covered their hair. They were very active, outspoken and engaged in organizing around what they can do to improve their lives. I went to several of the refugee camp sites, saw how they lived. Some of the problems that existed even then with open sewerage and—
JN: This is before the Oslo Accords?
PN: This is before the Oslo Accords. I also tried to examine the famous detention center right on the beach in Gaza City, but I was not allowed access.
JN: When you took these pictures, how long was it before the signing of the accords?
PN: I was there about 5 days before. I spent time in Beit Sahour and travelled together with friends to Gaza. I was taken in a private car and we drove through Israeli territory into Gaza. We stopped every time we saw clumps of cacti. It was explained to me that these cacti were actually sites of previous Arab villages. The cacti were grown by the village for their fruit. So as we went along, I got to see the sites of five or six destroyed villages that are now either open fields or Israeli towns.
JN: Did everyone know that the Oslo Accords were about to be signed?
PN: The whole conference was organized around the significance of having the Accords agreed upon, with the hope of an emerging Palestinian state.
JN: Can you describe the scene when the news spread that they had been signed? You can see a lot in the pictures.
PN: We met in a huge conference hall in Gaza City. It was an international community with people from all over the world—British, South African—particularly people interested in human rights, anti-torture groups from places like Denmark. At the same time there were all the problem happening in the Balkans with Sarajevo, and I remember a member of the peace group from the region who made an impassioned plea that we not lose sight of what was happening there as well as what was happening in Palestine. I was impressed with the sincerity and the response from the audience to his plea.
JN: How did it happen that people took to the streets that day?
PN: When it became official and the announcements were made, there was an outburst of energy that I've never seen in Palestine. The day prior to the signing of the Accords, if you wore the colors black, red, white, green—the colors of the Palestinian flag—it was grounds to be arrested. And Palestinian kids particularly found clever ways to do this. They would turn their pockets inside out, put the Palestinian flag on the lining of their pockets, and turn it back inside their pants; but then when they walked by each other they would flash their pockets.
On the day that the Accords were signed, the streets were filled with Palestinian flags. Ironically, they were made in Israel.
JN: A lot of them look homemade in the pictures.
PN: And some were homemade. There were all kinds. But it was clearly one of the most important things, to be able to display the Palestinian flag. Truckloads of people came by waving flags, singing songs. There were loudspeakers announcing the peace Accords. There was jubilation in the street. Donkeys drawing carts with families sitting on them, waving their flag. I remember going by groups of boys giving me the peace sign and telling me "Take my picture, take my picture" and I would stop and take pictures and nobody knew if I was an American. Everybody was very upbeat and jubilant. There were some negative moments as well. While I was in the conference we were called outside because of an incident. On the street, there was an Arab woman kneeling behind the wall looking down the street at a police station. What had happened was that her son had gone to the police station and attempted to blow up a police car. He had been killed when it was discovered what he was doing. He was shot, and his body remained on the street in front of the police station. She was staring intently at her son's body. I remember people coming around her and trying to console her, and the look on her face was one of defiance.
JN: How long after the conference did you stay in Palestine, do you remember?
PN: I remained in Gaza for two days and then, with a group of people who had given talks and papers and so on, rode together in a small van back to the West Bank. However, on the night we were crossing the border from Gaza into Israel, we were stopped. It was about nine in the evening and there were some people with us of international fame, peace advocates and leaders of various groups. We were told by a border guard who must have been 18 or 19 that we would not be permitted to proceed. We asked what the delay was and were not given a response. Meanwhile, other vehicles were stopped as well. A car came by carrying food and soda, and someone else pulled out speakers and turned on Arabic music. We opened up the food and proceeded to have a party, dancing in front of the soldiers, singing songs and having a good time. About five hours later, all of a sudden somebody came over and said we would be permitted to pass. No explanation was ever given. We rode on into the West Bank and I spent some time in Beit Sahour and in Jerusalem consulting the YMCA. I remained in Palestine for five more days before I came home.
JN: Were people hopeful? Were they skeptical?
PN: A lot of people were quietly optimistic that maybe something good will come from this. There were groups that were more left-wing and radical who saw this as a sellout. I set in on a discussion in which I learned there had been talk of assassinating one of the representatives, Hanan Ashrawi, because they saw her as being duplicitous and agreeing to something that didn't really represent the will of the Palestinians. There were no guarantees of Israeli compliance. It was more about dividing up the territory and allowing legitimate control of areas of the West Bank that Israel had no right to occupy: Areas A, B and C.
JN: So that got created during the Oslo Accords.
PN: Yes. And what it did was it transferred police control of Palestinians to Palestinians, leaving the Israelis out, and essentially taking over the jobs that the Israelis were hated for, for example—responding to local crises, local problems.
JN: But isn't it better for them to be policing themselves?
PN: The idea was an attempt at some autonomy, but the truth was that they never had true autonomy, meaning that the Israelis could come in at any time and override any police action. Later, the problem was that the local police became cooperative with the Israeli Defense Forces. In other words, if we warned the police that Israeli forces are coming in, the police would not resist their presence. The police would actually remove themselves from the area where the incursion was going to occur. I was there when some of these incursions happened, during which the Israeli law enforcement would just come in and either close a store or take some people as prisoners and disappear again, sometimes killing people.
JN: You still go to the West Bank. What activities are you involved in there?
PN: I do several things. I meet with people who run mental health organizations in the West Bank and talk to them about issues of psychiatry and treatment.
JN: When was the last time you did that?
PN: Two years ago. 2016. I also met with a group who was drawing up the jurisprudence about juvenile laws that they hope to incorporate into their jurisprudence in the West Bank. Up to that point the laws were rather regressive, they looked at children as if they were miniature adults, gave them a lot of responsibility. Coupled with the paternalistic control of family life, this creates a great problem, particularly for people under occupation. So I presented what the system in the United States is regarding juveniles: such things as putting them in detention centers rather than jail, sending them into foster care, closing or sealing their juvenile records if they had been arrested as a minor—reflecting the fact that they were recognized as being of diminished capacity, meaning they didn't have the full responsibility for their actions that an adult would be expected to show.
JN: You say that there were two opposing viewpoints regarding the Oslo Accords when they were signed. What is your opinion now, in retrospect?
PN: In retrospect, the Oslo Accords gave the appearance—but not the reality or the possibility—of an independent Palestinian state. To this day the Israelis can come to any place in the West Bank, can seize property and persons, can destroy homes, can seize sources of water with no repercussions.
JN: What's your impression on the general consensus in Palestine about the Oslo Accords?
PN: The optimism is gone. There's a lot of pessimism and a lot of cynicism about having been betrayed, that the Israelis went forward with their land grab, putting up a wall on Palestinian territory. But of course it also reflected the difference in mentality when no one reached any agreement. The Palestinians tend to agree on issues in a way that reflects basic motivations and expectations, whereas the Israelis are very detail-oriented and assume nothing beyond what is written on the page. Where the Palestinians understood the Accords as an opening up of a movement towards independence, the Israelis saw it as a modified way of controlling the West Bank. And that's been lived out.
JN: So, this publication that I made of your photos: what do you think when you look through those pictures now?
PN: I see it with mixed emotions. To me, now, it both reflects a positive moment and acts as a sad reminder of the failure of the Accords. I remember the enthusiasm and seeing faces light up that otherwise were severe and withdrawn. At the same time I'm very conscious of the failure of that hope that had been sparked in so many people.
Jordan Nassar was born in 1985 in New York City. He lives and works in Brooklyn. Nassar’s hand embroidered textile pieces address an intersecting field of language, ethnicity, and the embedded notions of heritage and homeland. Treating traditional craft more as medium than topic, Nassar examines conflicting issues of identity and cultural participation using geometric patterning adapted from symbols and motifs present in traditional Palestinian hand embroidery. Meticulously hand stitching colorful compositions across carefully mapped-out patterns, Nassar roots his practice in a linguistic and geopolitical field of play characterized by both conflict and unspoken harmony.
Dr. Paul Nassar was born in 1940 in New York and grew up in Yonkers. He is the son of Christian Palestinians. His father was a chef and a community organizer who helped bring many Levantines to the United States over the years. Dr. Nassar is a Forensic Psychiatrist (MD) who often handles USCIS asylum cases alongside his private practice. He has traveled to the West Bank on numerous occasions to give talks and seminars on his field of expertise—PTSD.