Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, November 2003, pages 46-47

In Memoriam

 

Issam Mufid Nashashibi (1951-2003)

 

By Daniel McGowan

On Aug. 28 the Palestinian community lost one of its finest representatives, a man who worked tirelessly for human rights and for justice for all people. Issam Nashashibi was born in Jerusalem, caught outside of the country in 1967 and not allowed to return. He became, not a man without a country, but a man of many countries.

He studied in London and earned an MBA from the University of North Carolina. He worked for the Chase Bank and later started his own firm, known as the American Funds Transfer Group. Issam lived in Malaysia, Singapore, Puerto Rico, England and, in the U.S., in Washington, DC, New York, San Diego, San Jose, and finally in Dawsonville, Georgia.

He was an "electronic activist," writing articles and speeches, often for others, taking no credit for himself. He had a delightful sense of humor and often wrote under the pen name of Masai Kenyata.Although English was his second language, he crafted outstanding editorials for such papers as the San Diego Union Tribune and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Issam was invited to speak at this year's tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr on the national holiday observance of his birthday at the Ebenezer Heritage Baptist Church in Atlanta. He readily acknowledged that Dr. King was a man whose life had influenced him profoundly, particularly with respect to his prophetic teachings on the effectiveness of passive resistance. He said, "Dr. King has taught me the righteousness of speaking truth to power, that individual courage in the face of brutality is a moral imperative and that silence gives consent to the prevailing order. These principles are just as appropriate in our beloved United States today, where we have allowed the acts of a few mad men to erode our civil rights."

In a clear voice, speaking out for all people, Issam went on to say, "We should act to let our leaders and fellow citizens know that what is right is justice, not might, especially in the Holy Land. Let our leaders know that we did not tear down apartheid's walls in South Africa to build them in the Holy Land; that collective punishment of the Palestinians, destroying their homes and starving them, is not going to quench their yearning to be free."

Issam's call for justice for all received a standing ovation from the crowd.

I first met Issam at an American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee conference in 1995 where I was gathering support for a project known as Deir Yassin Remembered. It was a simple idea, namely, to work toward building a memorial at Deir Yassin, where a massacre took place in 1948 at the beginning of the Nakba, or the ethnic cleansing of over 800,000 Palestinians from over 500 villages to make room for the Jewish state.We immediately bonded and worked together on Deir Yassin Remembered virtually every day until his death.

When Issam took his father on a last visit to see Jerusalem, I was privileged to go with them.That trip opened many new contacts for Deir Yassin Remembered and paved the way for subsequent trips to the IDF archives for information on Deir Yassin that had not yet been disclosed. Although by then rather old and frail, Issam's father, Mufid, was an activist at heart; he and his extensive collection of books meant that we now had a virtual reference librarian on board. A year before his death in 1999 Mufid Nashashibi insisted on being a part of the DYR vigil in front of the Holocaust museum in Los Angeles. Mufid held the placard to remember Deir Yassin, while Issam held him up. A Palestinian father and son, together in front of the Holocaust museum with a sign calling for people to remember Deir Yassin, would be the very definition of the Arabic word sumud, which in English might be translated as "steadfastness and resilience." Dr. King would have been proud.

It was Issam who insisted that we represent Palestinians among over 650 NGOs at the 1999 peace conference in The Hague. We sat there for three days behind our large logo, a green saber, or cactus; two prickly middle-aged men determined that this piece of Palestinian history not be forgotten.

It was Issam who connected with the trade unions in Scotland where we held Deir Yassin commemorations in Glasgow, Edinburgh, and Aberdeen.It was Issam who made the connections in London, Boston, and Washington, where we held conferences. It was Issam who helped to coordinate our marches in Jerusalem and our events in Australia.

This summer we worked with Paul Eisen, our UK director, to build the first Deir Yassin Memorial in the United States (see above). It was an olive tree sculpture, a symbol of peace, uprooted in the Zionist quest to clear Palestine of its Arab population.Issam set the bar for major donors at $5,000, and it was Issam and his wife, Margaret, who made the first contribution. In his best street talk, Issam would say, "This is America, man. Justice does not come from above.You want justice? You got to be willing to pay for it."

Justice—Issam paid for it and he lobbied for it. He worked on congressional campaigns in several different states and frequently attended fund-raisers for members of Congress. He never stopped urging people, especially Arab Americans, to register and to exercise their right to vote.

Issam worked with Deir Yassin Remembered and for other Palestinian human rights projects everywhere. Like the Jewish philosopher Ahad Ha'am, whom he greatly admired, Issam Nashashibi was a man of the world. But in his heart he was always a Palestinian from Jerusalem. In many ways he was like the olive tree memorial, torn from its roots by violence in the Holy Land, but clinging to the earth and to the people whence he came.

Daniel McGowan, a professor of economics at Hobart & William Smith Colleges in Geneva, NY, is the founder of Deir Yassin Remembered.

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