'There's truth' in Palestinian claims about stolen land

After the retired librarian finished reading "Witness in Palestine: A Jewish American Woman in the Occupied Territories," she decided she wanted to see the situation with her own eyes.

So Jennifer Humiston got involved with San Francisco-based Global Exchange, a human rights group that advocates for Palestinians and leads reality tours for "citizen ambassadors" who then return home and "dispel misinformation that can lead toward hatred and war," according to its promotional materials.

"I like to find out things for myself," Humiston said. "I don't trust mainstream corporate media to get the whole story out there."

As a participant who recently returned to Huntsville from nearly two weeks exploring the world of Jews and Arabs in Israel and Palestine, Humiston takes her role of myth-buster seriously. She wants to tell everyone about what she perceives as the injustice against Palestinians who were forced from their homes in Israel in 1948 and continue to be evicted off land "when the Jews decide they want it."

But she's not anti-Jewish. She, in fact, is half-Jewish, though her father didn't tell his children of their ancestry until they were in their teens and being raised as Protestants.

Humiston said she first became interested in the subject when she attended a class taught by Anis Salib, a Palestinian who fled from Israel during the Zionist movement of 1948.

"I had thought that anyone who said anything negative about Israel was anti-Semitic," said Humiston, who met Salib at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at the University of Alabama in Huntsville.

"But now I realize, no. There is truth in what (Palestinians) say about their land being stolen from them. And it continues today. Israel is still building settlements on land it said in 1948 belonged to Palestinians."

While on the Global Exchange trip, Humiston said she slept in Palestinian homes on the West Bank, in guest quarters outside Bethlehem, and in the Dheisheh refugee camp. She said their homes were tiny and "crammed with people," all walled in by concrete and barbed wire: "It's not a place you would live in by choice.

"It's hard to find a neutral perspective," Humiston acknowledged. "Most people feel very strongly one way or the other."

She said they talked with Israeli and Palestinian leaders and residents in a fact-finding mission that was "physically and emotionally exhausting." One of the most intriguing people she met was Bassam Aramin, whose 10-year-old Palestinian daughter was reportedly shot and killed by an Israeli soldier in 2007 while on her way home from buying candy.

Although he continues to mourn her death, he said he "seeks justice, not revenge," which can only come with an end to the continued occupation, Humiston said.

"They want the fighting to end," she said. "(Aramin) said there is no military solution to this conflict. To make peace with your enemy, you must work with him."

What Humiston hopes is that she can share what she personally saw and heard so that Americans can understand that what they think is truth isn't what Palestinians see as truth.

"We see the stories about the body counts, but not the 'why' behind it," she said. "If the people were allowed to communicate, I think there could be some understanding."