On May 28, 2007 we visited Dheisheh Refugee Camp on the outskirts of Bethlehem.  The camp was created in 1949 to provide humanitarian relief to Palestinian refugees who fled their villages just before and after the creation of Israel in 1948. 

The camp was supposed to be a temporary solution, but almost sixty years later it still exists. 

 
After an initial ten years of tents and dirt roads, it has slowly transformed through a phase of small one-room houses for entire families to live in to a dense concentration of low-rise buildings and narrow laneways. Today more than 12,000 people live there in an area of less than half a square kilometer.
 

Until the Israeli army withdrew in 1995, Dheisheh was surrounded by an 8 foot barbed-wire fence and occupation soldiers controlled movement into and out of the camp, creating a military-enforced ghetto.  The only entrance was through a metal turnstile at the main gate.  When limited Palestinian authority was granted in 1995, one of the first things the camp residents did was to remove the fence enclosing the camp.

They left the turnstile at the main entrance as a reminder of the Israeli occupation, but painted it over in Palestinian colors.

We were escorted through the camp by a guide from Ibdaa Cultural Center.  Ibdaa, which means “to create something out of nothing”, is a grassroots organization providing social, educational and cultural programs for the residents of Dheisheh.   

One of its many successful enterprises is the Ibdaa Dance Troupe, which has performed in Palestine and in 15 other countries around the world.  Through traditional folkloric dance, the troupe of 26 girls and boys depicts the history and aspirations of Palestinian refugees.

Our guide, a 24 year old man named Shadi, shared with us some of the aspirations the Dheisheh refugees had as they considered what Ibdaa Cultural Center could become.  They dreamed of having a sports club, a restaurant, a computer lab, a guest house, a children’s library, a nursery, a media training center, a women’s handicraft cooperative and more, as well as the dance troupe. 

Amazingly enough, all of their dreams have come true except one.  The dance troupe dreams of dancing in Jerusalem, but that dream has thus far been denied them.

The Ibdaa sports club offers swimming, in spite of a severe shortage of water in the camp, football and basketball.  They are especially proud of their women’s basketball program, the only one to exist in a Palestinian refugee camp.

Of course their biggest dream is an end to the Israeli occupation with their rights of return granted. Shadi explained that “right of return” means much more than the right to return to their ancestral villages. It means choice. If families want to remain in the camp, they have the right to do so.

If they want to return to their ancestral homes, they have the right to do that too. If they want to apply to live in America, they have that right also. The right of return means freedom.
 

May we Americans, who purport to cherish freedom for all people, support the Palestinians in their desire to have the choices that other free peoples have.

A series of beautiful murals grace the walls of the Ibdaa Cultural Center. One of the murals depicts Palestinians dancing over the Apartheid Wall.

May the people of Palestine continue to respond creatively to the illegal and unjust Israeli occupation.