As my flight arrived in Palestine, I looked down and tried to place some of the erased Palestinian towns and villages that once existed beneath that airport: Aker, Bir Al-Saba', Bisan, Al-Lod, Al-Majdal, Nazareth, Haifa, Tiberias, Jaffa, West Jerusalem--all within 1948 Israel.

But there was nothing to see. Our forefathers were under the tarmac, where the plane will land and screech to a standing halt and our cemeteries and churches and mosques are nowhere to be seen. The towns that were once nestled between the hills were nowhere to be seen; what you see standing are tall buildings and skyscrapers. You see yourself buried, yet you're alive, coming to that land of yours where only two, three miles away your own mother had left a home 52 years ago, and still is holding the key. You come to it, you enter an airport, and the only sign that a Palestinian is present is where you find that Palestinian being searched and strip-searched. Our story must be told as it occurred and as it will occur.

The right of return was so strongly symbolized for me in my humble return as the result of my father's death. How many fathers must die before we are all allowed to return?

We buried my father in Beit Sahour, in our hometown where we belong. And we turned around so that the next morning we could march in somebody else's funeral; in another father's funeral, in another sister's funeral.

We insist that the Israeli killing and the murder of our people must terminate. We demand that the continuous Israeli shelling of our homes, the demolishing of homes must terminate--it's not a subject for discussion. It is not something that we beg for, we demand it, and we will struggle until it terminates!

The Israeli abuse of our human rights in violation of international law must end. That's our demand--for international law to reign.

We demand that the robbery of land that the Israelis have turned into by-pass roads, that they have turned into settlements, must terminate. We demand that the totality of our people, the collective history of our people must triumph, and that the Palestinian people must win in their liberation. For ours is indeed a national liberation movement that makes every single Palestinian stand proud and tall before any bullet, before any weapon, be it made in the United States or anywhere else. That is our demand, and that is what we want to insist, with you, for you and for ourselves.

This is an edited version of a talk given by Elias Rashmawi in Berkeley at a December 3, 2000 teach-in on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Born in Gaza, Palestine, Rashmawi was issued a permanent deportation order by the Israeli High Court because of his involvement in Palestinian organizing while a student in the US. In November, 2000, as the second Intifada (uprising) raged on, Elias' father passed away. Elias was therefore granted a limited permit to his homeland to attend the funeral.)