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After thirty years of marriage, and thirty years of struggling with lawyers and the Israeli ministry of interior’s oppressive measures for family reunification, my daughter Dina was able to get a one year permit for her husband to live with her in Jerusalem. Since the signing of the Oslo Accords, which were supposed to bring about peace to the region, Jerusalem was placed out of bounds for Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. So my daughter’s husband, Yousef Nasser, who is from Birzeit and has a Palestinian Identity Card could not live with her and his three children in Jerusalem, nor could they join him in Birzeit, because that would deprive them of their right of residency in Jerusalem, the city of their birth, and that of their forefathers. How unfair. So her only choice was to be a week-end wife and make the best out of it under the circumstances. How many family occasions he missed that it became normal for him not to be part of those functions. Yet it was very hard for the whole family when he was terribly missed on certain occasions like the time his daughter was hospitalized for a month and a half after a serious fall, as well as on many other happy occasions.
When Dina told me on Monday morning that they had an appointment at the ministry of interior I kept praying and hoping that their ordeal would be over soon. So when she called to say they got the paper, I thought it was the paper approving the family reunification, but it turned out to be indeed an approval for family reunification which begins with another ordeal of a yearly permit. At the end of the year and to renew this permit they need to provide all the necessary documents that they are actually living in Jerusalem. a document that would grant him a one year permit to be in Jerusalem. What an anti-climax was my daughter’s first reaction. After such long years of deprivation of a normal family life, and when all three children are pursuing their studies abroad, and no more around us, we can now be together ” But when as Palestinians we were never granted the justice that we deserved, and never had the best of choices, a permit becomes an achievement and a sign of hope for further permit renewal. This is the story of our life as well as that of thousands of others.
The great escape.
Well, to start with, we express our heartiest congratulations for this monumental achievement! Yes, monumental, because the occupier chose to make it hard upon families to be united under one roof, in the same city and in the same country. At least your prayers and theirs were granted and we hope that eventually Yousef will will be able to obtain the necessary blue ID. Mabrouk to him and to his wife, mabrouk for his children and most certainly to you, Samia. Tony Nesnas
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