Mounir Sa'adah: The Gaza of 1949

By Jennie Shurtleff

Seventy-five years ago, Woodstock resident Mounir Sa’adah travelled to the Middle East on a humanitarian mission to help with the resettlement of displaced people living in Gaza. He wrote of his experience in an article that was published in the Vermont Standard on October 13, 1949. This article, written three-quarters of a century ago, is far from just a historical document because it sheds light on the roots of the current conflict in the Middle East.

Mounir Sa’adah

Mounir and his wife, Marjorie, both grew up in the Middle East. Marjorie was an Armenian who was born in Central Turkey during a period in which the then-governing body of Turkey wished to erase all evidence that Armenians had ever lived in that country. Many, including Marjorie’s grandfather, her uncles and their families, and her father, were executed. She and her mother, who worked at one of the orphanages, were spared and eventually allowed to leave the country and move to Lebanon.

Mounir was born in Damascus, Syria, and pursued studies at American University in Beirut. Like Marjorie, his early years were spent in a war-torn country. While Mounir appears not to have suffered as directly as Marjorie, he was aware firsthand of the conflicts as his father - who was a pastor - would take Mounir to visit the British prisoners of war in Syria and give them some of the apples from their own limited food supply. Such acts of compassion and kindness set Mounir on the path that he would follow for the rest of his life.

While living in Lebanon, Mounir met Marjorie, who was also a graduate of American University. They moved to the United States in 1945 first living in Ohio, and after about a year moving to Vermont where Mounir first worked at the Farm and Wilderness Camp, and then later as a minister at the Universalist Unitarian Church and a teacher at the Woodstock Country School.

 Perhaps because of their connections to the Middle East and having both seen the devastation caused by war, Marjorie and Mounir went to Gaza during the summer of 1949. At the time, Palestinians were being removed from their homes to allow for the Jewish state of Israel to be established.

In his own words, Mounir tells about the events during the summer of 1949. He notes that after being forced from their homes, the Palestinians were sent to:

“the ancient town of Gaza, a strip of desert land about 30 miles in length and six in width, squeezed between  the Egyptian and Palestine border…. Prior to the Arab-Israeli troubles, Gaza was a modest town of 50,000 Arab inhabitants. It was enough of an oasis to enable its citizens to lead a humble but contented life tending to their small groves, cattle and a few primitive industries. To these 50,000 original inhabitants,” Mounir states, “have now been added at least 260,000 refugees. During the early days of the struggle, it is estimated that more than that number came pouring in through Palestine.

They ran away from adjoining Israeli-occupied territory bringing with them only the clothes they were wearing, money and jewels, if they had any, and their families. Their leaders assured them that property left behind did not matter much for Arab troops would soon re-occupy the lands and they would be back in their homes. Ninety-eight per cent of the refugees had no way of making judgments for themselves for they were illiterate peasants occupied in tilling either their own or somebody’s else patch of land from dawn to dusk….”

Mounir goes on, adding “Almost two years have no passed since they arrived at the Gaza district and nobody has worked out a settlement to send them home. They sit on the sands through pouring rains and scorching sunshine with bewildered thoughts and growing hatred in their eyes while they survey the distance and see Israeli searchlights and fortresses rise almost overnight on land where once had stood their hamlet and grove. They all know how to ask at least one question in English. “When will Arab go home?” Nobody seems to have an answer to that question yet and so these people have now become completely dependent on food that the United Nations supplies to them, through the medium of Quaker personnel.”

 The Sa’adahs were assigned to this group of “Quakers.” Interesting, Mounir notes that not all the people in the group – which had about 35 members – were actually part of the “Society of Friends.” Rather, instead of being united by religion, they were united in a firm dedication to the cause of alleviating  “suffering no matter where and who is the victor.”

Mounir was in charge of the camp at Rafah, which was located about 30 miles from Gaza and had about 27,000 displaced people. The people in the camp, who had formerly productively worked the land from dawn to dusk, now spent their time sitting around with no opportunities for employment or avenues for improving their lives or that of their families. Mounir notes that this led to a dysfunctional culture within the camps, stating “The men had been completely idle for over a year. They were restive and belligerent. The women had no housework to attend to, no cooking to be proud of, no children’s clothes to make, and they tended to be gossipy and quarrelsome. Children of grade school age were provided education, but for the adolescents there was nothing to do. They sat around with their fathers or their mothers and were infected with the grown-ups’ needs and despairs.”

The Sa’adahs realized the importance of emotional and spiritual needs, as well as physical needs. For instance, Marjorie who had been put in charge of housekeeping started handiwork projects where she helped organize women so that they would have access to five sewing machines. Using these machines, the women were able to make clothing for the children in the camp while also helping to relieve the monotony of their days. Mounir noted that the women would walk for miles to come volunteer and that it was hard to get them to leave at the end of the day. Unfortunately, these projects were limited because of the lack of cloth available for them to use for sewing.

 Ultimately, at the end of the summer, the Sa’adahs returned to America. While they had to leave tens of thousands of dislocated men, women, and children behind, it appears that the experience left a lasting impression on them. Mounir clearly wanted to share with others his insight that people who have been forced from their ancestral lands and left with virtually no material possessions and no hope of a better future - will not only suffer themselves but that their experience will become an intergenerational trauma that will haunt their descendants for generations to come.