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al-Majdal is a quarterly magazine of
BADIL Resource Center that aims to raise
public awareness and support for a just
solution to Palestinian residency and
refugee issues
Annual Subscription
(4 issues =
€ 25;
admin@badil.org)
Published by
BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian
Residency and Refugee Rights
PO Box 728
Bethlehem, Palestine
Tel/ Fax: 972- 2- 274- 7346
Email:
info@badil.org
Web:
www.badil.org
ISSN 1726-7277
Editor
Hazem Jamjoum
Editorial Team
Karine Mac Allister, Mohammad Jaradat, Ingrid Jaradat Gassner.
Layout & Design
Atallah Salem, BADIL
Wail Azzeh, al-Ayyam
Advisory Board
Abdelfattah Abu Srour (Palestine)
Diana Buttu (Palestine)
Jalal Al Husseini (Switzerland)
Arjan El Fassed (Netherlands)
Randa Farah (Canada)
Usama Halabi (Palestine)
Jeff Handmaker (Netherlands)
Zaha Hassan (United States)
Salem Hawash (Palestine)
Isabelle Humphries (Palestine)
Scott Leckie (Australia)
Terry Rempel (Canada)
Shahira Samy (Egypt)
Joseph Schechla
(Egypt) |
About
al-Majdal Magazine
In 1999 BADIL replaced its old quarterly newsletter,
ARTICLE 74 which provided information and updates on Palestinian residency and refugee
rights between 1991 and 1998, with a new magazine named
al-Majdal
. Over a
period of several years, ARTICLE 74 had gradually developed from a small newsletter
focused on the hardships - caused by the 1967 Israeli occupation - of Palestinian families
who wish to live united in their homeland, into a modest magazine covering a much larger
variety of issues, related to the ongoing struggle of the exiled Palestinian people for
the restitution of their rights in Palestine (right of return to their homes, recovery of
lost property, compensation for physical and psychological damage caused by their forceful
eviction since 1948). The critical re-examination of Palestinian history, and the search
for new ways and means to raise Palestinian refugee rights in the post-Oslo era
became the pressing agenda of the Palestinian people which began to express itself in our
small, English language magazine. By 1999 the frame of reference suggested by its old name
(ARTICLE 74/Protocol of 1977 Additional to the Geneva Convention, concerning facilitation
of family reunification) was no longer up-to-date.
al-Majdal magazine
serves as a platform of
communication between Palestinian refugees and all those - internationals and Israelis -
who, based on the painful lesson of the Oslo process, have taken up the challenge of
working for Palestinian refugee rights and a just peace in the Middle East.
al-Majdal
reports about and promotes initiatives aimed at achieving the Palestinian
right of return and restitution of lost property, as well as Palestinian national rights
in Jerusalem, based on the principle of broad involvement of the Palestinian community and
cooperation between those in Palestine and the Diaspora.
The new
quarterly
magazine,
al-Majdal, is
named after one of the depopulated Palestinian towns in the south of Palestine now known
as the Israeli city of Ashkelon.
About al-Majdal
Depopulated Town
al-Majdal is an Aramaic word meaning fortress. The town was known as
Majdal Jad during the Canaanite period to the god of luck. Located in the
south of Palestine, al-Majdal had become a thriving Palestinian city with
some 11,496 residents on the eve of the 1948 war. Al-Majdal lands
consisted of 43,680 dunums producing a wide variety of crops, including
oranges, grapes, olives and vegetables. The city itself was built on 1,346
dunums. During Operation Yoav (also known as 10 Plagues) in the fall of
1948, al-Majdal suffered heavy air and sea attacks by Israel which hoped
to secure control over the south of Palestine and force out the
predominant Palestinian population. By November 1948, more than three
quarters of the city's residents of the city's residents, frightened and
without protection, had fled to the Gaza Strip. Within a month, Israel had
approved the settlement of 3,000 Jews in Palestinian homes in al-Majdal.
In late 1949 plans surfaced to expel the remaining Palestinians living in
the city along with additional homes for new Jewish immigrants. Using a
combination of military force and bureaucratic measures not unlike those
used today against the Palestinian population in Jerusalem, the remaining
Palestinians were driven out of the city by early 1951. Palestinian
refugees from al-Majdal now number over 71,000 persons of whom 52,000 are
registered with UNRWA. Like millions of other Palestinian refugees, many
of whom live close to their original homes and lands, they are still
denied the right to return. |
