Mapping My Return

"Abu Sitta is a leading expert on the 'nakbah' and what is nowadays widely described as the "ethnic cleansing" it involved. He is also a passionate advocate of the "right of return," under which Palestinian refugees must be allowed to go back to their lost lands and property."--The Guardian "An extraordinary engineer and scholar."--Edward Said "This manuscript is a valuable and unique addition to the genre of Palestinian autobiographies in English."--Dr. Rochelle Davis, Center for Contemporary Arab Studie, Georgetown University "In a life lived intensely, with unflagging curiosity and vocal outrage at the injustices that have beleaguered his people, Salman Abu Sitta is to be celebrated for his tenacity, intelligence and ability not to lose heart despite all the odds. This accessible and informative book describes all that he has lived through as a Palestinian, both on his own land and as a refugee. It also presents very clearly the fundamental need for the 'right of return' to be enshrined in any just and lasting peace in the region."--Selma Dabbagh "There is much debate about the origins of the quotation that Palestine was a land without people for a people without a land, but no doubt at all that it was Golda Meir who said that 'there is no such thing as a Palestinian people.' Palestinians remaining there and the diaspora scattered worldwide, have totally disproved these statements in the hundreds of books and histories and mapping that have been published since the Nakba. Many are feats of great scholarship. Salman Abu Sitta has the broadest experience and longest tale to tell of any Palestinian I have ever met and this comprehensive history and geography of the land and its people should be on everyone's bookshelf. Everyone that is, who seeks to understand fully the greatest injustice of the 20th Century and how it affected the Palestinian people who still have not given up the hope of return to their homes in Palestine. Nor should they."--aroness Jenny Tonge "Salman Abu Sitta writes about a personal experience, but he also tells the story of a people and a nation. A highly recommended work from a well-known scholar that will appeal to anyone seeking to understand this story."--Dina Matar, author of What It Means to be Palestinian "The spirit of Dr. Abu Sitta's Mapping My Return: A Palestinian Memoir mirrors precisely the dynamic quintessence and will of its creator in a word--sumoud--a compelling steadfastness to his homeland Palestine and to the right of return of every Palestinian."--The Palestine Chronicle "Abu Sitta's memoir conveys a still burning sense of outrage at the injustice of the dispossession of the Palestinians and the denial of their rights--a personal and collective Nakba without end."--Ian Black, The Guardian "Abu Sitta is a leading expert on the 'nakbah' and what is nowadays widely described as the "ethnic cleansing" it involved. He is also a passionate advocate of the "right of return," under which Palestinian refugees must be allowed to go back to their lost lands and property."--The Guardian "An extraordinary engineer and scholar."--Edward Said "The events of 1948 have been told elsewhere, but rarely with the immediacy and poignancy of this child's-eye view. . . . All of Abu Sitta's research has led him to the conclusion that, far from being 'full up, ' Israel has plenty of land available for the rehousing of refugees in and around the towns and villages depopulated in 1948. He envisions a state of peaceful coexistence, after the demise of a racist ideology that bears the seeds of its own destruction."--Hilary Wise, Middle East Eye "This manuscript is a valuable and unique addition to the genre of Palestinian autobiographies in English."--Dr. Rochelle Davis, Center for Contemporary Arab Studie, Georgetown University "In

Salman Abu Sitta was born in 1937 in Ma'in Abu Sitta, in the Beersheba district of mandate Palestine. An engineer by profession, he is best known for his cartographic work on Palestine and his work on the Palestinian Right of Return. He is the author of six books and over 300 articles and papers on Palestine, including The Atlas of Palestine, 1917-1966 (2010). He is the founder and president of the Palestine Land Society.

Preface and Acknowledgments 1. The Source 2. Seeds of Knowledge 3. The Talk of the Hearth 4. Europe Returns to the Holy Land 5. The Conquest 6. The Rupture 7. The Carnage 8. Refugees' Lives 9. Crossing the Line to Return 10. Egyptian Days 11. Nadid 12. Ghaleb 13. My Battlefield 14. Britannia Rules the Waves 15. Building the Country 16. The Naksa and Eskimo Land 17. Working with the Facts on the Ground 18. On the Political Front 19. The Invisible Face of the Enemy Takes Shape 20. Charting the Land 21. Wakeup Call 22. The Last Mile