WOODBRIDGE, Connecticut — The first items Faisal Saleh, a Palestinian emigre in the United States, wants you to see on a tour of his new museum on Palestinian history and culture are three personal documents located in the large photography hall in the entrance: an identity card from the early 1940s, a Mandatory Palestine passport from the same period and a small account ledger, with entries for expenses, payments and income recorded painstakingly in dense script.
At first glance, these three items, seem almost insignificant, containing nothing to justify their central position in a museum or Saleh’s insistence on beginning a tour with them. These documents neither belonged to an important personage nor originated in the distant past. Their likes can presumably be found in the homes of many Palestinians living in Israel or beyond. But to Saleh, whose late father was the owner of the documents, their importance seemingly lie in their very triviality, in their ability to provide a slightly different perspective on the Palestinian people.
“The identity card was issued to my father by the Government of Palestine long before 1948,” he says. “I’m amazed at how well-preserved it is and that one of the original staples is still holding the photo that is in such good condition,” he says of the first item found behind thick panes of glass in a small display case. He turns to the others. “My father wrote down all the income and expenses of his business. He grew bananas and oranges that he exported, and he kept precise accounts of who bought what and how much he was owed. To me, these two documents are proof that, in contrast to the common argument of the Israelis, that not only did Palestine exist before 1948 but there was a vibrant community life with thriving businesses and functioning authorities.”
Saleh is the visionary behind the establishment of Palestine Musuem US, which opened in this comfortable suburb of New Haven in late April. You won’t find tanks or photos of roadblocks in the museum. “To learn about the current Palestinian struggle on the ground, turn on the TV,” says Saleh, who hasn’t returned to the West Bank for 20 years.
If the ledger and the ID card were meant to undermine the Zionist narrative as Saleh describes it, then the passport is intended as a challenge to the Arab neighbors. “The passport has 32 pages filled with stamps that attest to my father’s frequent trips to Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon and Syria,” he says. “He was raised in Salama [outside Jaffa] and belonged to a paramilitary organization that tried to enlist the aid of the neighboring states in the war against Jewish settlers in the period leading to May 1948. He traveled to request assistance from the Arab leaders who time after time had promised to help and didn’t lift a finger. Instead of supplying arms to the Palestinians, they told them to go back to his village and they’d take care of them, but they were all corrupt and they did nothing,” he adds, clearly frustrated.
The personal pain and sense of insult that Saleh’s voice betrays are surprising. He admits having maintained an emotional and geographical distance from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict his entire life. So decisive was the break that since leaving home in 1974 he has returned only once, for a brief visit in 1999. He came as an ordinary tourist, more or less. He brought his wife and their two children to see a little of Jerusalem, a little of Bethlehem, focusing on the religious sites, before returning to their comfortable life in Connecticut.
Going his own way
Saleh’s parents left Salama during Israel’s War of Independence, eventually settling in the West Bank town of El Bireh, near Ramallah. There, he relates, the family crowded into a single, small room. Saleh, the 11th child in the family, was born three years later, in 1951.
“The big question from my perspective is why the parents of 10 children who are crammed into one room without money for food would bring another child into the world,” Saleh says jokingly.
Over the years the family settled into a more spacious apartment. His