Salman Abu-Sitta

Salman Abu Sitta (Arabic: سلمان ابو ستة‎; born 1937) is a Palestinian researcher most known for his ground-breaking project mapping historic Palestine and developing a practical plan for implementing the right of return of Palestinian refugees.

Biography

Abu Sitta was born in 1937 into a Palestinian family with a long tradition of fierce resistance to occupiers of their land. His family's land and the village bore their name, Ma'in Abu Sitta (the Abu Sitta springwell), in Beer Sheba District of Palestine. One morning in April 1948, he and other schoolboys were sent home for safety reasons, after being summoned by the headmaster and told that the Jews had occupied central Palestine. Abu Sitta made the 40 km journey from Beer Sheba town back to his home on foot, and six weeks later the family was attacked by the Jewish militia before Israel was declared and they became refugees in Gaza Strip. Abu Sitta moved to the prestigious al-Saidiya secondary school in Cairo, Egypt, where he graduated with "excellence", ranking first in Egypt. After graduating from Cairo University's Faculty of Engineering in 1958, Abu Sitta went to the United Kingdom to continue his post-graduate studies, receiving his PhD in Civil Engineering from one of the well known colleges of the University of London, UCL.

• Member of Palestine National Council
• Researcher on refugee affairs and author of over 400 papers on the subject
• Director of international development and construction projects
• Founder and President of the Palestine Land Society (PLS)
• General coordinator of the Right of Return Congress.

Abu Sitta has engaged in debates with Israelis who profess interest in peace without the return of the refugees, including Uri Avnery and Rabbi Michael Lerner.

Documentation of the 1948 Palestinian exodus (al Nakba)

Abu Sitta has spent 40 years digging for any detail of information about or related to Palestine before, during and after al Nakba, the destruction of Palestine. Abu Sitta's work has encompassed not only documenting the Nakba in which over 800,000 Palestinians were largely driven from their homes and villages, but also ensuring that "the memories and identity of the occupied homeland are never lost". He is regarded by Uri Avnery as perhaps 'the world's foremost expert on the Nakba'. The documentation process began when he was 30 years old, when he stumbled on the memoirs of the Turkish chief of Beersheba, when Palestine was under Ottoman rule. The document dated back to the early years of the twentieth century.

"It sort of started from there, and it has never stopped," Abu Sitta says. "I kept collecting all and any material on every inch of my homeland."

Abu Sitta's work was to show that the return of the refugees to their homes is not only sacred to Palestinians, legal under international law but also feasible and possible without major dislocation to the existing Jewish settlers in Palestine. His work also includes the compendium "Atlas of Palestine 1917- 1966", (Palestine Land Society, London 2010, ISBN 978-0-9549034-2-8).

Published works

• The Return Journey (2007) Palestine Land Society ISBN 0-9549034-1-2
• Atlas of Palestine, 1917- 1966 Palestine Land Society (December 2010) ISBN 978-0-9549034-2-8
• The Palestinian Nakba 1948: The register of depopulated localities in Palestine (Occasional Return Centre studies) (1998 reprinted 2000) Palestinian Return Centre ISBN 1-901924-10-6

Articles

• Peace Palestine Traces of Poison: Israel’s Dark History Revealed
• Geography of Occupation
• Palestine Remembered Palestine Right Of Return, Sacred, Legal, and Possible
• Jerusalemite 7 June 2007 "Atlas of Palestine 1948: Reconstructing Palestine"

Youtube

• 'Right of Return Conference, Day 1:Keynote Address 13 May 2013.