As a Palestinian uprising gathered momentum last week, I sat for hours listening to and recording the story of Ahmad al-Haaj, an 83-year-old Palestinian refugee from the village of al-Sawafir. He has been living in Gaza since 1948. Listening to Al-Haaj's memories, my thoughts swayed between the past and the bloody reality of the present.
Ever since I took on the task of recording a people's history of Palestine over ten years ago, a tragic theme has permeated all of my books and most of my articles. I have been confronted with stories of loss and displacement time and again. Ordinary Palestinians have been retelling the same story for generations.
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