Soon after I got back home to the U.S. in 2004, I accepted the invitation to make my first visit to Amman, Jordan

to review the human resource status of the King Hussein Hospital team as one of the candidate groups to wish

to organize the Middle East-first vascular malformation center, as the way I helped for Samsung Hospital in Seoul.

 

But, I already gave a loose pledge to the Egyptian group of Ain Sham University under Prof. Emad Hussein to help them

to organize the vascular malformation center with priority when I get back home to the U.S. so that I couldn’t afford

to help two groups in the Middle East simultaneously. Besides, soon after I came back home from Korea 2004,

I had to change the original plan here in the U.S. to reorganize the vascular malformation team 

at the Johns Hopkins Hospital (JHH) and instead, move back to Georgetown U to start from scratch

to organize a new CVM team.

Indeed, newly appointed big chief of JHH, Julie Freishlag, who solicited all the Hopkins old boys/clans to leave/empty

the positions to make a room for her to bring her team- I served as the only clinical professor of the surgery department then-,

rejected to honor my plan for the CVM Center at JHH, although former chief, John Cameron already approved it

as my precondition to go back to Seoul to organize Hopkins-style surgery program at Samsung Hospital and get the funds

from Samsung to carry on five vascular projects Hopkins couldn’t afford due to lack of funds including the CVM project.

 

So, my initial visit to Amman was rather limited to the review of their condition through the patient evaluation/management,

spending most of the 10-day visit to Queen Alia Hospital and King Hussein Hospital and met the vascular team to take

the consultation, etc. Another word, I made this trip to Jordan as a strictly business trip and didn’t plan to spare the time

to have sightseeing until the next visit. Besides, I had such limited knowledge in Jordan then, on such a historically

rich background. But, it turned out totally unexpected experience to me to meet one prominent Jordanian ruling family clan,

minister and another uncle was also former minister Mamoun Al Basheer who arranged my visit to Jordan for their new project,

belongs to – actually his wife, Canada-trained radiologist Suha Ghoul‘s family and one of her uncles having the dinner together

was a former prime minister of finance ministry-.

 

Through the unique chance to visit this ruling class family sharing the dinner, I learned a lot about their history/culture

and traditions enough to understand such delicate issues involved to the Palestinians throughout the Middle East –

I met many Palestinians in Saudi particular through the years! - for the first time. Now I knew why they call Palestinians

are a ‘mirror image of Jew’.

 

I don’t want to bore you with this confusing historical background of Palestinian you all are very familiar with

but the majority of Jordanian belongs to Palestinians by its definition and when they are asked for their ethnicity,

they always claim as Palestinian Jordanian, But I learned the Palestinians who refugeed from the occupied land

never admit as Jordanian Palestinians and insist simply ‘I am a Palestinian’. And one Palestinian retired history teacher

of the high school, whom I am going to talk about through this lament, was the most impressive Palestinian I met.

 

Indeed, they kindly arranged me to see Jordan before I left and they sent me to Mount Nebo,

with one old retired school teacher as a guide, on way to the Dead Sea. I don’t need to explain such a famous place

where Moses was granted a view of the Promised Land- since Moses broke the promise to strike the rock

to draw the water ( I believe Old Testament and Torah give a different story you all are familiar with)- but the view

from the summit of Mount Nebo provided a panoramic view of the land along the valley of the River Jordan as expected.

 

While this old teacher pointed out various directions along the West Bank including Jerusalem,

I suddenly noticed two streams of tears running along the wrinkled cheeks he didn’t try to wipe. His voice was choking

when he pointed to one remote place saying ‘that is Jericho where I came from!’ and turned around to hide his weeping

so that I was able to see only his shoulders moving while sobbing.

 

I was so embarrassed to find what to say but remained silent till he finally stopped weeping and told me

that he and his family escaped in bare hands from Jericho during the Six-Day War in 1967(?)

and Israel's government never allowed him to come back through these many years or even visit his ancestors’ burial site,

which is his last wish to fulfill.  

 

He spent most of the time to explain all about Six-Day War, Yom-Kippur War (1973?) and Intifada, etc,

all the way to reach to the Dead Sea. I fully understood why he said flatly ‘Hell, no, I am a Palestinian,

and not Jordanian Palestinian, no, never! I will remain as a Palestinian till my eyes covered with dirt’.

I will never forget his voice, almost close to the scream, together with his stiff face and his eyes burning

with the hatred so vividly.

 

God bless him as a Palestinian! 

BB Lee of ’63 Class