Tasting the Sky: A Palestinian Childhood

Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Middle Grade | Published in 2007

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 1

Part 2, Chapters 1-6

Part 2, Chapters 7-11

Part 2, Chapters 12-14

Part 2, Chapters 15-18 and Part 3

Key Figures

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Index of Terms

Literary Devices

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Index of Terms

Circumcision

Circumcision is the surgical removal of the foreskin of the male penis. Worldwide, circumcision is one of the oldest, most common elective operations. The procedure has ancient roots and spans many cultures. Six-thousand-year-old Egyptian mummies show evidence of circumcision. Today, more than one-third of males worldwide are circumcised. The practice is common in the United States, and as of 2024, over 90% of males in Israel and Muslim-majority countries are circumcised (“Circumcision by Country 2024.” World Population Review). The Muslim circumcision ritual is called khitan or khatna.

Islam and Judaism recommend circumcision, believing that circumcision signifies a covenant with God. In the biblical book of Genesis, God commands Abraham to circumcise his sons Ishmael and Isaac and undergo circumcision himself. In the Qur’an, Abraham is considered the father of prophets and an ancestor of Muhammad. Ibtisam’s father tells the children that Muslims and Jews practice circumcision to honor Abraham. The two faiths differ in their recommendations as to when a boy should be circumcised. Jewish people circumcise male infants seven days after the birth of the child, whereas the timing of the Muslim procedure varies. In Tasting the Sky, Basel and Muhammad are circumcised at eight and seven years old, respectively. Today, the medical community would call this a “delayed” circumcision. Delayed circumcisions can lead to medical complications, and they generally take a longer time to heal. Health care professionals recommend that circumcision take place in a sterile environment, like a health care facility, and be performed by trained medical personnel. Contemporary methods of circumcision include the Plastibell device or Gomco clamp, which are both quick, less invasive, and less painful methods than the scissors used by Al Qazem in Ibtisam’s memoir.

1948 Arab-Israeli War

Ibtisam mentions the Arab-Israeli war of 1948 several times during her memoir. The war forced Grandma Fatima and her family to flee their homes along with hundreds of thousands of other Palestinians. While Israel calls the 1948-1949 war its War of Independence, Palestinians call it “Nakbah” or “Nakba” which means “catastrophe.”

The 1948 war between Israel and the Arab countries of Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon began after the United Nations voted on November 29, 1947, to partition Palestine into independent Arab and Jewish states. Armed conflicts began immediately and continued to escalate. Palestine had been under a temporary British Mandate since 1922, meaning that Great Britain was essentially in control of the Palestine territory until it could become independent. Father recalls that when he was a child, “Palestine was under the rule of the British” (106). The mandate allowed Jewish and Arab communities limited power to run their own local governments. The mandate also promised to create a Jewish homeland.

In 1947, Great Britain decided to end the mandate and withdraw from Palestine, effective May 15, 1948. Israel declared independence on May 14, 1948, the day before the mandate ended. Arab forces responded immediately, taking over East Jerusalem and southern and eastern parts of Palestine. The Israelis captured the area of the Negev all the way up to what was the border of Egypt and Palestine. During the 19-month war, nearly 750,000 Palestinians either fled from their homes and lands or were driven out by Israeli forces, and “[n]either they nor their descendants have been allowed by Israel to return” even though a UN resolution specified that refugees who wanted to return home in peace should be allowed to do so (“Why Nakba is the Palestinians’ Most Sober Day, in 100 and 300 Words.” BBC News, 15 May 2018). The 1948 war ended when the United Nations helped negotiate a truce, though Egypt and other Arab nations did not diplomatically recognize the State of Israel for many years. From 1948-1951, nearly 800,000 Jews were displaced from their homes in Arab nations or forced to flee anti-Zionist violence. More than half fled to the newly established State of Israel.

UNRWA Refugee Camps

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency was formed in 1950 to help the Palestinian refugees affected by the 1948 conflict who lost their homes and means of living. Descendants of male Palestinian refugees are also eligible for UNRWA assistance. There are 58 recognized Palestinian refugee camps—several of which were added after the 1967 conflict—spread across many countries including Jordan, Lebanon, the Syrian Arab Republic, the West Bank, and other regions. At the time of writing of this guide, there are 5 million Palestinians registered with the UNRWA as refugees; almost 1.5 million of them live in refugee camps.

Refugee camps are mostly set up on land leased by the host country from local landowners, which means that the refugees, though they are allowed to live in the camps, do not own the land. Before the UNRWA organized large camps, refugees had been living in “hundreds of informal gatherings scattered around the host countries” (Berg, Kjersti G. “The Evolving Infrastructure of Palestinian Refugee Camps: Perpetuating the Temporary.” Interactive Encyclopedia of the Palestine Question).

While the UNRWA provides schools, clinics, and social services both inside and outside the camps—which are available to all registered refugees, even if they do not live inside the camps—life in the refugee camps is difficult, as Ibtisam observed in the Jalazone camp. Camps are crowded and cramped, poverty is pervasive, unemployment rates are high, and living conditions are poor. Some host countries discriminate against Palestinian refugees. Ibtisam’s father and mother were fortunate to be able to move out of Aqabat Jaber, which, before 1967, held 30,000 refugees. The Jalazone camp today is next to the Israeli settlement of Beit El, and there are often violent skirmishes between camp residents and the Israeli military, causing safety concern for the students at the nearby Jalazone Boy’s School, which Basel and Muhammad attended.

Meant to be a temporary solution, the camps are home to multiple generations of families. The UNRWA is mandated by the United Nations General Assembly to offer humanitarian assistance to Palestinian refugees until they receive a “just and lasting solution to their plight” (“What Is the Mandate of UNRWA?” UNRWA).

The camps illustrate the ongoing effects of seventy-plus years of continued Palestinian-Israeli conflict. As Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Chr. Michelsen Institute specializing in the Palestine-Israel conflict and the Palestinian refugee situation, Kjersti G. Berg writes, “The Palestinian refugee camps symbolize both the need to implement the right of return and the protracted injustice of exile” (Berg, “Evolving Infrastructure”).