This documentary explores how Palestinians became refugees in 1948, their experiences since that time, and their hopes for the future. It provides a conduit for rarely heard voices illuminating the malignant roots of the ongoing Palestinian/Israeli conflict.
Martin Sheen narrates this examination of the lives of three Palestinian families who fled their homes in 1948 and have lived as refugees in Lebanon ever since.
Tom Hayes, originally from Vermont, is a documentary filmmaker and Associate Professor of Instruction in the School of Film at Ohio University. He attended film school at Ohio University back when hippies roamed the Earth, then embarked on a career as a freelance media ninja.
After working freelance for twenty-five years he was recruited to teach at OU. Along the way he pursued a documentary passion. His first long form documentary was Refugee Road which followed a Cambodian family from a refugee camp on the Cambodia border through their first year of resettlement in the United States. That project sensitized him to the refugee experience and shortly after it was completed, he stumbled onto information about the Palestinian refugees.
Tom Hayes at a protest. (Photo: D Thomas)
In 1983 he started filming Native Sons: Palestinians In Exile about three refugee families in the Lebanon camps. That was followed by People and The Land, shot in occupied Palestine, and Two Blue Lines which concentrates on Israeli views of the conflict. Tom has been active in the Palestine solidarity movement since that first touch back in the 1980’s.
He currently serves as faculty advisor to Students for Justice in Palestine at OU and is a member of Jewish Voice for Peace. He has been married for 45 years and has two grown daughters.
Sam Bahour is a Palestinian-American business consultant, writer, and commentator based in Al-Bireh/Ramallah, Palestine. He is the principal of Applied Information Management (AIM), a consultancy specializing in business development and startup advisory services.
Bahour played a foundational role in establishing two of Palestine’s publicly traded companies: the Palestine Telecommunications Company (PALTEL) and the Arab Palestinian Shopping Centers (APSC). He co-founded Americans for a Vibrant Palestinian Economy (A4VPE), of which he is now an emeritus member, and served as an independent director on the board of Arab Islamic Bank P.L.C. from 2004 to 2025. He currently serves on the board of Just Vision and The Palestine Economic Policy Research Institute (MAS).
He frequently gives talks to delegations visiting Palestine on the subjects of Palestine’s political economy, Palestinian Politics 101, and a general orientation to the state of affairs under Israeli military occupation.
A prolific writer on Palestinian affairs, Bahour has been published in major international outlets including The New York Times, The Guardian, Haaretz, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, the Los Angeles Times, Al Jazeera America, Le Monde diplomatique, Al-Monitor, +972 Magazine, The Hill, and Arab News. He has appeared as a commentator on NPR, CNN, BBC, and other broadcast media.
Bahour is the co-editor of Homeland: Oral Histories of Palestine and Palestinians (Olive Branch Press, 1993) and was profiled in the bestselling anthology Kingdom of Olives and Ash, edited by Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman, in a chapter authored by Chabon titled “The Tallest Man in Ramallah.” He holds an Associate’s and Bachelor’s degree in Computer Technology from Youngstown State University, and a Kellogg-Recanati International Executive MBA — a joint program of the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and the Recanati Business School at Tel Aviv University.
![“God does not exist, and he promised us this land” [Book Review]](https://epalestine.ps/sambahour/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/9780745335810252822529-710357-1.jpg)