Dear friends,
Since my last e-mail, many of you wrote asking for more information about the story I shared of a mother whose five children were murdered. Barbara Lubin, director of the Middle East Children’s Alliance, was the person I was quoting, and she has also received many e-mails, prompting her to look more fully into the story. The most recent update follows, and is from an e-mail that Barbara received from her friend Talal, who did further research after Barbara left Gaza. You will see that many of the details are the same and many are quite different. You can also find this family’s story on various new sites online. Below is the e-mail from Talal.
Let us also remember that despite a “cease-fire,” Israel continues to bomb Gaza on a daily basis (albeit less so than during the “war”). People in the hospitals continue to die because of the ongoing siege and lack of treatment. And… the world continues to protest. Congratulations to the South African dockworkers who refused to unload a ship with Israeli goods last week: http://bdsmovement.net/?q=node/286, http://www.anarkismo.net/article/11864. And kudos to all the university students who have been occupying campus buildings to demand justice for Gaza and divestment from Israel. Most of those students are British, but a special shout out to the students of Rochester, NY, who have conducted (with success!) the first campus occupation at a US university during this time: http://prometheus.scp.rochester.edu/ursds/node/86, http://www.thesitch.com/occupation/.
Let’s keep on keeping on.
-Hannah
E-mail from Talal to Barbara:
Dear Barbara,
It's the first time i have had internet. I hope you are O.K...you and all of our friends. I heard from Dr. Mona that you are under great pressure because of the story you have published about the crime of that woman. Be sure that it was a fact and we are ready to receive any investigation committee to check out the facts. But as you know during the wars and when death is very close, the popular memory interferes and colors the action with it's special details. We all heard the story on the local radio as I narrated it to you. But when you wrote the story and you faced so much pressure I decided to investigate and caught the real story.
It's not so far from from what you reported because the victims are the same...the story happened in Bourij Camp in the middle of the Gaza Strip. The Israelis called the woman Manal Albatran and told her that they wouldn't kill her or her husband Hussein Albatran, instead they would make them die of sadness because they would kill her children. The next day they shot her house with a rocket killing her and 5 of her children.
The dead:
Manal Albatran 30 years old
Walaa Albatran 12 years old
Islam Albatran 11 years old
Belal Albatran 10 years old
Ezz Albatran 8 years old
Ehsan Albatran 7 years old
The father who is an employee at an UNRWA school and the youngest child were saved.
This is the real story and I hope the amount of victims will convince others to believe the crimes we face. Thanks a lot for your appreciated visit and I hope to see you again soon.
Regards,
Talal
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Gaza in my heart
I am sad.
Deeply sad.
A sadness that is somehow scarier than the anger, because the anger is an expression, and the sadness just sits.
I want to share my sadness with the world. Somehow I believe that if everyone in the US felt the sadness I feel about Gaza, no massacre would happen ever again, anywhere. Part of my sadness, though, and my fear, is that I am not sure whether this is true.
Unread e-mails sit in my inbox. I still haven’t watched the video plea from the doctor in Gaza whose three daughters were killed. I still haven’t read the testimony of the nine-year-old boy whose father was shot and killed in front of him while his hands were in the air. Or the girls who walked out of their house carrying white cloths and were shot and killed on the spot. Or all the children who somehow survived with no food for days as they lay next to their dead relatives’ rotting bodies or crawled to nearby buildings to wait out the bombing. I read the headlines only, and then I stop. I cannot continue.
I received an e-mail today from an American Jew I know who has just entered Gaza to deliver humanitarian aid. She shares one story: “I met a mother who was at home with her ten children when Israeli soldiers entered the house. The soldiers told her she had to choose five of her children to "give as a gift to Israel." As she screamed in horror they repeated the demand and told her she could choose or they would choose for her. Then these soldiers murdered five of her children in front of her.”
The nightmare of reality is truly more horrific than anyone could imagine. And yet I worry that if I share this story, or any number of others that are flooding my inbox, some might not believe them. They are almost unbelievable. And yet. Story after story. I worry that some might dismiss the unbearable suffering of 1.5 million people as mere propaganda. And I worry, quite selfishly, that I cannot handle the doubts right now. That I am holding all this sadness and all this anger and that my faith in humanity is on the line, and one more person who dismisses a tragedy as propaganda, or one more person who justifies massacre in the name of security or self-defense, might just break me.
So I wonder if I should share these stories. I go back and forth. If this mother’s five children were still alive, would Israel’s army be any more moral? If the 1,312 Palestinians killed in the past month were still alive, would Israel’s 18-month siege of Gaza be justified? If Israel had never occupied Gaza in the first place, would it have any more right to exist as an ethnically and religiously exclusive state?
I search for the roots, I write from the roots, I act from the roots. Israel is bad from inception, Zionism is wrong, and we need to boycott until all Palestinians have rights. Yes. This is true. But right now I’m thinking of this mother. And all the mothers. And wondering if this pain can just spread, spread until it is diffused. I’m wondering if the world can hold this pain, just for a moment. Hold it collectively. I don’t want to have to fight anymore. I don’t want to answer questions about why “they” hate “us” and I don’t want to resent the lightheartedness of strangers on the street. I just want this to stop.
I know, of course, that for it to stop, we must know where it started. Tomorrow I will get back to working on that. But right now, right now, let us just hold the people of Gaza in our hearts and hope that somehow, against all odds, they will rebuild their lives, that soon they will get a full night’s sleep without nightmares, and that sometime they will feel joy again.
-Hannah
P.S. And because I can’t end any e-mail without sharing more resources, check out the new website www.thinkpalestineact.org. It has lots of great multi-media and popular education tools regarding Gaza and Palestine in general. And keep checking it. It will grow. And check www.endtheoccupation.org for updates about campaigns throughout the country and for ways to engage President Obama (I know, I know, maybe naïve, but I do believe that the image of Obama, if not the man himself, has created the biggest opening we’ve had in electoral politics in a long time).
Deeply sad.
A sadness that is somehow scarier than the anger, because the anger is an expression, and the sadness just sits.
I want to share my sadness with the world. Somehow I believe that if everyone in the US felt the sadness I feel about Gaza, no massacre would happen ever again, anywhere. Part of my sadness, though, and my fear, is that I am not sure whether this is true.
Unread e-mails sit in my inbox. I still haven’t watched the video plea from the doctor in Gaza whose three daughters were killed. I still haven’t read the testimony of the nine-year-old boy whose father was shot and killed in front of him while his hands were in the air. Or the girls who walked out of their house carrying white cloths and were shot and killed on the spot. Or all the children who somehow survived with no food for days as they lay next to their dead relatives’ rotting bodies or crawled to nearby buildings to wait out the bombing. I read the headlines only, and then I stop. I cannot continue.
I received an e-mail today from an American Jew I know who has just entered Gaza to deliver humanitarian aid. She shares one story: “I met a mother who was at home with her ten children when Israeli soldiers entered the house. The soldiers told her she had to choose five of her children to "give as a gift to Israel." As she screamed in horror they repeated the demand and told her she could choose or they would choose for her. Then these soldiers murdered five of her children in front of her.”
The nightmare of reality is truly more horrific than anyone could imagine. And yet I worry that if I share this story, or any number of others that are flooding my inbox, some might not believe them. They are almost unbelievable. And yet. Story after story. I worry that some might dismiss the unbearable suffering of 1.5 million people as mere propaganda. And I worry, quite selfishly, that I cannot handle the doubts right now. That I am holding all this sadness and all this anger and that my faith in humanity is on the line, and one more person who dismisses a tragedy as propaganda, or one more person who justifies massacre in the name of security or self-defense, might just break me.
So I wonder if I should share these stories. I go back and forth. If this mother’s five children were still alive, would Israel’s army be any more moral? If the 1,312 Palestinians killed in the past month were still alive, would Israel’s 18-month siege of Gaza be justified? If Israel had never occupied Gaza in the first place, would it have any more right to exist as an ethnically and religiously exclusive state?
I search for the roots, I write from the roots, I act from the roots. Israel is bad from inception, Zionism is wrong, and we need to boycott until all Palestinians have rights. Yes. This is true. But right now I’m thinking of this mother. And all the mothers. And wondering if this pain can just spread, spread until it is diffused. I’m wondering if the world can hold this pain, just for a moment. Hold it collectively. I don’t want to have to fight anymore. I don’t want to answer questions about why “they” hate “us” and I don’t want to resent the lightheartedness of strangers on the street. I just want this to stop.
I know, of course, that for it to stop, we must know where it started. Tomorrow I will get back to working on that. But right now, right now, let us just hold the people of Gaza in our hearts and hope that somehow, against all odds, they will rebuild their lives, that soon they will get a full night’s sleep without nightmares, and that sometime they will feel joy again.
-Hannah
P.S. And because I can’t end any e-mail without sharing more resources, check out the new website www.thinkpalestineact.org. It has lots of great multi-media and popular education tools regarding Gaza and Palestine in general. And keep checking it. It will grow. And check www.endtheoccupation.org for updates about campaigns throughout the country and for ways to engage President Obama (I know, I know, maybe naïve, but I do believe that the image of Obama, if not the man himself, has created the biggest opening we’ve had in electoral politics in a long time).
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Gaza: Day 18
*At the bottom are suggested resources and action items for Gaza.*
Eighteen is a significant number in Judaism. It means life. Today is day 18 of Israel’s war on Gaza. More than 935 people in Gaza are dead, with thousands more injured. Taking the total population into account, this is equivalent in US terms to about 200,000 Americans. That’s right, two hundred thousand Americans dead in less than three weeks.
I turned on the news for an hour yesterday. Across the bottom of the screen, over and over again, ran the statement, “Israel says only targeting Hamas, not civilians.”
#1: Bullshit! A third of the people murdered so far have been children alone. The equivalent of 65,000 American children. The Israeli army is not so sloppy as to miss its targets 300 times. Are they deliberately killing civilians? Perhaps it is a matter of semantics. I’m not so sure they said, “Let’s kill Miyasar Abu Maatak and her four young children today,” but they certainly aren’t trying NOT to. In other words, at best, the Israeli army is targeting no one, and therefore potentially hitting everyone.
#2: Huh? Only targeting Hamas, not civilians? Suppose someone bombed the US and then tried to justify it with, “We are only targeting Republicans, not civilians.” If you protest, “But the two are not mutually exclusive. In fact, most Republicans are civilians,” the response would come: Sure, but Republicans are in control in the US, and therefore should be held responsible for every crime committed by an American while they are in power. (I am not even talking here about the massive war crimes committed by the US government itself, which gives much more legitimate reasons for bombing the US).
And so, once again, we are in the twilight zone. Where houses, schools, universities, and mosques are fair targets. Where Israel can close all entrances and exits to Gaza and then become indignant that people dig tunnels to transport necessary goods between Gaza and Egypt. Where Israel claims to be humanitarian because it stops indiscriminately bombing for up to 3 hours a day (and even during this short time, people are not safe; on Sunday 14 people were shelled and killed in these hours). Or because it drops leaflets as a precursor to bombs, warning the residents of Gaza to leave the area. Leave what area? Nowhere in Gaza is safe, and the people are closed in from all sides.
I watched the new for only an hour yesterday, and cannot get the images out of my head. Parents crying over dead children. Injured children being rushed to the hospital in ambulances, in taxis, on foot. The interview with a 16 year old boy whose mother and four brothers were killed in the attack on the Samouni family in the Zeitoun neighborhood last week (soldiers forced the entire family into one house, supposedly for their safety; the next day it was bombed). Were there 30 people killed there? 70? Accounts vary, mostly because the Israeli army will not allow journalists or ambulances to approach the neighborhood. One young EMT, exhaustion and trauma written all over his face, explained to Al Jazeera how he and others were able to enter a few houses yesterday and pull out the injured only after parking the ambulance 2 kilometers away from their intended destination and passing by 9 dead bodies on the road. Are these bodies counted in the 935? What about those in the houses the EMTs did not reach?
I saw these images, heard the stories, and heard the desperate pleas of Gazans and internationals (UN officials, EU parliament members, and more), the smug assertions of the Israeli army that their operations are going well, and the smirking George Bush as he once again blamed Hamas for the actions of the Israeli army. I wanted to throw something at the television. After less than an hour of news, I, a nonviolent person by disposition, felt my anger and hatred lead me to thoughts and desires I rarely have, some of which would actually harm me and my loved ones. I can only imagine what people living through this horror must feel. Or Arabs and others throughout the world with less personal connection to the enemy, be it Israelis, Americans, or Jews. I must admit I have little concern at the current moment for Israel’s safety, but if Israeli leaders have any concern at all for their own people’s safety, what the hell are they doing?
The princess of Dubai, a humanitarian official with the UN, gave an exacerbated interview in which she talked about the anger of the Arab streets and the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza. “What scares me most,” she said, “is that the news is repeating itself day after day, and those in the West can just turn it off.”
Shortly later, I turned the television off. I couldn’t bear it anymore. But we must not turn off our opposition. Running across the bottom of the screen, right after, “Israel says only targeting Hamas, not civilians,” is “World protests continue over Gaza war.” It is important. It may not seem like it right now, but whenever this does stop, it will be sooner for the protest. The people of Gaza cannot afford our inaction.
Take action:
US Campaign to End the Occupation – info on lobbying, protests, and more: www.endtheoccupation.org
Donate money for emergency supplies: http://www.mecaforpeace.org/
Media monitoring / letters to editor: http://www.writetruth.org
Buy a Gaza t-shirt, or 10: http://247463.spreadshirt.com/-/-/Shop/
This is more long-term, but no better time than now to launch a boycott campaign against Israel: http://bds-palestine.net/
Recommended articles:
“What You Don’t Know About Gaza” by Rashid Khalidi: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/08/opinion/08khalidi.html?_r=2&em
“A 14-year-old in Gaza Has One Question: Why?” by Eyad El-Sarraj: http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2009/01/11/a_14_year_old_in_gaza_has_one_question_why/?rss_id=Boston+Globe+--+Today%27s+paper+A+to+Z
“Hello, this is the IDF” by Muhammad Ali Khalidi: http://www.counterpunch.org/khalidi01052009.html
For more about the attack on the Samouni house in the Zeitoun neighborhood: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/10/gaza-zeitoun-attack-deaths
Recommended sources for constant information:
Al Jazeera: http://english.aljazeera.net/
Blog of Sameh Habeeb (journalist in Gaza): http://www.gazatoday.blogspot.com/
Democracy Now: http://www.democracynow.org/
Electronic Intifada: http://electronicintifada.net/
Free Gaza Movement (the folks who have been sending boats to break the siege for a few months now): http://freegaza.org/
And more. A good combination of news, resources, and action: http://gazasiege.org
Eighteen is a significant number in Judaism. It means life. Today is day 18 of Israel’s war on Gaza. More than 935 people in Gaza are dead, with thousands more injured. Taking the total population into account, this is equivalent in US terms to about 200,000 Americans. That’s right, two hundred thousand Americans dead in less than three weeks.
I turned on the news for an hour yesterday. Across the bottom of the screen, over and over again, ran the statement, “Israel says only targeting Hamas, not civilians.”
#1: Bullshit! A third of the people murdered so far have been children alone. The equivalent of 65,000 American children. The Israeli army is not so sloppy as to miss its targets 300 times. Are they deliberately killing civilians? Perhaps it is a matter of semantics. I’m not so sure they said, “Let’s kill Miyasar Abu Maatak and her four young children today,” but they certainly aren’t trying NOT to. In other words, at best, the Israeli army is targeting no one, and therefore potentially hitting everyone.
#2: Huh? Only targeting Hamas, not civilians? Suppose someone bombed the US and then tried to justify it with, “We are only targeting Republicans, not civilians.” If you protest, “But the two are not mutually exclusive. In fact, most Republicans are civilians,” the response would come: Sure, but Republicans are in control in the US, and therefore should be held responsible for every crime committed by an American while they are in power. (I am not even talking here about the massive war crimes committed by the US government itself, which gives much more legitimate reasons for bombing the US).
And so, once again, we are in the twilight zone. Where houses, schools, universities, and mosques are fair targets. Where Israel can close all entrances and exits to Gaza and then become indignant that people dig tunnels to transport necessary goods between Gaza and Egypt. Where Israel claims to be humanitarian because it stops indiscriminately bombing for up to 3 hours a day (and even during this short time, people are not safe; on Sunday 14 people were shelled and killed in these hours). Or because it drops leaflets as a precursor to bombs, warning the residents of Gaza to leave the area. Leave what area? Nowhere in Gaza is safe, and the people are closed in from all sides.
I watched the new for only an hour yesterday, and cannot get the images out of my head. Parents crying over dead children. Injured children being rushed to the hospital in ambulances, in taxis, on foot. The interview with a 16 year old boy whose mother and four brothers were killed in the attack on the Samouni family in the Zeitoun neighborhood last week (soldiers forced the entire family into one house, supposedly for their safety; the next day it was bombed). Were there 30 people killed there? 70? Accounts vary, mostly because the Israeli army will not allow journalists or ambulances to approach the neighborhood. One young EMT, exhaustion and trauma written all over his face, explained to Al Jazeera how he and others were able to enter a few houses yesterday and pull out the injured only after parking the ambulance 2 kilometers away from their intended destination and passing by 9 dead bodies on the road. Are these bodies counted in the 935? What about those in the houses the EMTs did not reach?
I saw these images, heard the stories, and heard the desperate pleas of Gazans and internationals (UN officials, EU parliament members, and more), the smug assertions of the Israeli army that their operations are going well, and the smirking George Bush as he once again blamed Hamas for the actions of the Israeli army. I wanted to throw something at the television. After less than an hour of news, I, a nonviolent person by disposition, felt my anger and hatred lead me to thoughts and desires I rarely have, some of which would actually harm me and my loved ones. I can only imagine what people living through this horror must feel. Or Arabs and others throughout the world with less personal connection to the enemy, be it Israelis, Americans, or Jews. I must admit I have little concern at the current moment for Israel’s safety, but if Israeli leaders have any concern at all for their own people’s safety, what the hell are they doing?
The princess of Dubai, a humanitarian official with the UN, gave an exacerbated interview in which she talked about the anger of the Arab streets and the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza. “What scares me most,” she said, “is that the news is repeating itself day after day, and those in the West can just turn it off.”
Shortly later, I turned the television off. I couldn’t bear it anymore. But we must not turn off our opposition. Running across the bottom of the screen, right after, “Israel says only targeting Hamas, not civilians,” is “World protests continue over Gaza war.” It is important. It may not seem like it right now, but whenever this does stop, it will be sooner for the protest. The people of Gaza cannot afford our inaction.
Take action:
US Campaign to End the Occupation – info on lobbying, protests, and more: www.endtheoccupation.org
Donate money for emergency supplies: http://www.mecaforpeace.org/
Media monitoring / letters to editor: http://www.writetruth.org
Buy a Gaza t-shirt, or 10: http://247463.spreadshirt.com/-/-/Shop/
This is more long-term, but no better time than now to launch a boycott campaign against Israel: http://bds-palestine.net/
Recommended articles:
“What You Don’t Know About Gaza” by Rashid Khalidi: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/08/opinion/08khalidi.html?_r=2&em
“A 14-year-old in Gaza Has One Question: Why?” by Eyad El-Sarraj: http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2009/01/11/a_14_year_old_in_gaza_has_one_question_why/?rss_id=Boston+Globe+--+Today%27s+paper+A+to+Z
“Hello, this is the IDF” by Muhammad Ali Khalidi: http://www.counterpunch.org/khalidi01052009.html
For more about the attack on the Samouni house in the Zeitoun neighborhood: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/10/gaza-zeitoun-attack-deaths
Recommended sources for constant information:
Al Jazeera: http://english.aljazeera.net/
Blog of Sameh Habeeb (journalist in Gaza): http://www.gazatoday.blogspot.com/
Democracy Now: http://www.democracynow.org/
Electronic Intifada: http://electronicintifada.net/
Free Gaza Movement (the folks who have been sending boats to break the siege for a few months now): http://freegaza.org/
And more. A good combination of news, resources, and action: http://gazasiege.org
Monday, December 29, 2008
Gaza continued
Dec 29, 2008, 11:30pm in Palestine
The death toll in Gaza has reahed 350. 1650 injured. I wonder how the injured are counted. Are these people who reach the hospital? How many others must there be? We watch the footage on the news of children screaming, men and women wailing, fathers with tears streaming down their faces as they kiss the heads of their dead
infants. We see the destroyed buildings. A university, a pharmacy, a police station, a house...
I just sent a text message to my friend in Gaza (the same one I wrote about the other day, the university student), asking how she was. Her response: "We're out of home now because it's ruined. Dad and brothers injured." I tried to call and she didn't answer. She then wrote, "Please!! I can't say a word now but we're fine. Take care." I wrote and said I am so sorry, that I will continue to write to people in the US and to protest. I asked her if there's anything else she can think of that I can do, knowing there probably isn't. I offered to get her a phone card if she needs credit. "What can a phone card do," she wrote back, "with my dad's leg! It needs operation. I don't want more than safety. I want you to know I appreciate you."
I was supposed to go to a friend's house this afternoon in the northern West Bank. She was going to cook me lunch for my birthday. When I got to the area she was unable to cook or think or do much of anything. She grew up in Gaza and most of her family is there. Last night when she talked to her brother in the middle of the night, a bomb had just exploded nearby and the children were all screaming. They are in Rafah, very close to the border with Egypt. Today she has been unable to reach him.
Please, please, stop what you're doing and go out on the streets in protest. Write to your newspapers. Especially those of you in the US. Today everyone I talked to told me the US streets are silent. That there are protests all over the world (people talk about a huge protest in London that got a lot of media attention here), but that the US is doing nothing. I tell them about the many e-mails I've gotten in the past day of protests scheduled in New York, Boston, DC, San Francisco, etc. And yet, it is not enough. Nothing is enough.
But please, do not continue as usual. 1.5 million people who have been under siege in the largest prison in the world for months, even years now, are now being bombed indiscriminately. We have ignored Gaza for too long. Every day, every hour, every minute counts.
I will pray that the rain and clouds continue through the night. Yes, the people fleeing their homes who are now outside may be cold and wet, but the Israeli army is also having difficulty, apparently, bombing in this weather.
This is insane.
(For anyone who still thinks this attack is a response to Hamas rocket attacks of the past few days, read this Israeli article about how the attacks have been planned for months: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1050448.html)
For US folks who don't know where to look for actions: endtheoccupation.org
The death toll in Gaza has reahed 350. 1650 injured. I wonder how the injured are counted. Are these people who reach the hospital? How many others must there be? We watch the footage on the news of children screaming, men and women wailing, fathers with tears streaming down their faces as they kiss the heads of their dead
infants. We see the destroyed buildings. A university, a pharmacy, a police station, a house...
I just sent a text message to my friend in Gaza (the same one I wrote about the other day, the university student), asking how she was. Her response: "We're out of home now because it's ruined. Dad and brothers injured." I tried to call and she didn't answer. She then wrote, "Please!! I can't say a word now but we're fine. Take care." I wrote and said I am so sorry, that I will continue to write to people in the US and to protest. I asked her if there's anything else she can think of that I can do, knowing there probably isn't. I offered to get her a phone card if she needs credit. "What can a phone card do," she wrote back, "with my dad's leg! It needs operation. I don't want more than safety. I want you to know I appreciate you."
I was supposed to go to a friend's house this afternoon in the northern West Bank. She was going to cook me lunch for my birthday. When I got to the area she was unable to cook or think or do much of anything. She grew up in Gaza and most of her family is there. Last night when she talked to her brother in the middle of the night, a bomb had just exploded nearby and the children were all screaming. They are in Rafah, very close to the border with Egypt. Today she has been unable to reach him.
Please, please, stop what you're doing and go out on the streets in protest. Write to your newspapers. Especially those of you in the US. Today everyone I talked to told me the US streets are silent. That there are protests all over the world (people talk about a huge protest in London that got a lot of media attention here), but that the US is doing nothing. I tell them about the many e-mails I've gotten in the past day of protests scheduled in New York, Boston, DC, San Francisco, etc. And yet, it is not enough. Nothing is enough.
But please, do not continue as usual. 1.5 million people who have been under siege in the largest prison in the world for months, even years now, are now being bombed indiscriminately. We have ignored Gaza for too long. Every day, every hour, every minute counts.
I will pray that the rain and clouds continue through the night. Yes, the people fleeing their homes who are now outside may be cold and wet, but the Israeli army is also having difficulty, apparently, bombing in this weather.
This is insane.
(For anyone who still thinks this attack is a response to Hamas rocket attacks of the past few days, read this Israeli article about how the attacks have been planned for months: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1050448.html)
For US folks who don't know where to look for actions: endtheoccupation.org
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Gaza
Today, 271 men, women, and children who were alive yesterday are now dead in Gaza. More than 900 are injured, including 180 critically. The death toll is rising as more people are dug out from under the rubble, and the Israeli government promises that the attacks will continue, and asks its people for patience.
Patience in the face of massacre?
I was on a tour yesterday with the Israeli organization Zochrot. We visited Ras al Ahmar, a Palestinian village in the north close to the Lebanon border, that was destroyed in 1948 and all its inhabitants expelled. We heard the news from Gaza while on our way there, and the leaders of the tour remarked, “Today we talk about a Nakba [catastrophe] that started 60 years ago, and that continues as we speak in Gaza.”
When we arrived back to Tel Aviv in the evening the bus was continuing on to an Israeli protest against the bombing. There are demonstrations and calls for revenge throughout the Middle East. Hamas, who hasn’t carried out a bombing against Israel in almost four years, is calling for a third intifada, a militarized intifada, including suicide bombings.
When I first heard the news yesterday, standing in Ras al Ahmar in front of a landscape of Lebanese mountains, I tried to call my friend Summer, a Palestinian student who has never been able to leave the 140 square miles that make up the Gaza Strip, despite several times being accepted to foreign programs and even being granted visas.
My phone calls wouldn’t go through. Finally, I got her on the phone for a few seconds before the line went. The text message I received from her just afterwards said: “There’s shelling everywhere, more than 120 killed, it’s horrible here!”
When I finally talked to her late last night, she told me she had been in a meeting on a roof when she saw the first F16 drop the first bomb in her area. She went inside. The windows were shaking. Her sister was at the university when a bomb hit. “The bombing is everywhere!” she said. I asked if it was still going on and she said she wasn’t sure, the last bomb she had heard was a half hour earlier.
When I talked to Summer last week and asked how she was, she said fine, and was her usual cheery self. When our connection failed in the middle and I had to call her back, I asked, “Did the electricity cut out?” “Electricity?” she responded. “No, of course we don’t have any electricity; I’ve been talking to you in the dark the whole time.” She went on to tell me she’d waited in line for hours the day before for bread, and hadn’t found any. “They say a truck might get through the crossing tomorrow,” she said hopefully.
At the same time, John Ging, the director of the UN Relief and Works Agency in Gaza said: “Two weeks ago, for the first time in 60 years, we ran out of food.”
This was all during a supposed “cease fire” which meant Hamas was not attacking Israel at all, and Israel was not committing daily bombing massacres against the people of Gaza. But the slow massacre of siege, border closing, lack of fuel and electricity and bread… that was all part of this “cease fire.”
So Olmert’s statement that “[t]he quiet we offered was answered with mayhem. Our desire for calm was answered with terror,” is almost laughable. If it weren’t for 271 dead and 900 injured. If it weren’t for the Bush administration’s statement that the people in Gaza are “nothing but thugs” and that Hamas is to blame for Israel’s largest massacre since 1967.
When I see the footage, and then read these statements, I am speechless with sadness and rage. I cannot respond. But Mourid Barghouti, in his 2003 book I Saw Ramallah, has already responded:
“It is easy to blur the truth with a simple linguistic trick: start your story from ‘Secondly.’ Yes, this is what Rabin did. He simply neglected to speak of what happened first. Start your story with “Secondly,” and the world will be turned upside-down. Start your story with “Secondly,” and the arrows of the Red Indians are the original criminals and the guns of the white men are entirely the victim. It is enough to start with “Secondly,” for the anger of the black man against the white to be barbarous. Start with “Secondly,” and Gandhi becomes responsible for the tragedies of the British. You only need to start your story with “Secondly,” and the burned Vietnamese will have wounded the humanity of the napalm, and Victor Jara’s songs will be the shameful thing and not Pinochet’s bullets, which killed so many thousands in the Santiago stadium. It is enough to start the story with “Secondly,” for my grandmother, Umm ‘Ata, to become the criminal and Ariel Sharon her victim. ...
The houses built on top of ours gallantly declare their willingness to understand our odd predilection toward living in camps scattered in the Diaspora of gods and flies, as though we had begged them to throw us out of our homes and to send their bulldozers to destroy them in front of our very eyes. Their generous guns in Deir Yassin forgive us the fact that they piled our bodies high at the sunset hour there one day. Their fighter jets forgive the graves of our martyrs in Beirut. Their soldiers forgive the tendency of our teenagers’ bones to break. Israel the victim polishes its hot, red knife with the sheen of forgiveness.”
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*There are protests all over the world right now. Please find one where you are.*
Patience in the face of massacre?
I was on a tour yesterday with the Israeli organization Zochrot. We visited Ras al Ahmar, a Palestinian village in the north close to the Lebanon border, that was destroyed in 1948 and all its inhabitants expelled. We heard the news from Gaza while on our way there, and the leaders of the tour remarked, “Today we talk about a Nakba [catastrophe] that started 60 years ago, and that continues as we speak in Gaza.”
When we arrived back to Tel Aviv in the evening the bus was continuing on to an Israeli protest against the bombing. There are demonstrations and calls for revenge throughout the Middle East. Hamas, who hasn’t carried out a bombing against Israel in almost four years, is calling for a third intifada, a militarized intifada, including suicide bombings.
When I first heard the news yesterday, standing in Ras al Ahmar in front of a landscape of Lebanese mountains, I tried to call my friend Summer, a Palestinian student who has never been able to leave the 140 square miles that make up the Gaza Strip, despite several times being accepted to foreign programs and even being granted visas.
My phone calls wouldn’t go through. Finally, I got her on the phone for a few seconds before the line went. The text message I received from her just afterwards said: “There’s shelling everywhere, more than 120 killed, it’s horrible here!”
When I finally talked to her late last night, she told me she had been in a meeting on a roof when she saw the first F16 drop the first bomb in her area. She went inside. The windows were shaking. Her sister was at the university when a bomb hit. “The bombing is everywhere!” she said. I asked if it was still going on and she said she wasn’t sure, the last bomb she had heard was a half hour earlier.
When I talked to Summer last week and asked how she was, she said fine, and was her usual cheery self. When our connection failed in the middle and I had to call her back, I asked, “Did the electricity cut out?” “Electricity?” she responded. “No, of course we don’t have any electricity; I’ve been talking to you in the dark the whole time.” She went on to tell me she’d waited in line for hours the day before for bread, and hadn’t found any. “They say a truck might get through the crossing tomorrow,” she said hopefully.
At the same time, John Ging, the director of the UN Relief and Works Agency in Gaza said: “Two weeks ago, for the first time in 60 years, we ran out of food.”
This was all during a supposed “cease fire” which meant Hamas was not attacking Israel at all, and Israel was not committing daily bombing massacres against the people of Gaza. But the slow massacre of siege, border closing, lack of fuel and electricity and bread… that was all part of this “cease fire.”
So Olmert’s statement that “[t]he quiet we offered was answered with mayhem. Our desire for calm was answered with terror,” is almost laughable. If it weren’t for 271 dead and 900 injured. If it weren’t for the Bush administration’s statement that the people in Gaza are “nothing but thugs” and that Hamas is to blame for Israel’s largest massacre since 1967.
When I see the footage, and then read these statements, I am speechless with sadness and rage. I cannot respond. But Mourid Barghouti, in his 2003 book I Saw Ramallah, has already responded:
“It is easy to blur the truth with a simple linguistic trick: start your story from ‘Secondly.’ Yes, this is what Rabin did. He simply neglected to speak of what happened first. Start your story with “Secondly,” and the world will be turned upside-down. Start your story with “Secondly,” and the arrows of the Red Indians are the original criminals and the guns of the white men are entirely the victim. It is enough to start with “Secondly,” for the anger of the black man against the white to be barbarous. Start with “Secondly,” and Gandhi becomes responsible for the tragedies of the British. You only need to start your story with “Secondly,” and the burned Vietnamese will have wounded the humanity of the napalm, and Victor Jara’s songs will be the shameful thing and not Pinochet’s bullets, which killed so many thousands in the Santiago stadium. It is enough to start the story with “Secondly,” for my grandmother, Umm ‘Ata, to become the criminal and Ariel Sharon her victim. ...
The houses built on top of ours gallantly declare their willingness to understand our odd predilection toward living in camps scattered in the Diaspora of gods and flies, as though we had begged them to throw us out of our homes and to send their bulldozers to destroy them in front of our very eyes. Their generous guns in Deir Yassin forgive us the fact that they piled our bodies high at the sunset hour there one day. Their fighter jets forgive the graves of our martyrs in Beirut. Their soldiers forgive the tendency of our teenagers’ bones to break. Israel the victim polishes its hot, red knife with the sheen of forgiveness.”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*There are protests all over the world right now. Please find one where you are.*
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Caution: Settlers Ahead
One of my first stops upon return to
Somehow this story is the most frustrating to me. When settlers attack, Palestinians get punished / sent home / re-routed. It is as though the settlers are a natural phenomenon. They could place a sign in the road saying, “Caution: Settlers Ahead” and it would seem as natural to the soldiers as a sign saying “Caution: Storm Conditions Ahead” or “Caution: Road Curves Ahead.” It is as though the condition of settler attacks is unpreventable.
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All reports can be found on hannahinpalestine.blogspot.com
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Hello from Lebanon
Dear friends,
Thanks to all of you who responded to my last note from
After my Arabic class ended, I left for
In my car ride to
As we crossed the border into
This abrupt entry of memories of war into otherwise normal life would be repeated again and again in the coming days. Sitting in traffic, a driver would point to the bombed bridge next to us and say, “Traffic wasn’t like this before the summer of 2006.” Walking to a fancy café in the evening, my friends would tell me how they walked there once during the war and were terrified. When we arrived at the café they told me the whole area had been closed during the war. “Was the Lebanese army here preventing people from entering?” I asked. “No,” they said, “the army wasn’t allowed in either. Hizbollah controlled the area.”
You can’t walk or drive in
I took a day to visit the south with my friend. I spent only about a half hour in each of Saida, Sur, and Bint Jbayl, but even the ride was worth it. I saw the hills with olive groves and thought, “This looks like the rural
We arrived in Bint Jbayl, the town that successfully resisted a ground invasion by the Israeli army in 2006. Many buildings still show the scars from bombing, but mostly life just continues. I realized that while I think of Bint Jbayl and Qana (which we also drove through) as sites of resistance or massacre, they are first and foremost places, like any other, of daily life. I looked up at the mountain and thought about how
In
I think about the concept of security, something most certainly missing from people’s lives in
Of course, there are certain things that do cross all the boundaries, that unify all the people of the region, and that once again remind me of the arbitrariness of borders. Right now, there is one that stands out to me most: Turkish soap operas (dubbed into Arabic). :)
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