A Sometimes, knowing of my militancy in both Jewish and a Palestinian association, someone asks me if I do not feel a bit 'schizophrenic. Say no, a human being is composed of many companies, this is true for all pick one and extremes is the first step for the promotion of fundamentalism that is, in my opinion, one of the evils of contemporary society worldwide. The world has never been more uncertain and more unfair, they live in this era, I think that my attempt to build a bridge between two realities that are different and seemingly irreconcilable both at the same time also a great way to reconcile with me itself and not feel completely useless and helpless. At the time of my adolescence young people had high hopes for the future. We wanted to change the world, it seemed that everything was on the way to a bright future of justice and peace. If I look back at those smiling faces, those races in the demonstrations waving flags of hope I take a great sadness. If only we had known where it would lead us to the future ... I had my time, like everyone else, a great sympathy for the Palestinian cause. I had friends Palestinians, mostly students of medicine, organized in "GUPS" fraternities. Then the image of Palestinians in the world was very different from today. The Fedayeen were partisans of liberty. They fought for their independence, their status, that promises were not kept. Then they said to them that they were "the salt of the Middle East wanting to express this metaphor, the ability to export in other Arab countries their ideas of democracy, secularism, simplicity, of freedom. They were rebels because they wanted to exist and to choose their destiny, this was also our flag. Many years have passed and lots of time consumed, rivers of blood and tears have soaked the land of Palestine. The Palestinians have not yet their status, rather it were ever so far, the refugees never returned to their homes, indeed increased, and their condition has worsened, the great potential of intelligence and culture of this people has gradually been humiliated, disrupted, rendered impotent. The hope, defeat. Thus came the "heroes suicide" or suicide bombers or terrorists, as they were called, and now unfortunately the fratricidal conflict in a land, Gaza, where poverty and unemployment affecting the whole population and where there is more freedom in the camps where the abomination that history has given us. Therefore they are now guilty of wanting to exist and remain on their land are now in the imagination, terrorists, a mask that was sewn on them by those who planned and produced their tragedy and is now pleased to see how butcher each other like crazy tuna during the massacre and they point out to the world as a demonstration of how crazy rude and violent. The media willingly wallow and talk about the struggles of Hamas against Fatah, but they look good by the informant of children used as human shields in Nablus Israeli army or settlers while soldiers stood behind the attack of the peasants in Hebron, much less make additional information on young people killed in cold blood while stopping in front of a bar by masked assassins who then disappear into thin air and that the perpetrators of so-called "targeted killings".
The Palestinians are a continuing problem of 60 years old when you go from 48 or 40 if you count from the occupation of 67. The world has grown weary of hearing about even. The great Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish says, "Every year when I go to the fields or turn on the television, I always see the same picture: a Palestinian woman who takes away her belongings and her children that she is running in a field of Rafah, Gaza or Lebanon. I see her cry, raise their hands to heaven, but heaven is not responding. This woman was my mother once, then it was my sister, and maybe now is my daughter. "
are alone and that means that we, too, that we do not want to surrender to injustice, we are alone, that even the hope of peace is alone, that the future alone. I often wonder why I, a Jew, I insist so much to take care of Palestine: the reason is simple, the pain of Palestine lies with me. I can not remain indifferent. Of course not just about me as a Jew, covers all the Palestinian is a fundamental moral issue of our time, but for me it represents a special responsibility. E ' what they heard after the second Intifada also other people with me signed a public letter entitled "Not in my name," referring to the claim of the Israeli government to speak out and act on behalf of all Jews in the world. Later became a network that was called "Jews against the occupation" that is against the occupation by Israel in Gaza and West Bank. Now we have established an association, we have a small project with the hospital in Marda, a Palestinian village and participate in conferences, debates, meetings wherever we are called to speak to explain our rejection of Israeli policy and the reasons for our support for the fight Palestinian anti-occupation and for the conquest of their state. Our Association is a federated network of European groups and associations which are part of Jewish dissidents in some European countries and is called "European Jews for a Just Peace." Even in Israel there are Jewish groups and associations that fight against the Israeli occupation. The most famous is "Gush Shalom peace bloc, many associations, the majority are composed of women, the most historic is that of" Women in Black "a group of women born after the war unleashed by Israel in Lebanon 82 , and in the course of which he was committing a crime that will remain forever in the collective memory: the massacre of Sabra and Shatila, two Palestinian refugee camps where people were all horribly slaughtered, and were mostly women and children by Lebanese Phalange commissioned by Sharon. These women dressed in black to symbolize mourning were standing silently with their signs in a public square for an hour every week. Now their movement has spread all over the world, are no longer just Israel, but in Italy there is a very active group. There are groups of women who stop ceck to point to document the abuses and violence of the soldiers. After the second Intifada, there stood a group of Israeli activists and Palestinians to Israeli nationalities working together and that is called "Tajush" in Arabic to live together. Another group fighting the demolition of houses, looking with his presence to prevent the demolitions and sometimes rebuild homes demolished, there is also a group that is a very important work on memory, is called "Zochrot" remember. His program aims to make Israelis aware of the fact that the war as they celebrate Independence is summarized with the "Nakba," Palestinian (catastrophe). They have a database that provides historical information about what has happened in 48 and organizes tours in the ancient Palestinian villages razed to the ground, culminating in a ceremony on the spot on which is erected a sign in Arabic and Hebrew for the name of the village and the essential data its inhabitants. Then there are the REFUSNICS, the movement of those who refuse to join the army or at least go in occupied territories "to oppress another people" as they themselves say. Their first organization born in '82 called "Yesh g'vul", there is a limit. After the second Intifada are now thousands and even some drivers, the most loyal military training, rebelled after the dropping of a one-ton bomb on a house, to carry out a targeted assassination that made a killing. A very active group that fights against the wall built by Israel, ostensibly to defend against attacks, but in reality with the aim to annex more Palestinian land as possible and steal resources and aquifers, is that of the "Anarchists Against the Wall." This group is very frequent in the events that each Friday to two years held in the village of Bil'in. The struggle of Bil'in is the other side of the violent clashes taking place in Gaza. A totally non-violent movement started by the villagers that the Israeli government wants to cut by 80% of its land to make you go over the wall. Opposing to the residents of Bil'in is a necessity: the earth gives them a living. Around Bil'in shook the international and Israeli peace activists participating in the events each week, opposed by the soldiers in a violent, though these marches are peaceful and defenseless made up of people and a multitude of children. The atmosphere of Bil'in allows these marches do not walk side by side only Israelis and Palestinians, but also Hamas and Fatah in the absolute tranquility and relaxation. Bil'in recently held a large and important international conference and now this non-violent struggle has spread even to Bethlehem. The violence of the occupation can live such experiences as well as the recent formation of "Combatants for Peace" made up of Israeli and Palestinian ex-soldiers and former militiamen who chose not to shoot more time there and the Israeli-organization Palestinian relatives of the victims on both sides acknowledge that the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories responsible for all the real killing, and asks you wanted to spread the fine.Se a list of Israeli groups who fight for human rights, democracy, and then against the occupation and the Palestinian groups who work with them would not be enough for a phone, but their efforts can hardly bear witness that there may be a different way to live together. The reason is that the strength of the Israeli propaganda is at least equal to its military power.
But this is not enough power and this power if Israel had not backed and in defending all over the world, primarily the United States that even the supply of new weapons of mass destruction. The world turns a blind eye to atrocities committed by the Israeli state and even Europe has gradually changed attitude toward the Palestinians by giving more and more the "reasons" of Israel to perpetrate an embargo that has the absurd, toward the Palestinians, an embargo not to a state, but to an occupied people! This gives us the measure of injustice towards the Palestinians used. Israel can with impunity put in jail 12 year old children, adults under the law considers that the military could torture them, kill them, use them as human shields. It can hold thousands of people in administrative detention for years without a process to instruct or allow them to have a lawyer, can demolish hundreds and thousands of homes because they need that area to make us a new colony, can erect a wall that divides the Israelis from Palestinians, but Palestinians from Palestinians by forcing it in the middle of a village, separating children from school, hospital patients, farmers from their fields, can deprive the Palestinians and prohibit them from digging water wells while settlers to the waste water spray their lawns and fill their swimming pools, can kill without trial those who decide are sought or suspected, can make raids on densely populated towns, can seize land and olive groves cut down, can destroy buildings and neighborhoods of importance historical, prevent young people from going to university, can fill cech point throughout the country, there are more than 500, preventing movement and freedom movement of all, it can force women to give birth to ceck point, close the transition to Palestinian goods and making them rot preventing any possibility of autonomous economy, may have secret prisons in Guantanamo, but the worst of which you should not speak either at home or outside . Finally, Israel is the only state born to a UN resolution has rejected many as 73 UN resolutions without any inspector went to check and no one has unleashed a war against him to defend the Palestinians.
"The whole world produces hate," says Mahmud Darwish, "but does not want to blame Israel for fear of being accused of anti-Semitism. So instead of Israel becomes a state that oppresses an ethical value beyond any law: no more than a historical phenomenon, but divine. "
EJJP One of the requests," European Jews for a Just Peace "and even the Israeli peace camp is being treated more as a state in Israel part, to treat it like any other state, and then to force him to submit to international law, with penalties if they do not want to know. Allowing Israel to do whatever he wants with impunity and justify it to absurdity, complicity, connivance In addition to being deeply unfair does not make her well. Israeli society, apart from the numerous but small groups of pacifists, it is increasingly paranoid, sick, violent. The wall is been erected to make life impossible for the Palestinians is also a mental wall: people who live a few miles away, never meet, it would constitute an offense, it is illegal for an Israeli to go in the occupied Palestinian territories, unless is a settler in which case it can move where and how he wants complete freedom, while still less of the West Bank or Gaza can go to Israel. Recent laws also prohibit marriages between Israelis and Palestinians since the Palestinian spouse would not have permission to live in Israel or the Israelis in Palestine. A law forbidding an Israeli abhorrent to give a ride to a Palestinian fortunately did not pass to opposition from pacifists.
Israelis bring with them their mental wall wherever they go, while behaving in a violent and arrogant they think that the whole world is against them. Favor and give them reason is neither fair nor useful.
For me I always tried to meet as a writer and that I have always heard "the other within me", acknowledging, with Jabnès, a philosopher jew among my closest, as the best part of me, the most depth of the strangest, closest to the soul, it was very important and rewarding to be part of the board of Friends of the Palestine Red Crescent, "where I got to meet and awareness of many Palestinian friends with whom I share thoughts, plans and objectives. I've often said after the second Intifada (the word means to shake, shake off, and shook a lot too me) that Israel was preparing for the tomb of Judaism. Judaism as a culture, ethics, philosophy, quell'Ebraismo who accept and respect others, who said "Respect the stranger because we were strangers in the land of Egypt." There remained the rhetoric, propaganda, hatred. The accusations of anti-Semitism or not anyone jew jew criticized his warmongering and genocidal policy, the obsession with "security" and makes the insecure life of an entire people, and finally convinced them that everything must be allowed.
Israel has an important role in U.S. plans to build a new Middle East, that is, to divide and disrupt the whole region and thrown it into chaos (Lebanon) and war (Iraq) and then be better able to dominate and steal its resources with the method of the old colonialism. Bush Takes example by Sharon. Olmert, by every thug who sits in the Knesset, from how they colonize the Palestinians to use the same systems throughout the region. "The U.S. empire is coming to a system of direct colonialism as in the eighteenth century. We are living in the era of unipolar. All this is pushing the world to the brink of the abyss. The American fundamentalism creates fundamentally opposed which in turn reinforces it. It 's a game of attraction and mutual support between extremism and extremism exerts its magnetic pull on companies in the world attracting more and more people. The dialogue is then necessary. There is no alternative to dialogue. (....) The world is made up of peoples, cultures, interests intertwined with each other and can not think of dividing without destroying itself. It is the duty of the wise reject the diktat of the "neocons" and all forms of fundamentalism that are taking us toward the abyss "(Mahmoud Darwish).
These days in Israel are celebrating the great victory of the war of 6 days. In West Bank, Gaza, Tel Aviv (left-wing activists and bereaved parents) in the world, protests against the occupation recalling 40 years of siege. The Palestinian population has been subjected to military law for 40 years (categorical orders provide that certain land is "closed military zones" what happens in the agricultural areas during harvest time, there is no appeal, the soldiers do not have to explain or justify ), the incursions at any time, the curfew for weeks, to the limitations of ceck point that you have to go to school, work, hospital, find friends, a wait that can last for hours and often ends with to pass the ban without explanation and without appeal. Since it began the construction of the Apartheid Wall in the territory Many Palestinian villages are completely isolated with people trapped in their homes. EU governments have remained silent in the face of violations of international law, since last year have increased their material and moral support to Israel's illegal actions, isolating the Palestinian people even more.
The tragedy of the Palestinian people, emblematic of the human tragedy, the tragedy of the world is upon us all, overwhelming, unless we can make very effective in our struggle, if we leave them alone.
"Do not leave us alone, do not forget us.
Our losses: between two and twenty people, day after day.
And ten wounded
And twenty homes <
And fifty olive trees Add to the intrinsic loss
What is the poem, the play, the painting incomplete ... .. <
from "State of Siege" by Mahmoud Darwish <
0 comments:
Post a Comment