EYE Gadi
-Freedom is a gift bitter! -
Uncle Zac sighed, shaking his head. They discussed the matter of Yossi gathered around the table. He had come the grandfather rabbi, a tall and imposing with a beautiful white beard. What should I do with Yossi was not at all clear. At the police because he had put in prison. Burst out of the sun like a fire, but the relatives involved in the discussion there looked after. They thought other outbreaks. Gadi was sent by her mother in the kitchen to get something and did it very quickly because he suspected of having been removed on purpose and do not want to lose a comma of the discourse around his brother, Yossi. Returning to the dining room he stumbled into the big Mazal hairy body of the dog and the cat was sleeping on his back Dafna that rolled down annoyed, meowing his protest.
-Margalit You got a good result! - This
was the father and his face was dark.
-We have made a friend of terrorists! -
-Quiet, quiet! - Warned his grandfather
-It 's just a sensitive guy! -
-Sure - interrupted briskly Aunt Micol
-We have all on our side Sensitive Pacifists! We have the peace while you blow up even in pizzerias! - Gadi
shuddered. To hear her aunt seemed to blow themselves up to be a sport. As if you do not die! As if you do not go to pieces! Two months ago, before Yossi refused to go in the occupied territories and made a conscientious objector had gone along with the Italian restaurant for a pizza. Yossi had forgotten his wallet in the car Gadi and had offered to pick it up. As he returned he saw a fireball rise and then wood and metal debris shoot up. Gadi Looking around he saw people on the ground covered in blood. A man on his knees on the tarmac holding the inert body of a child crying over the sirens. A woman had been sitting motionless in front of the table was gone, blood and bits of bodies everywhere. Indescribable scenes of panic among the police cordoned off the streets. He realized he had blood on the shirt and shoes, but it was not his. Yossi had tracked pale and trembling, miraculously unscathed.
"Why?" - He asked his brother-
Yossi Why? -
But he was silent. Before he had always had a response, but this time he had grabbed his hand, dragging it away. Then he burst into tears. Gadi realized that there comes a time when we can only speak with her tears and felt that everything was still fragile and provisional and full of pain. Among the scattered fragments of human bodies were also those of the aggressor, so Orthodox Jews who collected the pieces to give them burial, could threaten to mix and confuse thought Gadi and this seemed absurdly comic. -Do you think I Farid
could become a terrorist? -
He asked his brother when he had calmed down. Yossi, who was blowing his nose, laughed briefly, but heartily. He found it funny. Gadi it also agreed, although at times everything seemed possible. Then Yossi, who wanted to see some friends, went and Gadi went home alone. As he walked he saw a group of people had given to the stone mosque. Though he had pulled straight quickening his pace he could not help but pick between the rowdy, shouting: Death to the Arabs-
! Without the Arabs no attacks! -
the momentum of a very fat old lady who claimed to want to blow themselves up among the Palestinians as they did. He tried not to laugh and he found it difficult because the tension was high and likely to spread in an uncontrollable hysterical laughter. When he turned the corner he was almost overwhelmed by the desperate race to chase a group of people. Were Arabs who were in the street at the time, but had nothing to do with the attack. Gadi knew they were risking a lynching. Although no reason was he had panicked and ran, too. He took refuge in a doorway to catch his breath and saw that there was already an Arab boy just a bit 'bigger. He was frightened, and motioned him not to betray him. Gadi was assaulted by an urgent desire to vomit. He felt really bad and he deferred while on his way home He remembered the verses of Ecclesiastes who had just studied in school:
"I look innocent guilty and the innocent guilty."
The discussion was lively after the arrival of his cousin Uri. At that moment, was responding Micol that his aunt had said
-L 'army is made up mostly of fathers who have never fired on the unarmed population-
Uri was angry and had shouted
-And then you make me pleasure to say who killed him 500 people?
-The Palestinians do not accept the Jewish diversity, we do not understand. Many are Holocaust deniers, did you know that Uri, my boy? - Peacefully
said Uncle Zac.
-theorized in print and online articles that the Holocaust never happened and that it is our own invention to get a bit 'of money for compensation
.--Okay, "said Uri calmer,
- but we also do not understand them and we do not care about them. The truth is that only when we realize that there are exploding in our midst-
-They are cowards who hide behind the children! -
Gadi's father who had remained grim, as if he spoke in silence instead of words broke out and the chips come out from the mouth. Uri turned to look almost astonished.
"Even the children," thought Gadi. He had never talked so much about a category of people so devoid of power and status.
-The Palestinians have no project of emancipation continued the father.
-The dream of this mass is to obtain Israeli citizenship because they are guaranteed the right to education, health and so that the Palestinian administration granted only in return Father-of bribes
often used this form of denigration: empty the contents of others. He had done so with Yossi, was his way of proceeding with any kind of enemy, and perhaps Yossi was his enemy even more than the Palestinians.
fearing a counterattack, Uri Gadi covered his ears with his hands. Now he saw them, but no one heard them. He saw their excited gestures, faces and Uri contracts had even stood up. Gadi it took a while his hands from his ears. my aunt was saying that Arafat would have to make peace at Camp David when Barak offered the most, Uri replied:
Balle! Barak had offered a landfill, it was a scam, as everyone knows by now, and how clearly wrote "Aharetz -
Now even my father stood up, he was livid and Gadi expect anything terrible.
-Tu and the champion of my son - he was screaming
-offended and you smeared my good name, my sense of morality! -
Father went to growing up: My
-civilization, be my man, an Israeli , jew ... -
Uri interrupted him violently:
-Asshole without it? - And he went out slamming the door. Gadi Yossi understood why he wept.
Grandfather was crouching to mess their hair Gadi who had taken refuge among the matted hair of Mazal. Even so it was impressive. His intimidating appearance, but the smile was kind and gentle.
-Never lose your soul- Gadi told
-and never lose hope-
-There's nothing left to do,
-grandfather had whispered Gadi, but he shook his head, smiling: This
-no, there's always something do, only more difficult. "
Long before he began the long nightmare Yossi had brought with him on the beach.
-Ti-fun had said. Groups of Israeli and Palestinian children were organized to clean along the waterfront. On that occasion he met Farid and they became inseparable. Gadi did not know you have many things to talk before you know it. He discovered that there are people with whom the words take on another burden. Yossi and big sister Farid they loved, but when my father had known had gone on a rampage. Even the girl's parents had known and had been locked in the house. Yossi we had a disease.
-There are many good Jewish girls! -
He said his mother, perhaps to console him. Farid wanted to grow up to be a writer. He was good at school, but got distracted in class to write poems on the covers of notebooks. Concluded that the experience had made them known, had continued to see each other and communicating by e.mail. Farid had also made a link between Yossi and his sister to exchange secret messages.
Then there was the famous promenade of Sharon on the Temple Mount and then "an abyss had called another abyss" After the closure of the territories could not see each other more and had only communicated via the Internet.
When Barak had made bomb Gaza, Gadi had spent a terrible time. the attack was resumed on television. Petrified, crushed by a sense of helplessness, watching the fall of the city where he lived Farid hell and wanted to stop by force of his prayer. Because the Lord heard the prayers of children? Gadi could not understand. Farid also begged her to stop.
-I'm afraid of dying, had chatted with Gadi "I increasingly fear." Meanwhile
happened was something that had stunned Yossi pain. In a second step, however, that pain had congealed into a force from which he felt transformed. Farid's sister, who suffers from heart even as a child in need of constant controls, had a heart attack. The ride to the hospital that would have saved his life had been stopped at the roadblock. While Farid's father had explained the seriousness of the situation there was nothing to do. Blocked at the check-point for 40 minutes, the girl's family had been powerless to his death. Yossi had heard from Gadi that Farid had been informed by e-mail.
She closed her room and I came out after 3 days. When she saw his face Gadi was shocked it was so hard he did not recognize his brother. After some time came the warning to the military service and Yossi had no doubts What would you do. Then he had succeeded in
Barak and Sharon were also extinguished the last sparks of hope. Uri said that Sharon would not have lasted because he was a character too disqualified. It was already strange that he could go to the government. We had gone only because of the desperate situation, the complete lack of perspective and the subsequent recovery of the right. Unfortunately he was wrong. Many people had died young, but he, as he was old and already saturated with sin was still firmly in the saddle. At school we talked about the hardness of Pharaoh's heart when he did not want to let go of the Jews and Moses was forced to make the miracle of the ten plagues. The Morah said that the Lord is willing to forgive at any time, but there is a point beyond which we should not go there because you can not go back. He remains imprisoned in its hardness as in a tomb. Gadi
imagined that Sharon had also exceeded in hardness Pharaoh was now a man without a soul.
He began to dream. He dreamed of before, but had changed the quality of his dreams had become vivid and significant. One night he dreamed he had collapsed with the Temple Mount mosques and the Wailing Wall. He woke up suddenly. It should have been distressed, but was relieved. During this dream he heard a soft voice like a breath of wind whisper
"Now that there are more places we can take care of the holy people. "Gadi was certainly be the voice of God in another dream held out his hand to shake out of Gaza by Farid, but a fire broke out.
The next day he received his e-mail. He said that his parents had been killed during the return from a wedding party from shots fired by soldiers or settlers, it was not clear on the car driven by his father Farid. He had to go with an aunt in Rafah, the aunt did not have the computer and therefore could not send more messages. He also said he had written many letters to send to Israeli newspapers, but since no one would consider a Palestinian boy frail and bespectacled, he invented the authors of the letters were important people: professors, philosophers and so on. Gadi Farid thought that this experience his talent as a writer by multiplying his word and letting them gain power. This was the last message Farid until the night he had gone to visit him.
Gadi had seen him go silently into the room. One of the lenses of his glasses was broken and a red hole on his forehead ran a trickle of blood. Gadi was about to scream, but Farid had reported to silence. He wanted spedisse his letters.
-I did not have time, I have written, but I have not sent. Go, I beg you to take them to my aunt's house in Rafah. Gadi send my letters, I do not I can do. "
Gadi knew that was not a dream, who had actually seen his friend and unfortunately also knew with equal certainty that Farid was gone.
In the months following the attacks and retaliations not understand anything. Aunt Micol changed his mind and all attacks. When a group of settlers killed a Palestinian family and she had seen in photos of the morning paper these two small children on the ground wrapped in Kefia had pity. Then the first response of the fundamentalists had begun to rail against the Arabs who do not want peace. Not only did she do the rest. Just when it appeared there was only one option: that of terror. Hardly the people trying to understand what had happened and why happened. He wanted the safety and wanted at any cost. Gadi had read that according to a survey 70% of the population was in favor of the "iron fist" against the Palestinians. 70%? Almost everyone! But when the soldiers began to uproot the olive trees of the Palestinians, Yossi and his friends had chained themselves to trees to prevent the slaughter, when the army had arrived in the villages with tanks and bulldozers to knock down the houses were pacifists thrown in front of the bulldozers. The soldiers had looked as if they were aliens arrested and put before the jeep, said Yossi who was shot down and gloomy. He said he was afraid to even talk to his friends, who had remained. Why do not you know how to resist the affection to the destructive fury of hatred. The only way
to combat evil is to enhance the well his grandfather said. But there are times when the well seems to have disappeared from the world.
Uri had expressed in the Italian embassy after the killing of a protester in Genoa, by the police during the G8 summit. Uncle Zac said:
-With all the troubles that we think the G8? -
Uri replied that it was all a single speech, all linked. As they say the Kabala, that if you move a leaf there is an impact on the earth to the heavens.
Gadi was a little 'accounts and the remaining 30% thought that this was what the prophet Ezekiel calls "the rest of Israel." What would have survived the destruction. What I would return from Babylon and rose from its bones. What had kept his soul. The soul, as his grandfather said. The hope, however, the hope of Gadi was crushed by bulldozers had knocked down the house of Farid's aunt in Rafah, where they had remained in his letters that no one had shipped. "Perhaps," thought Gadi embracing the prickly Mazal, "will be better times. Maybe, but not for me. For me, there will be no more."
INJUSTICE INFINITE
"distortions are not straighten
deprivation remain free ..." Ecclesiastes
The world is full of wonders. Beneath the surface of the sea teeming with charm. And there are flavors, aromas, colors that you can fill your soul drowning of joy. Some people have visited many countries and tasted many flavors, sweetness breathed the air of Italian cities, and heard the distant sound of the sea on exotic beaches. People who knew the world. Salem had only known the refugee camp in Beirut without sewers, where light is an option and there is no running water. The single breath I could hear was that of his brothers, seven, who were sleeping in the same room. As for noise, most recently the Israeli helicopters, loud and menacing, had taken to fly over the field.
Salem's family had arrived in Beirut at the end of 1967, after the Six Day War when another 50,000 Palestinians were forced to leave. The UN bureaucracy classifies them as "new refugees" to distinguish them from those of 1948. Between the garbage of the camp, under a sky like flaming arrows fired rockets slanting Salem had played and spent his childhood.
The first brother, Faisal, was left in Gaza. Small and sick at the time of departure was given to my grandmother because they do not die during the journey. After the Oslo accords, when everyone had the illusion that peace was, it had become a police officer of the nascent Palestinian state. Salem's brother had seen this a few times. With its 30 years, he was the youngest, seemed already an old man. Feisal was married and his children, a boy and a female had 4 and 6 years. He was a gentle man, had seen him calm the minds of the younger brothers trying to give them a bit 'of hope. He believed in the peace process, reassuring them, also claimed that they would soon be reunited.
Salem knew that his parents felt a searing nostalgia, but also how they could try the brothers who were born in Lebanon? It 's weird how one can suffer from nostalgia for places where no one has ever lived, places that now survive only in memory of the parents who tell of a village buried under a thick forest of trees, or buildings of a city, but also are the places where your roots lie. Sometimes it seemed that life in Salem and tiring of the grama field should be suspended and that one full of hope that nostalgia. He felt sad dirges in women, in the call of the muezzin at dusk rising from the shabby mosque where they were heading bypassing the rotting gutter that surrounded the field. The mild
Feisal was one of the first to be killed during the second Intifada. He was killed in an ambush in the cold along with seven other colleagues. The Israeli soldiers said that, sorry, you were wrong. The ambush would have liked to do most of their characters. You were wrong again when in a raid a sudden, the little Leila killed while eating the soup. As for his brother Momi there was no need: he became autistic because of the fear and soon died alone.
That terror looming, that feeling of dying like rats in a trap and even tried them when Israeli soldiers trespassed into Lebanon to give a lesson to Palestinians in the refugee camps. "
Tareq, another brother of Salem, was studying abroad. When he arrived at the camp was calm and full of gifts for all, brought with him many books. As the days passed, however, read less and less, his mood darkened, the smile disappeared and a small wrinkle on his forehead was drawn. Tareq said that if life in the camp had not been so hard, even the nostalgia was so intense. "Every time I leave I almost forgot," he said, "My life is over to take over, but when I get back to the field everything that seemed important before it freezes. Affections, ambitions, projects, everything is suspended and I think that counts only the fight for the return. "
Tareq had managed to move the blocks to go to Jerusalem at the funeral of Faisal Husseini. He told of a human river, which embraced the coffin wrapped in the Palestinian flag and the coffin swung to the desperate embrace of the crowd moved and sore.
Day after day came new reports of killings. They kept constantly in the ambushes Palestinian leaders condemned to death without trial by the Israeli military of Sharon. Children affected the head by a stone thrown by snipers, to attend a funeral. The buildings Gaza was an embroidery of cannon, fire the cultivated fields, houses close to the settlements (contrary to the Oslo Accords) razed. And speaking of dead, not wounded, but maimed and disabled, many children were already an army. In Gaza, even the sea was in despair and wept stones Ramallah. Salem's father and mother prayed darkened, but the younger brothers tightening the jaws.
Then there was the murder was "targeted" by Abu Ali Mustafah, a recognized leader and loved by the Palestinian people. Tareq was on the field and it was almost mad with rage and grief. Salem had counted the veins of his arms raised to heaven with his fists clenched.
He was the youngest of the brothers and he concentrated seven knots of frustration. He crushed the peaceful death of Feisal and his children, the bitterness of Tareq, the anger of the other brothers. Salem was 17 years but had never gone to a party, did not have a device to hear the music, much less a cell phone. His eyes were scanning the horizon and turned blacks and every day his heart swelled with hatred until he was about to burst. The freshness of his life, the will to live that's within shouting turned into a stone that every day more pressing on his heart. Once he had believed the promises of Feisal, but now he was dead. The life if the configuration is now like a dark tunnel at the bottom with death.
One day he had "enlightenment." A group of men are stacked around one of the few televisions in the camp. He made his way in the video image of a young man who told the world why he would blew up in a crowded place. Salem looked at the calm expression of the young, listened to his words as if hypnotized. This man knew what to do, acting, who did not just die of despair. Now the end of the tunnel had its bright flashes of light and the dark end of light exploded. We began to consider. He had enough of curses, of fists and clenched jaw, and a litany of anger.
had been easy to get in touch with the right group and soon Salem, the youngest of the brothers transformed their body that had not yet experienced, or felt emotion sweet, deadly weapon, went to the hated enemy. In Tel Aviv
walking on the main road undecided. It was all very different from the field. His anger snebbiava a bit 'to make room for curiosity. Watch the world was about to explode as if it were a window looking out on a cloud. On the pavement outside a pub he stopped a group of youths and a girl here she turned to face him. Salem was terrified, but she, without stopping to look at him, smiled at him. The boy saw that it was attractive and a tear began to sting his eyes out. If only his brother Feisal was right! If only there was peace indeed! Now he could return the smile of the girl and not be there, packed with explosives into the trap of death. In the few seconds of infinite
saw its brief past life. He saw that she had been a succession of difficulties and bitterness without hope and choice. No, could not return smiles. He had been taken away without mercy, even the future.
Shlomo trashed the last bite of sandwich that had nibbled. Igal Since there was not like eating at home. Put the sadness and the feeling was stronger than his loneliness. There was a time when life began to smile. With his wife, Liat, now sold out of the bitter conflicts when were young, things were going well. The habit of living together, the tolerance that is usually acquired through the years, had done in their lives so that he moves to a balance that made her happy, but above all there was Igal. Shlomo could not forget the joy of it close in her arms, to have argued in the early stages or have laughed at his grimaces. He dreamed of a great life for him. When looking at this child, forgive the sky of all the suffering she had endured. In his smile was the smile which life itself.
Shlomo was created to keep alive the memory, or to sweeten it, another child, a brother who did not know murdered by the Nazis in a death camp. The same field where they had marked a number on the arm of her mother that she hid with a plaster. As a child dared not even glance at that patch, as if there was below the mouth of hell Backwashing. Reduce the death camps by his mother had dragged her anguish in Israel, then just out of the war with the Arabs and there had married another former exile, his father. Both had lost everything: family, home, relatives had tried to live together again. His father said that in Israel the Jews were finally safe. That the Holocaust would not have been possible if all the Jews they could live there. Shlomo knew by now that this was never true. He was 50 years and was struggling to remember a long period in which Israel there had been a war, an attack, any conflict. Despite what he loved the country where he was born and did not want to be in no 'other place in the world.
His childhood was difficult. As happens to many people too deeply wounded, his mother had begun to manifest strange behavior, manic and even cruel. She called him and he felt that this AVREMEL AVREMEL must have been the son he had lost. Often talking to herself or spoke to him as if he were her child, but another person, by prayer and petition, or threatening. Other times, he turned in an unknown language and Shlomo guessed the meaning from the tone of the speeches. On the other hand his father had become more and more taciturn. In the last days of his life practically no longer spoke. Never knew what he thought because his expression had become impenetrable. It was as if their wounds were infected and over time the soul has turned into a plague. Shlomo had never been able to rely on a fear, a doubt or a question. He had always been alone and had spent her childhood under the stairs where there was a kind of niche, his refuge, and where it remains silent, thinking. In those moments it seemed that her parents were bad, but then he knew or understood what they had suffered and been able to forgive them without ever having given birth to protect him. With all the wounds were left and when he married her and he was born son had sworn to himself that he would be always near. For Shlomo, Igal when he came to the world a blessing had fallen on the ground. Even the Messiah himself could bring so much joy. He closed his eyes for a moment he thought he saw the radiant face of Liat who held the child by the hand.
Then she saw him leave for military service. Shlomo never would have thought that Igal could be killed. Something beyond reason to think the guy made him indestructible, as if it was not just a human being. Igal did not last even two months. A Palestinian militant fired on kalashincov on him while he was in a bar frequented by soldiers and killed him along with three other comrades. His death completely shocked not only the life of Shlomo, but also the balance achieved through many years of attendance, with Liat. Instead of approaching the pain had made them enemies, they were no longer able to forgive as if nothing was added is too large. So she left, had brought their sentences elsewhere groped to survive.
Shlomo passed his hand over his face as if to chase away the sadness or regret. He buttoned the jacket of his uniform and walked the crowded sidewalk. Suddenly his heart almost stopped him. In mist of tears she saw the crowd waving the elastic step of Igal. A moment, then smiled and looked at himself disenchanted with the sidewalk. And here before him, beautiful head full of curls of her beloved boy. Without asking anything hurried to get there. Almost hit a group of young people who stood in front of a pub waiting for the opening. The heart was bursting with emotion and in an attempt to stop extended his arm to the young man turned and saw the policeman called on it to stop. The poor father could see up close his eyes burning and desperate, full of fear. It was the last thing he saw before he would open the gates of hell. Salem put the device in place of death. There was a tremendous blast. Shlomo was hit by something heavy that threw him to the ground. It was the boy's head that the explosion had detached from neck of the net, he had died alone. The officer was rescued, was covered with blood that did not belong. In his eyes there was an endless pain. Throughout the rest of his life he would remember that face. Yigal was, it was Salem, who cares? It was the sacrificial victim of hatred.
In his hospital bed he seemed to be transported along the current of a river of pain.
broken lives
Jamila, a mother of a "terrorist"
I think it all began at that checkpoint. Until then Said was a kind and gentle boy. He loved birds. Sometimes it was a pigeon with a broken wing, or a hatchling fallen from a nest. He takes care of the house and often flew his proteges who struggled to leave. I miss that flapping of wings that accompanied the return of Said from school or denouncing his presence.
had formed a long line as usual. Gasping for the stifling heat. The soldiers of the checkpoint they were very young, perhaps conscripts. When it was our turn, after hours of waiting, one of the soldiers insulted my husband did not react as not to create problems, then the young man grabbed him by the shirt and began to sballottolarlo. I think that was when his father was humiliated by a boy of 20 years that something in him snapped. In the days after another incident that happened fed his hatred. The soldiers had attacked the refugee camp of Khan Yunis and free to leave had tied a man in front of the jeep as a human shield. The man was a brother of my husband. I felt that my child was being opened to anger, to anguish too great for him, too big to be born. The teacher confirmed to me that his themes, but also expressed his plans a huge inconvenience.
"And 'the situation of all children, however," he said. "Children are scared, they lose the desire to play because they think they can die at any moment. Are closed in themselves, but the older ones, such as Said they think they need to be saved the situation because the adults are no longer able to do so. And 'this is their great tragedy: no longer trust adults, they feel vulnerable and exposed and I am convinced that they can not protect them. "
Said he had to attend many other scenes of abuse at checkpoints. Once there was an old man with his whole family. The young soldier slapped him in front of everyone. The old man wept silently. All of us who witnessed the scene we were crossed by shivering with indignation and shame. Said I remember then looked at me with a question in his eyes lost that meant "We must allow them all this?" A few days after he returned from school with a wound on face, I realized that he had begun to throw stones at the soldiers.
never forget that day when she came home upset. He was shaking like a leaf and it was not easy to make him talk. He said that was throwing stones on the car of a settler, one of those who have built the house with garden and pool on taking away our land, even water. She was with another boy younger than him, Hamhed of 11 years. The man had chased them. Said she had seen him pick up a large stone from the ground. He was hiding, but that was smaller Hamhed not had it done. The man grabbed him. My son was shaking and the tears came down as he told "The man hit him a lot times with the stone, I heard him screaming from my hiding place, but I was too scared to do something, they hit and hit until he moved over, and I have not done anything mom ... "Said was sitting on the couch and her face was streaked with tears, leaning toward me that I felt sick with pain, I sensed that the heart of my son was close by the cold hand of remorse. He could not do anything, but that does not calm down.
the evening on the news I heard on the news shocked absolutely distraught. The speaker said that the settler had chased the boy who had tripped and fell hitting his head on a stone ... How can you do such a thing and remain a human being? That settler if escaped with only a few months and pay a fine. So little is worth the lives of our children.
Here I believe that Said has fallen apart within himself even before his body crashing. I know that jumping in the air caused the death of many people. I asked forgiveness from the mothers of Israelis for the death of their children caused by the torn body of my boy, but I think it must be recognized also the silent crime that has split the heart of my son, letting him take, he was not a violent one so atrocious decision.
Zaira urgent appeal to Palestinian human rights activist
At Israeli companies
As my husband is dead, you know. The soldiers guarding the settlement Jewish Netzarim was shot on his way home from work. Since the beginning of 'Intifada, the army cut in two at Gaza's Netzarim, but even when there is blocking soldiers shooting at Palestinian cars and trucks in transit. To move from south to north along the coast of Gaza Palestinians have to pass in front of Netzarim on business days and therefore there are still many dead and wounded. The military establishment said it was the fault of the tired soldiers for months used in the occupied territories. Fatigue and "Lebanese syndrome" that would lead them to see in every Palestinian is a potential bomber. Despite the talks, meetings and uselessness American mediation blocking of Palestinian areas by the army continues mercilessly. Yesterday, the army helped the settlers blocked the road from Jerusalem to Gush Etzion, never to move the car Palestinians, in fact, that road is reserved exclusively for settlers. Gaza is full of roadblocks and to make a journey of 20 minutes it takes hours, but the settlers have no problems. For them, the checkpoints do not exist. One is speechless in front of the rubble of buildings destroyed Palestinian neighbors because of the Netzarim Jewish settlement. The army has also permanently closed the ramp and Khan Yunis Palestinian motorists can no longer travel the road along the sea soldiers shoot at everything that moves. They pointed their guns even the officials of UNRWA, the UN agency that provides for Palestinian refugees since 1950, health care and education.
We want peace, but what peace there may be in a state where it is forbidden to move under siege, without resources, because we do not have full control of our water, scattered and divided by ceck point, no possibility of economic development and self-settlers everywhere. It is not only sensational violence of bombings, assassinations of politicians, of tanks firing on children. The saddest thing that humbles us and we run out, is the brutal fact of our daily lack of water, trees uprooted, houses confiscated or demolished, roads cut off: .. the guys with all their might refuse a future of life as it was the humiliation of their fathers.
We Palestinian parents we were portrayed as monsters. As if that were not enough having removed all security and have stripped our newspaper every little joy. Slander us, we throw mud in an attempt to dehumanize him. They said they send our children to die, we mothers give them stones to throw, that fathers do is shield the children. We are not monsters. We love our children as you love your and Israelis are human beings like you. You could ask the father of the girl Mariam killed in Nablus by 18 months fire of the soldiers who fired on the car that took her to hospital if it is hidden behind the body of his daughter, or mother of the young Aijri, who was killed while hanging laundry on the terrace, where he gave the stones to pull soldiers. For many years we
Palestinian women we started this dialogue with you over time building trust and friendship that allows us to open ourselves to each other and talk about peace without hypocrisy and lies. But now we feel abandoned and feel a wall of isolation that grows around us. We know how difficult it is for you to support us, but right now it is hopeless, we need our voices become one voice.
Shulamit, a student I had met Israeli
Fad attending a documentation center, a destination for Arab and Israeli students. Now I regret not telling him what I never liked it. Fad was different from other friends that I had. Did not claim anything, it was nice to everyone. Sometimes I wondered how they would have taken my if I told them that I was in love with an Arab boy. To him I had not said anything, I let our friendship grow, the cartel that made us meet every day, I thought I had a long time ... Once there was an attack and he had phoned home to see if I was already there, if I was safe. I remember that my sister had found him funny, as if the Arabs could only be the terrorists. The morning we said goodbye I was a bit 'worried, but I never thought that this was the last time I saw him. Too bad, because at least I could try to impress upon my mind the lines of his face that now escape me, although I will never forget. I told
-careful-but he had reassured
-It 's just a demonstration, Shula-
The result you know. The police opened fire on the first demonstration that Israeli Arabs were in support of Palestinians in the occupied territories. Shot and killed 13 people in one shot. One of those 13 people was Fad.
Hoda young Palestinian bride
in the middle of the night I woke up completely covered in sweat. The pain had become unbearable. My husband woke up. I told him to help me because it was time. Expecting my first child and can not deny that I was afraid. We dressed quickly and went into the car to rush to hospital. We stopped at the roadblock. My husband explained our situation to the soldier excitedly asked him to get us through because there was no time to lose. I held her belly and whispered "Hurry up, hurry up" I was too sick to realize immediately what was happening, but he was dropped from the car and decided not to go up again, I saw him discussing with the soldiers, his nervous gestures I realized that there were problems. There they go, while the pains were increasing, the seat of the car was all wet because the water had broken. I was desperate. I began to scream, my husband was in confusion, not knowing what to do. Now I know that I was not the only one, but at least thirty women were forced, like me, to give birth in the car as an animal could die without help. After a long time they decided to get us through. The car was completely soaked with blood, I felt lacking and desperately clutching my son in fear of losing consciousness. I did not know that I was clutching a corpse, I myself was in danger of death, I arrived at the hospital in hemorrhagic Schok. I'm young, I can have more children, if God wills it, but this wound will not close ever.
Iris, Israeli soldier, defector
We started early in the morning. It was still dark. There was a Palestinian police checkpoint, three or four people. The jeep in front of my fired a volley and killed them all. Then the village was surrounded and began mopping up the door to door. The people in the houses was still asleep. I saw people who were arrested were dragged away in a bad way. Then someone began to shoot, to fire back. It seemed to me that our reaction was excessive compared to the weak resistance oppostaci. My colleagues kept shooting even after he struck furiously the few who tried to resist. Bullets were going into houses where you could hear screams and cries of children. I thought with horror that perhaps we had hit someone. On the ground were left three people injured. Two men and a boy. - We should call an ambulance to a graduated-
said. He looked at me like I'm the village idiot and laughed.
-course-said - now we call it now-and went to those three who were on the ground bleeding. Especially the boy out of my mind I can not, will have had 15 years. The Graduate pulled out his gun and fired coolly on all three.
I was hysterical and I was sent on leave. Not returned from the license and not finished military service. They tried to convince me that it was better to go sick, but I must say that I've deserted. Even if it cost me to prison.
Palestinian mother Fatma
For six months I have not heard from my daughter. He threatened a soldier with a boxcutter. I know I should not do what he did, but it's just a child, is 13 years old. In another country was not even in prison. Instead, the Israeli prisons are full of our children. We have no illusions, we know who are mistreated, why do not they show me? I do not know anything about her, I do not know if it's alive.
Yael, a resident of Mea Shearim
It 's a year I stopped praying. Throughout his life, my day had begun with the ritual washing of hands, netylat jadaim. It marked the tefillah in the morning, one in the afternoon and evening. I never went to bed without first reading the Kiryat Shemah and every waking I murmured "Thank you for making me the soul that I entrusted in your hands."
One day as he poured water from the jug on the right hand I felt something wrong in that gesture and I could not finish it.
Once, when I was little, I was told that every jew is responsible for the actions of other Jews, I have always felt strongly this unit. As if our people had only one body. It was for this reason that I would never have spoken ill of a fellow to a stranger. At Passover, when I read the Haggadah, I thought that millions of other Jews around the world were reading at the same time, this gave me a strong emotion and I did not ever feel alone. Most of the time it spent Shabbat alone, but I was happy. I felt the peace of the world descend on the holy day and the actions we perform the entire Jewish people was with me. I've never wanted wealth, I like people, I like our country where people live together so different. I always thought that there is a strong meaning in this, that the Jewish people together for centuries is formed by different groups for cultural, ritual and even ethnicity. As if we had been given the opportunity to demonstrate that diversity is an asset. I thought with pride that the Torah speaks of love for the next meaning this coming not only the Jewish people, but the whole world and I loved that nell'Aggadah was written that the Lord rebuked the angels rejoicing in the salvation of the Jews, while Egyptians drowned in the Red Sea, because the Egyptians are children of God, even though they are enemies. After the episode of
netylat jadaim one evening at the entrance of Shabat had just lit the candles when a gust of wind came through the window, shut off both. A chance, but after dinner as I read "the Lord blesses his people with peace "I felt really strange, and I felt all the incongruity of the situation. Maybe the Lord will bless us more because we have forgotten that peace must be earned, but we just want it for nothing and now call it "security" and has become a dirty word, ambiguous. Security means that justify the raising of the walls, scraping of miles and miles of cultivated fields and homes of others, who cares if it means hunger and despair for other people! Security means that we welcome the violent repression, murder, to take away the livelihood of other creatures, which still amounts to murder, as is written in our Torah. And always in the name of security tanks entered the Palestinian town of Jenin by firing and killed two girls who were leaving school. I saw on television one of these girls in the morgue. He had a pretty little face, a cascade of curls around her head, seemed asleep. Then came
Rosh ha Shanah. We were all around the table, relatives and friends to celebrate the New Year. On the table there were the ritual foods of each of which must recite a formula and when you get to play "those who hate us to end up" a shiver went through me. How do I say this? Perhaps our enemies are right to hate us and I pray against them.
Iman, daughter of Palestinian farmers
settlers who live in front of us had ever pulled the stones, so we had to build a shelter to defend us, but one night they were in our camp and burned. The glow of the flames we woke up and went outside to see. My grandfather went to get water to extinguish, but the settlers prevented him. There were many. My brothers were yelling like crazy, my father tried to respond and one of them beat him and made him leave a nosebleed. The camp was everything we had to live, they said: Thank-
the sky that have not yet brought down the house! -.
Two days before those same settlers fired on a car injuring two people, but with whom we had to complain? Before them were the soldiers to fire on a taxi, killing a woman and a child. We are between two fires, on the one hand the settlers and the other soldiers.
Anat Israeli mother
Who would have thought I was seeing my daughter for the last time when it came out just to go dancing? I waited until the last that was not in the list of the dead. He was 18 years old, she has not found anything. E 'was identified by the items found. The bag, a piece of clothing ... I could not resign, for days I have seen the world covered by a veil of mist through my tears. I two other sons, I do not want to do the same purpose. I want to see them grow up, I want to hug their children. We need peace, we can give up a bit 'of land, but peace can not give up.
After the attack, there was a reprisal ordered by our government which led to more deaths. And as we all expected, a new attack. This time was my niece to be affected. Shalev nine years, he has no legs, has lost its autonomy, is like a doll. When I visited the pediatric center for disabled children, in Gaza, I have seen many small children as Shalev and so I asked, but what are we doing? What logic is there in all this violence? Who is the use? I do not want political analysis I've never not busy, but I find it inhumane to destroy this way to allow a handful of fanatics to keep their houses and their colonies in Palestinian territory. our life has become a permanent crisis and everything to the selfishness of a small part of the country and in clinging to power of a group of violent and corrupt politicians.
I often hear people say that is afraid and wants to be protected, "we want security, we want walls, it takes a decision." No, you're wrong, it only takes love. It takes a love for life, for themselves, their children and one's neighbor. Because in this criminal logic of revenge and retaliation is not love and respect for anyone, not even any of those who says he wants to defend. I can not be in solidarity with the settlers, for me it is easier to direct and be in solidarity with other mothers who have suffered and are suffering like me, be they Israeli or Palestinian. I know that if you continue this senseless violence that fuels hatred ever renewed, we will destroy not only the Palestinians, but we will be the primary agents of our own disaster.
Palestinian student Leila
When my sister came home Afef, with the child in his arms, limp, was a mask of pain. She stayed all day at the checkpoint, they told her that would not work. But she could do? The little he needed urgent treatment, so it was left with the suffering child in his arms in front of the block, hoping that he feels compassion for the soldiers. But they had strict orders, there was an attack and did not pass anyone. Two or three times Afef had tried to pass. She was ridiculed and even beaten. The meeting went
taking away the corpse of the child from her arms. She was absent, almost blind because his eyes looked far away, to an indefinite point, but presumably at the top.
When we woke up all night because we heard screams and noises. We went outside to see. In the clear night we saw the Israeli tanks advance and behind the bulldozers. Advancing towards our houses to knock them down. We were so astonished by such arrogance that we were unable even to protest. While doing their work struck me, nestling in an incredibly blue sky, the blade of moonlight. They knocked out hundreds of homes, destroyed all the fields, olive groves and fruit trees that were nearby. This is to make a "security zone" since our homes were wrong to rise too close to the settlements, but in reality are the Jewish settlements to be built in the midst of our homes. They also made fun of.
-set were not allowed to build settlements So-
built on the last bit of land that remained, in defiance of UN resolutions and international law have a legal permit and regulate?
We all returned to Ramallah, home of our parents. We are many, too many of you are very close. I wanted to go to college. I would have liked, but the Israeli army has destroyed part of the road connecting Ramallah with the university, has always done this work at night (like surprises us) by digging trenches and destroying at least 4oo meters of asphalt. It was the only road connecting Ramallah and the village of Birzet, home university, and the only link road between Ramallah and other 33 villages with a population of more than 65.ooo people whose normal life has been lost. Cars, ambulances and supply from Birzet and from nearby villages can not pass from one side of the barricades and trenches.
On 8 March, during the event, we tried to remove the barriers, but the soldiers shot him.
Lea, Peace Now activist and lawyer
I was shocked when I learned that Sami had been killed by soldiers in Tulkarem while driving in his car on his way to work at his dental practice. Shocked and saddened. What does Sami with terrorists even if we pretend that is right to kill them without trial? I knew this man from the beginning of our organization Peace Now, in which Sami had friendly relations. We spoke with thousands of times and I was impressed his smile open and human.
At first I thought it was a mistake, but many things I have confirmed that it was him in the crosshairs. That design is behind the killing of good people willing to dialogue, but without violent fanaticism? I have argued that the killings of Palestinian militants cold violate Israeli law and the Geneva Convention. Upon the recommendation of the wife of Sami, as a lawyer, I turned to the Israeli Supreme Court asking it to stop these executions. The same organization Peace Now has protested vigorously with Barak, but I'm afraid to no avail.
Jasmin orphaned Palestinian
My father has not returned home that evening. We have recovered his body at the hospital, where unnecessarily Red Crescent had led him, after harvest of the network beyond the border where they had thrown the Israelis. They said they had attacked the soldiers, alone and unarmed. My father was not crazy. He was only 37 years and was an intelligent man. We spent a terrible time. Now our lives will be even harder and more difficult. I'm sixteen years and are the first of four brothers whose youngest is six years. My father was the support of our family. Before working in Israel, but then denied him the pass and lost his job, he worked as a day looking every day. Probably when they killed him he was trying to circumvent the checkpoint to go home. It 's a crime to claim to go home?
My uncles had gone to Jordan to visit relatives and to return the Israelis have prevented him from declaring refugee return. Where have we ever seen that just get away from home than to risk not being able to return? But the most miserable of all is the way my father was found. The soldiers tied his hands, they killed him and then threw across the network and the part of Gaza, as you throw a lot of old rags in a bucket of waste.
Reflection of Ruth, Israeli peace
began to feel uncomfortable with all those dead. We had raised and educated their children to have them killed in the war. We sent them the principles of democracy, solidarity, and then we saw them turn into killers or killed. We began our silent and persistent protest. We were few, stand still in the middle of the road with our signs and people spit at us and insulted us. But then the island of consciousness representing widened. Extended to other mothers, she touched the reservists, the intellectuals. People began to understand what a mess Israel was the choice of the Lebanon war.
After the terrible episode of Sabra and Shatila, the population took to the streets. 400,000 people in the square of the Kings
In early 1990 the movement was most visible to Peace Now, however, after the Oslo accords, the voltage dropped and the movement is missing. In Israel there lived a very relaxed atmosphere and peace seemed to be a done deal. The shock of the killing of Rabin caught us unprepared. The tears flowed freely in the streets of Tell Aviv crying not only killed the prime minister, but peace itself. And there were all the reasons, with his right hand and the impending movement demobilized. In those years he had grown up in Israeli society a strong need for reconciliation between the right and left, national reunification, this meant a major shift to the right. In the territories of the Palestinian autonomy in the period and that of Barak Nethanjau settlements doubled, instead of being dismantled as was provided in the agreements, other lands were expropriated, while the Palestinian National Authority is exercised over a minimum area, fragmented, divided and the refugee problem was entirely suspended. In this situation it was difficult to expect a new revolt, but left intellectuals preoccupied with themselves and unwilling to take care of others did not understand this Intifada, they have experienced as a betrayal. From there, campaigns that have given birth, denigration of the political positions of the Palestinians, in their articles distributed throughout Europe, where they argued that the problem is not the occupation of the territories, but the claim of right of return of Palestinian refugees would destroy them if they were satisfied with their numbers the Israeli state.
an intellectual, someone said, is naturally compelled to investigate the reality, even against himself, even if that reality is equal to deepen its own destruction because if you stop doing it, it ceases to be an intellectual too. But this does not apply to "our" and the rest of us are intellectuals whose job is to cover the games of the scheme. Before the
Oslo. The Palestinians and their President Arafat were all terrorists, Israeli children were in the dreams of the evil ogre, then this perception has been resized, but after the beginning of the intifada are back to being a nation of terrorists without shades. Unfortunately it was not only our left-wing intellectuals to feel annoyed by the Palestinians who never cease to get excited, we have all been taken by a feeling of tiredness and lethargy. So much so that at the beginning of this uprising, we wondered what they want then, because Arafat did not sign the peace at Camp David, and so on.
E 'was difficult to reach full consciousness of how things are, it was painful, excruciating. But you have to get to the bottom of what is the reality, otherwise we will not change anything. What I have said so far has been taken to justify to the bitter end of the enemy and treason. I understand, what I say is very unpleasant. However go to the roots of the conflict is the only way to develop solutions without violence. E 'to remove the internalization of the enemy that precludes any possibility of dialogue, rejecting the entrenchment of nationalist and militarist positions. E 'must open to us to listen to the "enemy" of his story of his aspirations, just a sincere dialogue will allow a mutual understanding that will not lead to a militaristic "security" but a genuine peace for both our peoples.
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