Palestinians Will Never Forget, by susan abulhawa

[susan abulhawa]

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Palestinians Will Never Forget
By susan abulhawa
How can anyone watchingGaza burn escape the bitter realization that
history repeats itself?  Many have comparedIsrael’s treatment of
Palestinians to Apartheid SouthAfrica.  But not in their cruelest hour did
the Apartheid regime wreak such wanton murder and destruction.  Let us stop
mincing words.  What is happening to Palestinians now whispers ofWarsaw
andLodz.
Schools, universities, mosques, police stations, homes, water treatment
plants, factories, and anything that supports civil society, including the
only mental health clinic inGaza, have been blown to rubble from planes
that rain death from clear skies without any resistance, because
Palestinians have no opposing air force.  Nor do they have an army or navy.
 No mechanized armor or heavy weaponry.  Thanks toIsrael, they haven’t
even had continuous electricity or fuel for the past two years.  Or food
and medicine. Israel’s siege and blockade ofGaza has prevented the
movement of people and goods in and out ofGaza, including the import of the
most basic goods necessary for survival.
A recent study by the Red Cross showed that 46 percent of Gazan children
suffer from anemia.  Malnutrition affects 75 percent ofGaza’s population,
half of whom are under the age of 17.  There has been widespread deafness
among children due toIsrael’s intentional and frequent sonic booms from
low overflights. An alarming number have stunted growth and serious mental
disorders due lack of food.  The only way they have been able to survive
thus far has been due to the tunnels that smuggle food and goods fromEgypt.

Half of Gazan children under 12 have lost their “will to live.”  Can
anyone fathom the kind of oppression that leads small children en mass to
lose their will to live?
This is whatIsrael has done toGaza over the past two years.  They
ghettoized Gaza and turned it into an open air prison – a concentration
camp of civilians with no way to earn a living, no way to defend themselves
and no place to run from the slaughter bombarding them from air, land, and
sea.  From the white phosphorous disemboweling young and old alike.  Hear eyewitness accounts:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ev6ojm62qwA&feature=channel_page]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ev6ojm62qwA&feature=channel_page.
But Gazans dared to try to resist with pathetic homemade rockets that,
untilIsrael’s barbaric attack, generally landed in open desert.  The
rockets were mostly symbolic of resistance, very much like the fighters in
the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. But who would have called on a ceasefire there,
in 1943, for “both parties” to “cease the violence”?  Who would
have blamed the Ghetto fighters for their ultimate fate?  Who would say
they had no right to resist?  No right to fight back?
Just as Nazis gave Jews only the right to die silently,Israel starves and
besieges Palestinians, giving them only that same right.  Just as the
Warsaw Ghetto was blown to rubble,Gaza is left to burn in an inferno, its
hospitals bursting with the puss of death and unspeakable wounds.  The
entire population ofGaza is terrorized and traumatized.  No one is spared
the insecurity and fear.  Imagine, please, that you are a Gazan.
What have Palestinians done to deserve such a fate?  To be endlessly
hunted like animals?  To have their homes demolished, their ancient history
and heritage cast into forgotten space?  To languish in refugee camps and
slums, while Jews from all corners of the earth flock to fill their
confiscated homes and farms?  To be tortured, imprisoned, and denied in
every conceivable way?
What have we done that leaders will not speak against this massive and
cold aggression against our people?  With what logic do you call
Palestinians terrorists when their streets flow with the blood of their own
children?  When they have been stripped naked of possessions, dignity and
hope?
Why?  Because they elected Hamas?  Hamas has held power for less than two
years.  Yet, Palestinians have suffered this kind of slaughter for 61
years.  Whether now in Gaza, in 2002 in Jenin, in 1947 and 1948 in Deir
Yasin, Balad el-Sha, Yehida, Tantura, and the list goes on.  Or 1982 in
Sabra and Shatila.
Palestinians are killed as if insects not because of Hamas or Yasser
Arafat before them.  Not because of Qassasm rockets or hand thrown rocks.
Palestinians burn and bleed because they are the non-Jewish natives of that
land.  There is no other reason.   Just like Jews were killed for being
Jewish.  Palestinians are killed for being the Muslims and Christians who
hold historic, legal and even genetic title to that land.
But unlike Jews of Europe, Palestinians are killed slowly over decades.
UnlikeIsrael, Nazi Germany did not establish such an effective global
propaganda machine that would demonize its victims and blame them for their
own ghastly fate.  But most importantly, like the fighters of the Warsaw
Ghetto, Palestinians do not march like mice to their death.  In six decades
of enduring unspeakable oppression, their will has not been broken.  Now is
no exception.
Israel, and theUnited States with its unconditional support, will only
succeed in radicalizing a whole new generation of its victims. Of revving
world hatred and resentment against this unholy duo.
Palestinians will not forget this, as they have not forgotten the past 60
years.  But what will you remember a week or a year or a decade from now,
when a Gazan, who stood before the long rows of corpses and vowed
vengeance, creates your 9-11?  When one of those few million children
without a will to live straps on a belt that rips through your daily
routine?  Will you remember what we did to them?

susan abulhawa is the author of The Scar of David,
[http://www.scarofdavid.com/] www.scarofdavid.com
 

This message was sent by: Playgrounds for Palestine, 132 Pennsylvania Ave, Yardley, pa 19067

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