Gaza ground zero 2009

Gaza ground zero 2009

One, two, ten, one hundred…. The rain falls and the news are loud… no space is safe… no shade to hide… Hell is all around.
Two hundred thirty, three hundred, three hundred and ninety… the race is going on… numbers are counted… houses, schools, mosques, industries, and human beings…
The beggars are begging… the needy are crying… practice your humanity people… shed some tears… have pity… donate a little or much for such a humanitarian cause…. Demonstrate in the streets… rise your voice… protest… practice your humanity and don’t be a complicit with injust and war crimes….
The eloquent speakers speak. The great or little politicians are on the microphones. The camera films and the cameramen are posted everywhere the bombs sing and the victims dance and fall in blood baths or under the ruins of their houses or in prayers or even in the schools. The writers have found moving themes to write about. The singers are more emotional than ever. The artists are more inspired than ever. The generous people are donating, and humanitarian aid is on the way.
The ugliness is uglier than ever. The shame is greater than ever. Helplessness is enveloping what remains of our humanity. Shamelessness is the only menu on the table of the UN, International politics and agendas. Complicity is the daily bread of international community and defenders of so-called human rights and international law… and “Israel has the right to defend itself” is the only slogan in international and Israeli rhetoric.

Israel has the right to defend itself! What does this mean? Erase a whole nation? Palestinians have no right to defend themselves? Palestinians don’t have the right to live, as free human beings, and to practice this freedom and humanity on their “Occupied” land. Israel continues occupying a whole Palestine, close cities, to forbid free movement for people, to decide who can live where, to decide when one can get married or not, with whom one can fall in love, and when one can pass a checkpoint and get out of his/her home. Israeli “care” is killing us.

“They have the right to defend their civilians” great news for a state composed of an army, where every civilian is a trained soldier (except for few hundreds of brave young people who dare to refuse to serve in such army of occupation). This so-called only democratic state in the middle state, has no defined borders, no defined map, no constitution, no respect to international law or human rights or Forth Geneva Convention, and wins the sympathy by a programmed media war… Europe is compensating her by awarding her with discussing upgrading relations and the US with more funding and sophisticated weapons and protection against any international punishment. Gaza and the West Bank is the big animal laboratory for every trial of new weapons.

“Enough is Enough” declares a monster in the shape of a woman, who tries to exceed in her terrorism all those who preceded her and compete with her to lead Israel from illegality to illegality, destruction to destruction, crimes against humanity to crimes against the so-called human rights and international law. Name any Israeli prime minister who ruled Israel and have no history in terrorism. Name any prime Minister who in order to win elections or please the national opinion do not express themselves except by killing us? Please do….

“Enough is Enough” she says. What should we say after 60 years of occupation and humiliation and programmed killing, stealing and destruction of Palestinian people, properties and infrastructures? Don’t we have that right as well to say “Enough is Enough”? Don’t we have the right to hold Israel and the Great Britain for responsible of all the crimes committed against us under the British Mandate and Israeli occupation?

I am bitter and enraged. I have such anger in me, as I guess in everyone who still has a bit of humanity and justice and respect to human values. One remains stuck in front of TV screens and sees the level of degradation humans can reach, and carelessness and complicity with injustice and infraction of every value that make of us human beings.

Tears are ashamed to fall down… Our wounds are blood red of humiliation... Are we looked at only as numbers? Should all those who are massacred remain only as figures without a name or a face? Don’t they deserve to be known, and their story to be told, and the crime they committed to deserve to be killed in such way?

We are Palestinians, and I can say that we are losing our creativity in facing death and Israeli criminal arrogance. We are losing our inventive methods in dealing with international complicity with injustice and continuous policies of conditioning us to accept realities on the ground. We have no more alternative ways to find justification to accept international and Israeli dictation of a code of behavior that only erase our humanity and identity, and transform us into faceless slaves. We find no possibility to accept justifications presented by the Palestinian authority for its incapacity to protect us, with all these endless negotiations and agreements and promises. May the president of this authority resolve this authority, at least the whole world can see that we are still under Israeli occupation. Our Palestinian authority has no authority on anything, except maybe running behind some kids who try to throw stones at the tours of Israeli snipers in their 24 or 30 feet high wall tours.


Since years, I ask myself: Why do you Israelis hate yourself so much that you force everyone who has a sense of justice to hate you? We were not born and we were not raised to hate, to destroy and to kill. We do not want this hate. Spare us your lies and crimes and threats and your lessons of wisdom. Spare us your hatred, your terrorism, and your massacres. Take your hatred with you and leave. Take your terror with you and leave. Take your walls with you and leave.

Spare us your generosity in allowing some humanitarian aid to filter in Gaza. We do not want your pity and you charity. We do not want anyone’s pity or charity. We do not want you to have a justification to continue your crimes. Spare us your tears and your charity actions, and leave us to die in dignity… Do you think we care when you bombard us and while we are dying whether we die the stomach full or empty?

Gaza is burning. Gaza is in fire. The Israeli war is not against Palestinian people but against Hamas they say. The Israeli bombardments are surgical and precise they say. They are so precise that they kill school boys in UNRWA schools, and kill entire families and 4 months old babies… Spare us your precision please. Name please one international law that can give you this right of collective punishments and massacres?

People all over the world are filling the streets demonstrating with slogans of protest, and accusations to the international silence everywhere. They express their humanity and emotions of refusal to the degradation of human values. They express their solidarity with the tortured spirits. But for those who remain silent, those who do not care, I hope you will look tonight in the mirror, and look deep and ask yourself: If your child came to you tonight or tomorrow or in ten or twenty years and asked you: what did you do to make a change?
The year closes its doors, and the New Year opens new gate…. What will be our first steps?
May your tomorrow be better than our today… may your children and all those you care about find the peace they deserve as human beings… We remain despite the jungle we are forced to live in human beings who defend their humanity even in such conditions…
May you live in peace…. With a capital P, like Palestine….