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CounterPunch
September
19, 2002
The Rape of
a Nation
by
Salam Rahal
It has been many months since I last wrote anything
that I believe would be a contribution toward the struggle of
Palestinians for freedom, independence and most importantly justice.
I found that my inability to write was part of both an inner
and external struggle as a deep sadness has been rooted in my
heart and for so many months weaved itself around me--body and
soul. Since September 2000, the outbreak of the Palestinian struggle
for independence, the Al-Aqsa Intifada, I have born witness to
the rape of a nation, people and land. In my thirty-one years
on this earth I have gone though many struggles -- beginning
as a young girl to womanhood to belonging to a 'minority; and
being a firm and strong believer and follower of feminism. However,
nothing in my thirty-one years prepared me for witnessing the
rape of a nation and what I truly believe is outright ethnic
cleansing of a people--all in broad daylight and on prime time
TV.
I first came to the Occupied Palestinian
Territories (OPT) in June 1987, about a year before the outbreak
of what is called the first intifada (uprising). It was then
that my parents decided that it was time my sisters and brothers
and I 'understand' the Palestinian culture, way of life and to
learn Arabic. Being young and rebellious, I was adamant on not
going back home. Daily--with the volume as high as it can go,
I listened to Bruce Springstein's 'Born in the USA' over and
over again. It was funny how all the neighborhood children memorized
the words and would gather around my bedroom window and sing--pretending
to play guitar and drums in the air. It is sad to say that those
activities were the highlight of my life at that time. However,
because these were the summer months and time was spent mostly
at home as relatives and neighbors came to see 'the Americans',
I had yet to know and understand the meaning of living in the
Occupied Palestinian Territories.
At the end of 1988 the first intifada
broke out. By that time I had made friends at the Quaker run
Friends Girls School (FGS) in Ramallah where I was studying and
taking part in extracurricular activities that helped me 'adapt'
to living here. However, in December 1988, at the outbreak of
the Intifada, the Israeli government forced shut all the schools,
including kindergartens and universities. That was my first taste
at collective punishment and at the violation of basic rights
such as the right to education. FGS decided on an alternative
program to allow students to continue their education. Students
would go to school and pick up homework and submit homework from
the previous day--this went on for one year when my parents decided
that this form of education is not suffice and decided to return
to the US. Unlike my fellow classmates, I had the 'opportunity'
to continue my education elsewhere.
It was during this time that I really
began to understand what 'occupation' meant--basically someone
else (in this case the Israeli government) controlled every aspect
of your life. This meant that if the Israeli government decided
to impose curfew--I was not allowed to go to school, to see my
friends, to even go to the corner store. Curfew had a different
meaning than that of what I was used to in the US--meaning that
anyone under 18 years of age had to be home before 10:00pm for
his or her own safety. Curfew imposed by the Israeli government
only for Palestinian cities, towns and refugee camps meant that
no one--adult, minor or child could step outside the door of
their home even for medical emergencies and food. I learned what
it meant to be a prisoner in your own home--under house arrest--just
for being Palestinian. Whenever I had a chance to go to school,
I would later follow my older sister to Al-Haq, a human rights
organization in Ramallah. It was there that I discovered what
had happened in South Africa, Sri Lanka, El Salvador and Guatemala.
I think I was the youngest person there but I began to learn
of my identity and developed a love for reading and poetry. I
was introduced to the writings of Edward Said (I always had a
dictionary next to me), Nawal El Saadawi and poets and literary
writers such as Salma Khadra Jayyusi, Mahmoud Darwish, Fadwa
Tuqan and Khalil Jubran Khalil. Those became the highlights of
my days as I waited for the return to the US.
Upon returning to the US--I felt that
I had a lot to say to my friends that I left behind--there were
so many things that I lived through and witnessed. I felt that
I had to tell the world what I saw and heard. Friends and classmates
had their own lives and talking about Palestine did not interest
them--it was a world away. I felt out of place--I was more serious,
I had to read the daily papers and listen to the news so that
I know what was happening in a far away land that had become
such an important part of me. A place that helped me shape my
identity--a place that played an integral part in the woman I
was to become.
Less than ten years later I made one
of the most important decisions in my life. In August 1996, I
returned to Palestine to live. What I had been witness to in
my real life crash course of illegal occupation in the late 1980's
had ingrained in me a need to see justice and see the Palestinian
people live free and dignified lives. A few months after my
return I again bore witness to horrific and repelling actions,
again by the Israeli government against the Palestinian people
in what is now called the Jerusalem Tunnel Massacre. Living in
the city of Jerusalem, I actually heard the gunfire, saw the
unhesitant fingers of Israeli soldiers continuously pressing
the triggers of their M16 rifles aimed at Palestinian women,
men and children running for their lives. I saw bodies covered
with blood rushed out of the area--each body held by several
young men because the Israeli's prevented ambulances from reaching
the injured, many of whom died of their wounds because of the
inability to access medical assistance. Some bodies laid in public
for sometime because people were afraid to assist them because
of the trigger-happy Israeli soldiers and police. That is a day
that I will never forget and still haunts me many years later.
Hoping and believing that things would
get better, I began to make Israeli friends believing that one
day we would live side by side--each of us in our state and each
of us living in dignity. The hope began to slip away as daily
violations against basic rights of Palestinians continued. The
lack of action by the Israeli peace camp began to draw me away
from some of the Israeli friends I had made--as I questioned
their inaction to their government's clear policies of ethnic
cleansing of Palestinians. However, those that I kept in touch
with worked tirelessly, firmly believing and acting upon Dr.
Martin Luther King's saying, 'There comes a time when silence
is betrayal'.
Believing that the 'situation' cannot
get any worse, I was struck with a hard and powerful blow on
September 28, 2000, when Ariel Sharon's infamous walk into one
of the holiest Muslim sites created and uproar among Muslim and
Christian Palestinians and led to what is now called the Al-Aqsa
Intifada. For the past two years, from the Labor to the Likud
governments, a kill to shoot policy against Palestinians was
adopted. This of course is never said to the public, but with
over 2000 Palestinians killed and over 20,000 injured with a
high percentage targeted in the upper body parts--no words need
to be said. Placing a whole population in an open prison, including
children who are prevented from going to school or playing outside--no
words need to be said. Assassinating at least 80 Palestinians
and 'by mistake' or 'unintentionally' taking hundreds of lives
of others including children in the process--no words need to
be said. Re-displacing refugees from the 1948 (historical Palestine)
that live in refugee camps again--like in Jenin Camp, Balata
and Rafah no words need to be said.
I can't help but feel that this inner
sadness is a shared one with Holocaust survivors as they watched
their family members, friends and neighbors perish one by one
as I watch Palestinian children, women and men perish one by
one. A mirror image of the Holocaust crosses my mind as Palestinian
boys and men between the ages of 14--60 are rounded up in school
yards or open grounds--some tied up and blindfolded and some
with numbers written on their arms and foreheads. By orders from
the government, men are also rounded up in buildings or outside
their workplaces and killed execution style for just being Palestinian.
A mirror image also crosses my mind as
we both shout and scream to the world for help--to interfere
to stop the genocide. It is sad to say that all of this is happening
as the world watches and as Americans we preach about civilized
society and living in the 21st century--in a modern world. What
right does the 'modern world' have to take away the life of Palestinians
and by what right does Israel's 'democracy' continue its genocide,
ethnic cleansing, displacement and assassinations? As an American,
I was taught that democracy means right to life, freedom of speech
and due process--all of which lack in what Israel considers a
'democracy' as it continues the rape of a nation, a people and
a land.
Salam Rahal
is a pseudonym for a Palestinian-American living in the Occupied
Palestinian Territorie. Salam can be reached at salamrahal71@yahoo.com
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