I resent those who die peacefully ...

It’s been above 10 days since Israel started its military operation (massacre) over Gaza, so far – and keep in mind this massacre is still going and the numbers of murdered people will only keep increasing- there are 220 dead Gazans bombarded by Israeli –paid by U.S. taxes- missiles with over 1623 injured, and still counting. While at the same time there is one dead Israeli who was volunteering for the IOF (Israeli Occupation Forces) in addition to several injuries by Qassam’s missiles.  

In this small nothing of an article, I’ll try not to be emotional as much as possible. I won’t plead for your inner human to act and do something, I hate this method anyway. I think it’s pathetic if you’ll ask me, to only pull people to your cause based on emotions and heart-breaking images of bombarded house, decapitated children, and bloody burnt bodies. Because it doesn’t really do anything, people will get heart-broken, pray to a God who never does anything, and move on.

I’d rather we deal with facts, real actions happening on real ground, with analysis, and sometimes with numbers. Because humanity no longer exists to me, it’s circumstantial; it’s an invented term that we convinced ourselves of and only use it when we want to, not when it demands us to. I don’t believe in it, so I’ll try to pull away from this so-called humanity as much as possible.

In these past 10 days of hell a lot has been going on, other than the act of murder of innocent people. Yes we were heart-broken, yes we had a lot of sleepless nights doing nothing but crying and wailing over the news of hearing that a an entire family of relatives and loved ones, of 18 members, were murdered all at once leaving children behind with nothing but the occupied sky to look after them, and then repeated all over again when another family is erased. Boo hoo right? How awful it is for us, you know the ones who DON’T have missiles bombing their houses on daily and hourly basis? But never mind. Again this is not the point here, I promise I won’t let my inner-invented-human come up again.

In these past 10 days I tried to keep as much track as possible of media worldwide covering this so-called conflict between Hamas and Israel, and the results that I –among many others- have reached are beyond comprehensible. That’s on one hand, on the other hand the Israeli logic continues to amaze me with the bullshit it feeds people locally and worldwide, and how terrifying it is that people actually believe it!

Among the bullshit that the media –filled with Israeli propaganda- is telling people is that A) Hamas has waged this war, and they’re a terrorist organization using their citizens as human shields to protect their missile launchers and do their dirty work. B) It is not a massacre; it is a conflict between two even sides, and after all Israel IS fighting for a righteous cause: annihilating terrorism. C) Regardless of the situation, the “IDF” are the most moral army in the world where they warn their victims before bombing the hell out of them.

I could write pages and pages, if not books, on how the media is blinded and blinding its receivers of this news and I could refute it, but Jon Stewart with his satirical comedy has done a very good job summing it up in 3 minutes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VheYOMyjTg0 

But still I have several remarks on the topic, if you'll tolerate me.

As to the so-called definite fact that Hamas “waged this war”, let me remind you that Netanyahu accused Hamas of being the culprit  behind the murder of the three settlers in Hebron a couple of weeks back, and he promised that they would pay. And he kept his promise by immediately bombing Gaza with rockets.

Then you’d always have the word “terrorist” connected to Hamas, because they fire rockets at innocent Israeli citizens. And every time I hear this I find myself wondering, what if there was a Palestinian country and Hamas militants were the “official” army of this country. You know they have the suits, the different levels of commands, commanders, lieutenants , and generals , their own slogans, and Army’s spokesperson...etc. Will that make it okay? Will they stop being terrorists? 

Because if you’ll ask me, the IDF is one of the biggest terrorist organizations on the planet, the only difference is the fancy suits and huge pay-checks they get over Palestinian dead bodies. In other words, the IDF is more “legal” and “official” than Hamas, and Hamas militants don’t have a "state" to protect like the IDF. They merely have a nation to protect, over 1.7 million Gazans who have been living in an open-air prison for the past 8 years, but still. They don’t have a "state", so “technically” they’re not “legitimate”.

And then to back up the “definite” fact mentioned above, you’ll keep hearing this phrase over and over again on the news: “Hamas use their citizens as human shields”, this has got to be the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. How are they using them as human shields? Was it by hiding rocket-launchers in their citizens’ houses, mosques, and hospitals? If that’s the case, how come no militants or their weaponry were found among these citizens’ burnt bodies or their houses’ ruins? Where are these dangerously armed Hamas militants? Even the Israeli media can’t confirm that they’ve actually hit a Hamas target and succeeded.

Now the argument made above will only make sense if you’re a sick psychopath that needs a mental hospital immediately. Because if you think for one second, that it is okay or acceptable or necessary to kill an entire family in order to get rid of one threat –with no clear evidence- then I’m telling you, from the deepest place in my heart, go lock yourself somewhere and never come out ever again and punish yourself by banging your head to the wall for the rest of your life.

I understand war is chaotic, messy, and ugly. But what’s happening in Gaza is not a war, it is genocide, a new holocaust that’s happening on daily basis and the entire world is justifying it as “necessary” to stop “terrorism”. I don’t know what’s more horrifying, how innocent lives are easily lost in Gaza or how it’s accepted globally by people as something “required” and “needed” to happen in order to establish “world peace”. Well, I’m sorry to break it for you people, blood and peace don’t really mix well together. If it’s bloody, it’s not peace, it is murder.

Still, regardless of all that has been mentioned above, the IDF still consider themselves to be the most moral army in the world, and this is their proof:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHsMrbXmN9Y

You would immediately notice how disgusting it is, and how this army actually justifies the murder of over 200 innocent people. How? By pretending it never happened. They actually convince themselves that they are targeting empty houses, that by sending  “warning rockets” (that also does tons of damage on its own before the “real” rockets hit) they are actually saving lives, and that by sending warnings or calling Gazans to evacuate they are giving them a chance to run for their life.

Are they really this blind and this stupid? Or is it just a method to convince themselves that they are merely “humans” defending their holy Israel? Or do they care in the first place if their targets were actually Hamas militants or innocent people? Because also, according to the Israeli logic, these citizens are protecting Hamas militants and hence they are culprits that are helping a terrorist organization, and therefore why shouldn’t they die as well?

If this is the army being moral, then now I believe morality is also an invented concept that we use as we desire, or as people in power desire.

I know I promised not to play the “we’re all humans” card, but I can’t help it.

Yesterday four kids –with the oldest being 11- were bombed by an Israeli missile while playing soccer on the beach. How did the Israelis receive this “irrelevant piece of news”? As if it never happened, or as if it’s expected to happen, or blamed Palestinians themselves for it. How dare these stupid Palestinians send their kids out to play on the beach, it is war!!! And so what if four have died, the Israelis had three abducted and murdered, so these four kids aren’t better than the three murdered settlers. 

Now with this kind of logic, from the Israeli military to the Israeli citizens to the world media and countries, don’t come and lecture me about “moralities”, “two-sides“ bullshit, and “why can’t we all be humans” nonsense. When the three Israeli settlers went missing, the entire world knew what they looked like, how old they were, what their names were and their favorite hobbies. 

But when over 220 were bombed to death, the world seemed to let it slip through. No faces, no names, no hobbies … they are nothing. They are numbers. They are not even humans. They are the ones who brought it upon themselves for protecting Hamas missiles, because you know … Palestinian 11-year-old kids are miniature-adults and are supposed to be held responsible for Hamas’s actions and so it’s okay to bomb the hell out of them. They’re nothing but collateral damage.

And then again, the media would still say the Gazans are warned, they have time to evacuate, why won’t they go anywhere safe? Why are there no shelters?

 Well maybe if Gaza wasn’t bombed every two years, and maybe if construction materials were allowed in, and maybe if there was infrastructure in the first place, maybe then Gazans will be able to have shelters. But other than that, Gaza is not just the biggest open-air prison on planet earth anymore; it’s the biggest cemetery as well.

And as much as I’d love it if they can actually “swim for it”, as Jon Stewart has indicated in his comic satire of the situation, he forgot a tiny small detail. The sea is also controlled by the Israelis, so scratch that off the list of the possibilities to escape. There is no escape.

Looking back on this past month alone, and for a second here I’ll forget about decades of pain and oppression, from the kidnapping of the three “human” settlers, to their murder, to the kidnapping of Muhammad Abu Khdeir and burning him to death, to the massacre of Gazans for the past 10 days … I find myself resenting people in general more and more. I resent it when I’m scrolling down facebook newsfeed to have someone celebrating their birthday among two posts of how four kids in Gaza were bombed while playing on the beach, and how a hospital for the handicapped was bombed. I can’t tolerate “happy” and “relieved” at the moment. Every time I laugh at something, or drink my favorite coffee, or have the luxury to read my books calmly and comfortably, I feel guilty and I resent myself.

At least it started like this, me resenting myself and then it kept growing and growing. Then I started resenting happy people, and afterwards it grew some more. Now more than ever I resent those who die peacefully, I don’t want to know about an 86 year-old man who died peacefully in the arms of his family and loved ones.  I don’t want to know about some heroic woman who lost her battle against cancer and was able to say goodbye to every single one of her loved ones. I resent them. Why do they get a chance to say goodbye? Why do they get to have some kind of a safe lifetime with their loved ones while kids and innocent people are being bombed to death?

“Don’t be so cruel” was what my friend from Gaza has told me when I confined to her my resentment of people with ordinary lives. The girl who is right under the wing of death on daily basis is telling me to not be so cruel. Then she added, “Don’t let the war take away your humanity from you, it has already taken too many humans”.

But well, I had to disappoint her, I had already lost my humanity. I admit it, I’m no longer the sympathetic, equal-rights advocate (wanna-be), and humanitarian that I was once considered to be. I lost that segment, but then again the world isn’t any better.

Actually, for once in human history we are all equal. We are all bystanders to massacres committed against innocent people on daily basis, bystanders to massacres in Syria, in Gaza, in Iraq, in different parts of Africa, in Ukrain … etc.

So maybe the Palestinian media and Pro-Palestine activists should stop begging and pleading people around the world to “wake up”, and stop screaming at them with “where’s your humanity” while carrying images of disfigured bodies of little kids who were bombed to death. If anything at the moment, it’s only pointless and inhumane.

And since we’re all inhuman in this together, it won’t make a difference anyway. 

                                                

This portrait is by Mohammad Qaraqe': a 13-year-old young artist who lives in gaza.

This portrait was found on the facebook page "Humans of Palestine"

Click here t be directed to it.

"I should have picked up that rock"

We had our Ramadan Iftar meal at my grandmother’s house in Beit Hanina yesterday– an East Jerusalem neighborhood – and after we were done we drank some tea and watched some Ramadan TV series and then it was time to leave.

I’ve started reading a book called “The Book Thief” during my last semester at university, but stopped because I got too caught up on my studying, and only recently I resumed it. For those of you who don’t know it, it’s a Holocaust book that is narrated by death itself, so it gives us quiet an extraordinary perspective on the whole “event”.  It was painful to read, too many deaths, too much inhumanity and degradation of human life, and too much hatred and loathing towards humans. Not far from the situation we’re in today.

But reading that book while witnessing and living the recent events of the brutal murder of Muhammad Abu Khdier –after he was burnt alive by Israeli settlers- and the series of clashes that happened afterwards, made the book a whole lot harder to read and finish than it already was. But I had to get it over with.  

I finished the last few pages, filled with so much death like the rest of the book, while we were in our car heading back to our house. My mother decided to try and go through Shu’fat – Muhammad’s hometown and where there have been clashes since the day he was murdered and it has been completely closed by the IOF (Israeli Occupation Forces)- in order to get at least a glimpse of what has been going on for the past few, but very long, days.

When we got to the entrance, like the rest of people there, we stopped the car automatically. A group of people, over 20 or 30, were standing at the entrance merely watching and observing alongside us the passengers safely sitting in our cars. We only watched.

From afar, we could see lights in the sky moving back and forth with banging sounds and burnt smells filling the air. They were a range of sound-bombs and light-bombs, in addition to bullets and gas canisters that we could clearly smell. But that was all there was to it, us watching from a distance.

The sad part was, while the clashes were happening; only three soldiers were guarding the entrance.

 Three.

 1,2, and 3.

Which means, if  only ten of us stood up to them, picked up our rocks and used them we would be able to at least stop them from “guarding” the entrance and we’d be able to go in to support the mourning family of Abu Khdeir, but we didn’t.

You want to call that violence or unnecessary set of actions or terrorist act or whatever it is they call it these days, be my guest. For once I’d welcome such naming, because for the first time it was clear to me. “Peaceful” actions are not the answer, not anymore. Not when there are young kids being tortured and burnt to death.

My stomach used to cringe and my throat would burn every time I hear a little 13 year old kid on TV saying he’s joining the clashes because he wants to die for freedom, for Palestine, and that they’re here so they’d become martyrs, just like Muhammad. But if anything, these little kids know more about life than we do.

It’s been almost 70 years since the Holocaust has happened, and nothing’s has changed. Humanity has learnt nothing.

Proof: the same people who were subjected to being burnt alive based on their ethnicity and religion committed the same monstrous crime based on the same reasons towards other people.

The estimated number of Jews murdered in the Holocaust varied but settled on almost 6 million human beings. How many more do we need to learn our lesson? Some more thousands? Some more millions?

Done. Then what? Nothing.

And that’s the result these 13-year-old kids yearning to die have reached, and they’re right. We’re on this constant struggle to humanize ourselves, to portray ourselves in certain images and roles, as heroes, as powerful mothers, as revolutionists, and most importantly as humans. And how do we do that? By dying. The only way for a Palestinian to look human is to look and be dead, and these little kids –whether knowingly or not- know this and implement it on daily bases.

Because other than that, they’re not really living anyway. On the “normal daily” life, these kids were always subjected to death or detention by Israeli forces, the brutal murder of Muhammad Abu Khdeir was what made this fact more subtle and visible to them and to us.

On daily bases kids in Gaza are subjected to random Rocket Raids over their houses. I have a friend there that I know I should check upon after every raid but it freaks the hell out of me to do so. What if I don’t get a response? And what if I do but someone she knows is missing? And for how long will she handle it? She’s survived two wars, two massacres, how will I or she know if she’ll survive the third?

And my heart died a hundred times just writing these words that I’m afraid after I’ve uttered them it might make room for them to become true, but not saying them out loud won’t make the fear of them coming true any less.  

All of these murders with the smell of death everywhere prove how lifeless the situation is already, and it calls us to at least pick up our rocks. And if death was the inevitable then so be it, because these rocks will only bring us closer to the fact we’ve been running from ever since we were born anyway. That life under occupation isn’t life. It’s barely surviving and surviving isn’t living. Resisting, on the other hand, is. Fighting back, picking up the rock is.

The entire ride back home, after finishing “The Book Thief” and measuring down the weight of its words and clarity of the world that it has provided, all I was left with was the repetition of these words over and over and over again in my head; “Why didn’t I pick up those rocks?”

But I’m a coward. I hide behind my words, but deep down I know – or at least hope- this cowardice won’t last long and there will be a time when words won’t be enough for me anymore. When words won’t save my life like they did for “the book thief”, but they’ll be the reason I’ll be set free.

Till then, the repeated desire won’t leave my mind of the fact that I should have picked up that rock. Because to exist is not to resist, but to take action is. 

                               "During Shu'fat uprising after Muhammad's murder" 

No, it was not “Revenge”, we call it Murder.

This morning we all woke up to news’ headline “Palestinian teenabducted, killed in suspected revenge attack”, where the 16-year-old Muhammad Hussein Abu Khdeir was found dead, torched, in a forest in Jerusalem. All the analysis regarding this murder centers around the same concept, it was the settlers “revenge” for their three killed sons. Especially since after yesterday there were a lot of calls by Israelis to “kill the Arabs” and “Death to the Arabs”, and hence we got a hint about their future lynching operations.

So we can call what’s happened a kidnap and murder, or a hideous crime, an act of merciless killing, but never “revenge”. Revenge against what exactly? The three dead settlers? What about the fact that 1 Palestinian has been killed every three days since 2000 – not mentioning the thousands before this time period? Or the fact that only since the “abduction” of the settlers was announced 566 Palestinians were detained –abducted- by Israeli Occupation Forces, where over 2100 houses were searched, and by searched I mean flipped upside down and sabotaged. In addition to 10 Palestinians killed, and over a 100 Palestinians were sentenced to indefinite administrative detention. So again, what revenge and against whom exactly?

What do Israelis expect exactly of us? Sometimes it might feel that we got used to all the humiliation we’ve been living under for all of our lives, from the “hellpoints” to demolishing houses for no definite reason every now and then, to “abducting” our friends and neighbors – and for your information, there’s over 190 abducted Palestinian kids in Israeli prisons- and throwing them in Israeli prisons for months and months or years or even life-sentences. Or killing Palestinians every now and then for the sake of the Most Moral Army in the World’s practice and training. Yes, sometimes it might seem like we’re used to it. Yet other times, real times, we’re never used to it and never will be. And actions will be taken.

Again, what do they expect? For us to hug them while kidnapping our people? Or to give them a glass water for all the hard work they’re doing while demolishing one of our houses? Or maybe, a Palestinian mother should distribute roses to the soldiers who killed her son? Or maybe, since they stand for hours and hours on their “hellpoints” humiliating us, we should bring them ice cream and umbrellas to make this heat a little less of hell to them.

But that’s not going to happen, you treat people like shit, you kill them and smash their lives as if they were nothing, there’s going to be a reaction in return. And it’s not going to be a friendly one.

So the kidnapping of the settlers was nothing but a reaction to years and years of oppression, humiliation and murder. I’m not saying this is okay, I’m saying –truly- what the heck do Israelis expect? If anything when their sons were kidnapped, it should’ve been their wake-up call to realize that what they’re doing has consequences, ugly-horrendous-hideous consequences. But what do they do in return? Call for the “Death of Arabs”, who they’re already killing! And what does their government do? Blow up the houses of the “suspected” kidnapers, that till this moment it’s not determined if it were them or not.

We’re living in a world where the truth doesn’t exist, where humanity is only determined by those in power and denied for those living under oppression and tyranny by those in power. Where when someone is suspected of a kidnap and murder, the only action to be taken was bombing their houses, with hundreds of house arrests all around Palestine from Jenin to Nablus to Ramallah, to Jerusalem, and where Gaza is being bombed for someone they suspect he might’ve done the kidnapping in Hebron. And the only global response that we got was the condemnation of the kidnapping, yet no conviction of what has preceded the kidnapping or of what has followed.

A clearer example to show that humanity is only a concept related to those in power,is that the suspects’ of the kidnapping of the Israeli settlers had their houses bombed and their family members arrested. But I’m pretty sure, no one is going to blow up the house of the settlers who kidnapped and murdered Muhammad Hussein Abu Khdeir or arrest their family members.

In the end, it wasn’t revenge on the settlers’ part, and the kidnapping of the three settlers was merely a cry to wake these Israelis up that was simply hushed down and eliminated and turned around, where three “precious human” lives were lost, and the loss of Muhammad’s life was merely “revenge” that somehow needed to be taken.

I just wish we'd reach a point where I won't have to post one more picture of a dead kid, too early to forcefully leave this life. 

الله يرحمك يا محمد 

“Only the Wounded would feel the Pain”

There’s a line from a poem that says, “فلا يحس بالجرح الا من به ألم” which translates; “only the wounded would feel the pain,” this perfectly describes what Palestinian prisoners are going through with “their” hunger strike.

It’s been 42 days of nothing but water filling their stomachs.

And today on the 42^nd day of their agonizing pain, there was yet another demonstration or gathering in solidarity with the 100+ - in addition to thousands who’ve joined the strike recently- Palestinian Administrative Detention prisoners on hunger strike for over a month. Student representatives of each of the parties of Birzeit Universty Students Council have shared their words, they roared, screamed and scratched. Most of them were emotional, some spoke as if they were the prisoners’ –soon to become martyrs as some implied- mothers or wives, others were the children, and some were speaking on behalf of the prisoners themselves. Merely role-playing of course.

And the 42^nd day of the hunger strike didn’t stop, they were still dying.

Tens of students have gathered, and after an hour or so of heavy doses of emotional talk, the students’ body council finally asked us, Birzeit students and professors, to march down Ofer Prison to show our refusal not just with screaming emotional words, but with rocks, with action, with rage. As there seems to be this hidden urge of having  another bloody body of Muhammed Odeh or Nadim Nuwara or our own university student; Saji Darwish. An urge crying out for more martyrs.

So instead of just mourning our prisoners, we’ll mourn more dead young Palestinians; for whom these prisoners are risking their lives for.

While standing there among the students who were showing there “support” and “solidarity” to the prisoners; there were a lot of familiar faces. My classmate, who has a brother participating in the hunger strike in Israeli prisons, was standing there with teary but fierce eyes. A friend, whose father  has been in administrative detention, in and out, for over 16 years –who’s also on hunger strike; was standing there with a blank expression. Another friend whose uncle was robbed of his freedom due to administrative detention in Israeli prisons –another prisoner on hunger strike- was standing there with nothing but rage igniting of her entire body.

These are the only people who would actually understand or feel the pain of these prisoners going on hunger strike.  These are the people who are going to Ofer prison in support of their family members and loved ones dying in Israeli prisons. Hence in the end, it wasn’t a solidarity demonstration. It was these students with their families alone, with us merely passing by them without the tiniest bit of knowledge in how to actually support them. So these students will go down to Ofer, and get shot, and this family won’t have a father dying in Israeli prisons only, but a son or a daughter to add to the list. It’s not just these administrative prisoners on hunger strike who’re dying; it’s everybody close to them as well.

And this makes me grit my teeth in fury.

What I detest the most about growing up is how conscious we become of pain, and how helpless in moments of weakness we stand in front of it. Mute statues with little or no influence over it; especially when it’s not of direct connection to us. And that’s what’s happening right now.

On the 42^nd day of the prisoners’ hunger strike, sadly, other matters were taking place as well, life was taking place. Today a lot of my friends’ had their thesis presentations and discussions; a big day usually. Others were visiting relatives in hospitals who’ve just had a new baby, while some had big exams that were determinant in their academic path. In addition to all the others that were measuring future plans of days yet to come, of a future yet to come; that sooner maybe than later, prisoners and their families would be robbed of.

That’s the cruel reality of the occupation, and of life as a Palestinian.

Life never stops, even when it should.

The fact that life does go on turns the struggle from a collective struggle to an individualistic one; and hence kills it. In order to actually support prisoners in their plight, everyday –at least- every Palestinian should wake up with no goal other than doing everything possible to support them. Whether it was demonstrating at university campuses, or schools, or the streets or in front of the UN, the Red Cross, and the PA’s offices, or closing shops in solidarity, or visiting the families of prisoners, or spreading awareness … etc; it should be a collective act, and not limited only to the Palestinians in Palestine; but worldwide as well, and only then we’ll witness a positive shift.

It’s not just the father of a prisoner who suffers, or the son and daughter, or the husband or the wife or the mother; it’s all of us. These prisoners are risking their lives so “we”; as in all Palestinians who are under the threat of administrative detention daily, will have a better future, a future free of administration detention; therefore if we don’t at least be there for them, who would?

They’re risking their lives for us to live, so we should live for them and not die. By going to Ofer Israeli Prison, and by throwing rocks, we might feel better about ourselves, that we actually did something in protest; but the way I see it, it’s the total opposite. By going to Ofer Israeli Prison to throw rocks and risk our lives due to the shadowy threat of a sniper bullet hovering over us, we’re throwing their efforts in vain. We’re wasting their lives not just ours. It’s time our lives to matter and be meaningful, not for us alone, but for them, for a better future for Palestine. We keep objecting time and time again of how Israelis undermine the lives of Palestinians, but in reality, we are doing so to ourselves as well. We don’t need any more Nadims or Muhammeds or Sajis; we’ve had more than enough. So if we truly want to support our prisoners, let’s live. Let’s do everything we can possibly do without any attempt of wasting their tremendous sacrifices.

And if Israel was finally pressured by the prisoners’ strike without a collective awareness and responsibility being created in the hearts and minds of us and people worldwide, without a non-stopping thirst for life, then it’s only half a battle won, and ten steps backward in the war.

Unless it turns from “only the wounded would feel the pain’ to “your pain is our pain”, we have no right to celebrate their –hopefully soon- victory to come. It’ll be theirs; theirs and their families alone. So the following steps to be taken are clear; be, do, and live.

In order to know more, so you can do more, here’s a link to get more information about Palestinian Administrative Detention prisoners on hunger strike:

http://stopadcampaign.com/

                                          "Abdul Raziq Faraj, on hunger strike since April,

                                                                        30th, 2014"

                                   

                                   "Mohammad Kahoush, on hunger

                                      strike since April, 24th, 2014"

                                   

You want Return? Then MOVE

I couldn’t write about Nakba yesterday, I couldn’t bring myself to share the hopes a lot of people here –specially in the Ramallah bubble- have shared; hopes of Return. I don’t believe in it, at least not like this. Not when it’s little individual actions that are trying to do what a collective effort SHOULD do. Not when Nadeem Nowarrah and Muhammed Odeh are carrying that responsibility on their 17 and 15 year old shoulders.

“Nadeem Nowarrah and Muhammed Odeh were shot dead by Israeli snipers while they were protesting Israeli Occupation at Ofer Prison during their commemoration of Nakba.”

Return will not be implemented like this. Not with 15 and 17 year old kids throwing rocks in protest of the 66-year-old occupation at Ofer Israeli Prison.

And it sure isn’t by “celebrating” Nakba Day at al-Manara Square, while dancing Dabkeh joyfully to it, as if it was more of a celebration rather than mourning.

And sure as hell it’s not with the PA’s negotiations and stupid UN Resolutions.

Return requires an action, and this action requires a movement. There are almost 12 million Palestinians on this GLOBE. Almost half of them are scattered in different areas in Palestine (and what is now called Israel); in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Jerusalem, Palestine 1948 areas. And the other half are scattered around the world.

So, if I’m going to picture the action of Return implemented, it’s going to be these 6 million Palestinians scattered around the world united with the 6 million Palestinians here. Return requires all of us, here, abroad, dead, and alive.

It’s not Nadeem’s responsibility to implement what our ancestors and ourselves have failed to make happen. It’s not Muhammed’s responsibility either, nor Saji, nor Mu’taz.

It’s all of us.

This year we’ve lost our chance. And we’ve lost two young implementers of the near reality (calling it a dream will only make it harder to reach).

Next year should be a different story.

I don’t want to hear the words “celebrating Nakba” or “Happy Nakba (catastrophe) Day” or “Celebration of Return Festival”, or bringing a bunch of kids, put them together, and make them chant “We will return” in some Open Day activity.  That’s bullshit.

You want to return? Get off your ass, put on your Kuffieyeh, and forget about throwing rocks at Ofer Prison, we need you alive not dead, get all your family and friends and march down to any boarder holding you back from Return.

Physical, psychological, imagined, or any kind of boarder keeping you from coming back.

Whether they were the physical boarders between Palestine and Lebanon, or Egypt, or Jordan ...  cross them, smash them, break them.

Or if they were the disgusting hell points of the Israeli Occupation, keeping you away from Jerusalem, from your loved ones; torch it down, destroy it, don’t walk through it peacefully, but pierce through it, eliminate it.

I haven’t lived for long, almost 22 years, but if we’re going to keep crawling towards Return like this, and along the way lose lives that didn’t deserve to be lost, we’re never going to Return.

Return is an action that requires movement, so …  freaking MOVE!

Spreading awareness is okay, making a video about how incredibly innocent and nice Palestinian people are is cute, making a silent demonstration in a well-known American university is nice, but still it’s not movement.  We’re still standing still.

We need movement, you want Al-Awda\Return? Then take the ACTION of Return.

If you’re in Toronto, New York, London, Cairo, Damascus … book your flight ticket and mark it May 15^th 2015.

Till then, the words of Mahmoud Darwish “on this land that which makes life worth living” shouldn’t even dare to be uttered by anyone. At the moment, it’s a land of death. It has nothing that is worth living for.

You want it to be worth something, come back to it, make it alive. Because at the moment, the only thing keeping it alive, is the blood of its young martyrs. The blood of Nadeem, Muhammed, Saji, Mu’taz … and the others that have been feeding this futile land for the past 66 years.

And it’s about time that those who are alive start making this land worth living. No more dead teenagers who didn't even have the chance to live life. 

Sitting comfortably behind your screens, microphones, and even the words –like the ones I’m writing right now- won’t bring you back here. It won’t implement Return.

The day when I -among million others- am going to witness thousands and millions of Palestinians marching and bringing life back to Palestine will come. I can see it, taste it, and hear it loud and clear.

But it won’t happen till we actually MOVE!

So set the date, May,15^th, 2015.

It’s my, your, OUR day of Return.

May your beautiful souls rest in peace Nadeem and Muhammed,

and I’m sorry we let that happen to you, you shouldn’t have become martyrs, not now, not ever.

                                                             "Nadeem, 17, to the left. Muhammed, 15, to the right"

P.S. this might be another childish dream or outlet, but the need to hold on to something, anything; demands it violently.

Humans of Palestine ... which Palestine exactly?

One of the things I got introduced to this past year was the “Humans of ... “ phenomena, facebook pages and blogs that start like this and end with a name of a city and then they're filled with pictures of the inhabitants of this city joint with a little hint of their own life stories. This whole notion started with Brandon Stanton, the young photographer who started roaming around the streets of New York, talking to people, asking them questions, or simply just taking their pictures and then posting them online for everyone to see. It helped in breaking this ice-cold image of New Yorkers that a lot of people assumed they had, instead he presented them as more of the “humans” they really were. After his blog got famous, other photographers around the world followed his lead; for instance now we have: Humans of Shiraz, Humans of Egypt (though here it's an entire country not a city), Humans of Boston, Humans of Beirut, Humans of Cairo, Humans of Paris, Humans of Casablanca ... etc (you get the idea!)

So, naturally, as a Palestinian I was interested in knowing if there's a page like this for Palestine. No, I didn't go looking if it was for a particular city in Palestine; I started looking for Humans of Palestine as a whole. How extremely and utterly idiotic that was. I completely forgot the reality we're living, the Palestine we've been raised on all of our lives no longer exists, so which Palestine will I find through this page?

That was my first mistake, I assumed there's one page. Once again life keeps proving how naive and senseless I am.

So I found three pages named “Humans of Palestine”, one with pictures and stories from Gaza, the other two are basically from Ramallah. Naturally I sighed, and banged my head into the wall only a 1000 times, and cursed Arafat's Oslo Accords -the same reaction I have every time I'm reminded of the fractions we're living in.

After I was done with my little fiasco, I started wondering ... which freaking Palestine was I looking for? The Ramallah-bubble Palestine, the Gaza-prison Palestine? Or the long lost and always forgotten Jerusalem-Palestine? Oh sorry, Jerusalem is part one of the missing puzzle (actually it's also split in two; West and East depending on which you prefer really); historical Palestine (Palestine 1948; what is now called Israel) is the second lost piece of the Palestine puzzle.

So maybe it's better to stick to names of the cities, maybe it'll help in reflecting the reality of the Palestinian Islands we're living in, maybe we'll go with something like “Humans of Ramallah”, “Humans of Nablus”, “Humans of Beit Hanina”, “Humans of Kufor Akab”, “Humans of Yaffa”, “Humans or Akka”, or “Humans of Beit Hanoun” ... etc. And don't think I've forgotten about Jerusalem, but you know, it has it's own delicate situation.

So I looked it up, and again -of course- I found two pages called “Humans of Jerusalem”. The funny part was, one was created by Palestinian photographers and the other by Israeli and American photographers. I gotta admit, this did make me laugh a bit. Akhh, how our lovely “conflict” is everywhere.Yet they ended up choosing the same name for their pages. It tells us something, doesn't it?

...

So I've talked to photographers from both pages, because they had the same cover photo -displayed below- with the addition of the word Palestine to one of them, and for some reason I've assumed this was a joint-peace project between Palestinian and Israeli photographers to focus on the “human” part of life in Palestine\ and what is now called Israel; if such part even exists. Yet it turned out that the Palestinian “Humans of Jerusalem” page was created in response to the Israeli-American one. Also, one of the Israeli photographers said that, “We've asked Palestinian photographers to join us but they refused.” You know, since we're not really peaceful people who like to do peaceful activities that would actually demonstrate how humane Israelis and Israel are. 

 The Israeli- American one

The Palestinian one

So to make things less confusing, maybe the Israeli photographers should call their page “Humans of West Jerusalem” and the Palestinians would call theirs “Humans of East Jerusalem”, because calling both of them “Humans of Jerusalem” as a whole, as one united holy city, is “politically incorrect” on so many levels! And we can use less drama in our lives right now.I mean the the on-going hookups and break ups between the PA and the Israeli government are too much for our hearts to handle; specially because of their own dilemma over the  "Jerusalem-situation", that is yet to be determined.

Moving on ... this got me thinking though. If we wanted to make pages of cities then maybe we should also do ones of refugee camps as well, I know they're part of the cities they're in at the moment but still, they'll have different stories to tell than these of Palestinian cities under occupation or Palestinians cities that have been turned into Israeli cities, or Palestinian cities under the Gaza siege. 

Or maybe even better, we can go by areas A, B, and C. So these pages would be like, "Humans of area A", or "Humans of area B" and so on. But they might face some problems, since some of these areas are designated as either Open Landscape Areas -where no "humans" can live- or as "closed military zones". So, I don't know how successful these pages would be. Or even some pages would be named after the Apartheid Wall ... the options in Palestine are limitless!!!! 

Of course, that would be feasible if Palestine as a whole did exist. But who knows,  since we can't unite Palestine on real ground we can do it in cyber world. 

If you took me seriously, then please stop reading, I don't want to shatter your hopes. 

But seriously!!!! Who are we kidding, this could never work. What is Palestine? and what is humanity? We might be humans in appearance, we laugh, cry, love, and hate. We have dreams, hopes, and aspirations. We break down sometimes and other times we're full of hope. We fight with our family members and hang out with our friends. Yes, we do “human” stuff.

But for how long?

We're stripped off of this humanity every single time we go through an Israeli hellpoint (aka Checkpoint), every time there's an Israeli raid over the Gaza Strip, every time there's another kid shot by an Israeli soldier in a refugee camp, every time a house is demolished in Jerusalem (East Jerusalem), every time a Palestinian is arbitrarily detained in Lyd, Yaffa, Akka  by Israeli police ... Every time we spend one more second under this inhumane lifeless Israeli occupation.

Add to that, the same actions -almost- by our second occupation - the Palestinian Authority. 

So as much as I'd LOOOOOOVE for the entire world to see the “human” aspect of Palestine, it's still not a play I want to be part of. You can't focus on the human aspect with complete negation of other important and powerful aspects .. I don't know, maybe we should put into consideration Imperialism, Colonialism, illegal Occupation, Capitalism ... "aspects" of life that dehumanize you on daily basis, in our case it's the joint effort of the Israeli Occupation and the Palestinian Authority. 

After all, you'd only hear colonizers say “Let's put our conflicts aside and focus on our humanity”, while the colonized would simply ask, “but would our humanity be enough?”

I only wish if it was. 

P.S. if you're still wondering, YES, there is a tint of sarcasm.