"Defining a Palestinian"

"I'm trying to say that you being a Palestinian shouldn't take away your right to live your life on your own terms"

While reading the following, if you did, keep that in mind the entire time. 

I have never truly thought about what it means to be born a Palestinian, not until a couple of years back. There was always some kind of resentment towards my identity, I always hated the fact that this life was forced upon me, I mean, would it have been so wrong if I was born in Greece or Italy or anywehere else . At one point or the other, all Palestinians living in Palestine or refugee camps  must've made that wish, or so I assumed. 

It was only 3 years ago that I uttered the words, "Well, I'd rather be born a Palestinian with a just cause than a misguided Israeli soldier battling my own demons on whether it's right or not to kill a Palestinian kid and then commit suicide after finishing the military service", this came within a certain context of course but you get the general idea, I was happy I was born a Palestinian. 

Being raised a Palestinian, we were taught of course like any other humans to be proud of our nationality, to be proud of the cause we and our ancestors before have carried on our shoulders for years and years and years. The same as we're taught that there is a God and we have to believe in him and worship him, that we're Muslims (since I was raised a Muslim, doesn't apply on all of course), that our parents are also Gods and make no mistakes, and that there is something called a normal childhood, that it's okay to have dreams, that there is such thing as humanity, justice, and that we're ultimately free. 

We weren't supposed to doubt any of this, they were like God-given facts, there is no room for doubt. 

Then we grew up, and this perfect world that was built for us, that was forced upon us, started tumbling down, and escaping or even surviving this perfect world is one of the hardest things we all have to go through. We grow up to realize that it is sometimes difficult to be a Palestinian, it's even more difficult to be a proud one. We realize that yes, we have a just cause, but this just cause has caused us to lose so much, on every level possible. We start realizing that God isn't always there for us like we used to believe, and we doubt him. We realize that our parents, sometimes, make more mistakes than we do. The image of pure perfection they used to resemble and we carried in our heads of them will be destroyed. And we realize that there is no such thing as a "normal" childhood. That humanity and justice aren't facts but merely human aspirations. And that freedom is not ultimate, but has a prison of its own. 

That's why it's a constant struggle to be a Palestinian. 

In order to be a Palestinian there are certain things you must be. You have to be proud for being a Palestinian and support anything Palestinian, even if it was wrong. You have to be against normalization programs. You have to honor death, because life here is just a passing privilege while death is the route. And for that same reason, you must by all your heart cherish the life you have, and always work, breathe, love, hate, cry, scream, paint, study, dance, and die for that passing life. You need to accept death, sorrow, and pain. You can't be selfish and choose your own happiness over your people's. You can have your own dreams, but you can't leave Palestine and your people out of them.  

This of course doesn't apply to all Palestinians, I am talking about what being a Palestinian's like from my own experience. If you'd ask my neighbor or any of my friends they could and probably will tell you a completely different story. 

In the past 3 to 4 years I've broken several of these "musts", and that's when I started losing connection to my own identity, and still do most of the time. I wasn't proud of everything we did as Palestinians. Yes, I understood the motives behind our actions but I couldn't support them. For instance, I understood why some students, workers, and employees would go and blow themselves up to kill Israelis, as a little kid I wanted to even do that. All I saw in these Israelis was the enemy, the killer, the soldier and I wanted them gone. That was me as a kid. When I grew up I still saw them this way, I still do, but now I can't support our reaction to be like this. Because right now I'm at this phase where I don't want to become my worst enemy, I don't want to become them, the killer. I want my cause to be a cause of justice and some sense of humanity, and hence I can't support such actions anymore, even though no matter how many times I look at it I know we can't escape it. I've said it once, twice, thrice and I'll say it again, the environment we're living in here in Palestine is nothing more than one big monster-creator factory. Yes there is such means of fighting back as peaceful resistance and so on, but by now we all know - or so I assume- that whether as Palestinians we resisted peacefully or "violently" the result is the same, you will get hurt, you will get killed. Peaceful resistance isn't really peaceful here, check one of the result of peaceful resistance on this link

I also participated in a normalization program, which started this entire cycle of losing connection to my identity. And this lost identity crisis wasn't out of constant self-blame for participating in this program, but it was because of my people's reactions, specially my friends and acquaintances. There are certain lines we can't cross as Palestinians, and being on peaceful terms with the enemy while they're terrorizing your and your people's daily lives is not an option; it's a red line, and I have crossed it. And that made me an outcast, by some people I know, but most importantly by myself. 

Before joining the program, I was to some extent an outspoken person about the situation here, I had my own struggling opinions that changed every five seconds - one of the perks of being a Gemini- but I also had some fixed morals, and among these was "no to normalization programs". For those of you not familiar with the term, it's peace programs that bring together Palestinians and Israelis to reach some kind of joint understanding about each other and connect more on a human level than the political one.  Loads of bullshit to be honest, I mean people would keep saying over and over again that "politics is not everything, it's not life", but these people don't realize that saying that is a privilege not all of us have. I personally don't. Checkpoints, arrests, torture, house demolitions, Israelis and Palestinians ... are labeled "politics" abroad, it's a topic to discuss, to write papers about, or used as a method to impress a girl with all the knowledge you have about "conflicts in the Middle East", and that's about it. 

But in reality, THIS is the reality. It's not "just politics", it's not just talk, it's real life. The political conversation that people want to avoid abroad, is real day-to-day interactions for others. That's why it's a load of crap to say that Palestinians and Israelis should sit together, leave out the politics and focus merely on who our favorite singer is. What's the point really, so then I'd go back to my "politics" of crossing checkpoints, arrests, and house demolitions by the same Israelis who wanted to connect more on a personal level outside "the context of politics". 

See, I realize all of that, how wrong the program was and how stupid, yet I did it and that took something away from me as a Palestinian. 

I still write about Palestine, I'm still politically opinionated if we had to put labels on it, and I still fight against normalization programs, but I feel like one big fat hypocrite. Who am I to preach patriotism when I have committed one of the ultimate treason, I've normalized with my occupier. It's like anything I do now which is related to Palestine won't feel genuine anymore, and all of this's happened because I broke several "musts" rules, all by my own. 

I still can't recover from it, but it was because of this program, because of breaking one of the "musts", I was finally able to utter the words "I'd rather be a Palestinian ...", which I know is no big deal to most of my fellow Palestinians but I'm not perfect like you, realizing that tiny little fact was one huge challenge. And it required me sitting in a room face to face with an ex-Israeli soldier who said she'd rather bomb an entire building filled with tens of innocent people to get rid of one "security threat" rather than letting this "terrorist" get away. I won't go on and on about how shocked I was, specially that this shouldn't have been new information to me, Israel has been doing this to Gaza since 2008, murdering masses of innocent people to get rid of "one security threat". Demolishing the entire house of an entire family for being related to a "security threat". Bombing a car, while destroying the surrounding area, in order to get rid of "one security threat". Yet that was what I needed in order to solve one of the identity issues I had, at that moment I loved nothing more than being a Palestinian and not an Israeli soldier. 

I still struggle with my Palestinian identity, the feeling of disgrace because I chose fulfilling my own desires of traveling and studying abroad (part of the normalization program I participated in) over my people's cause never leaves me most of my self-conscious times, unless I try hard to ignore it, but at the same time getting out of the "musts" zone gave me new insights. 

Here's what I came to terms with so far, as hard as it is to be a Palestinian on daily basis I'm still among the luckiest.  I am an insider in terms of being a firsthand witness to most of the atrocities that happen here, but still an outsider since I never truly lived them. Like I've said in previous posts, I've never been arrested, shot, tortured, got my house demolished .. etc by the Israeli authorities but I've been a witness to others having to deal with that. The normalization experience I went through will always be a part of me, to empower me at times and weaken me at others. 

Being a Palestinian could take away things from you, like your humanity, yourself, and your dreams, but it gives you back so much more. You'd be fighting a cause for justice, whatever it might be, to be established. And being a Palestinian kid has nothing "normal" about it in the normal sense, I never knew as a kid that it's bizarre to have tanks, soldiers, and checkpoints everywhere, it was my reality as the young Palestinian author Dalia Taha has stated in one recent interview  "... and a child's views of a conflict is different from an adult's. "When you're growing up, you don't think it is strange. You don't respond to it as, 'Oh, I wish I was living somewhere else.' This is your reality, what you think the whole world is like." Hence what is normal and what is not is relative, there is no such thing, and letting go of such "ideals" is liberating. 

And most importantly, it is okay to not follow the "musts" rules. Being a Palestinian has so many layers, and it's not limited to one certain model. Even though I participated in a normalization program and I still doubt my identity from time to time, it's okay.  That doesn't make me any less of a Palestinian, Edward Said was among the most prominent Palestinian-American intellectuals of his time, he fought for Palestine till the day of his death, and still he had his own version of what being a Palestinian is. Further more - and I'm by no means comparing myself to him - he was a normalizer himself, he started this orchestra (West-Eastern Divan Orchestra) that brought together Palestinians and Israelis, in addition to other Arab nationalities, in order to play music together. I'm not going to argue if this is right or wrong, but I have to admit, there's something pleasing about having something in common with Edward Said, we both share the same secret (not a secret anymore though). 

 But the beauty about being a Palestinian lays in it not being as limiting as it I used to believe while growing up. In addition to being a Palestinian, I am still a young struggling woman in a patriarchal society, a dreamer, a fighter, a friend, and a whole long list of roles ... and just because I am a Palestinian doesn't mean I have to prove to the world that I have some kind of normal life and it also doesn't mean that I have to prove I'm someone living under the gruesome Israeli occupation all the time. Being a Palestinian should never ever be limiting to one certain thing. Being a Palestinian is simply being, and that alone is more than enough to tackle. 

 "I'm trying to say that you being a Palestinian shouldn't take away your right to live your life on your own terms", that's what one of my friends abroad has told me once. When he first said that to me I completely refused it, because I believed being born with this nationality would take that away from me; "a life on my own terms".

But now I realize that being born a Palestinian means exactly that; fighting for a life on my own terms. 

That's what we are after all, all we really know how to do is to resist and fight for what we want. 

And in the end, as much as it is terrifying to destroy what we thought were the perfect images in our heads of everything we've been raised on, the fixed images, as much as it is liberating. That's why growing up in this world a Palestinian is suffocating most of the time but it is just as liberating too. And in one way or the other it's a blessing, because the beauty in our struggle is that it was never a lone struggle, all humans under any form of injustice have lived all of the different stages of forced limits and breaking free, as Dalia Taha has also said, "Being a Palestinian doesn't mean I am part of just this struggle. I see myself as someone who is part of everyone's struggle - against oppression, discrimination, colonialism, the cruelty of capitalism. It doesn't matter where you are exactly in the world. What matters is where you stand and what you are responding to."

Happy Valentine's Day Yusor, Deah, and Razan

I don’t usually celebrate Valentine’s Day, but today I believe we all should. Not for us, even though it is as important to celebrate our love to our loved ones, but today let’s celebrate the love of the beautiful souls that the world has lost recently.

Deah, Yusor, and Razan.

It's been a while since I last written another self-centered piece on this blog. I've lost the desire to write about anything. I mean, what good comes of writing about my own feelings and projections on the inhumane and despicable actions done by what we call "humans"? Nothing really, murders still happen, people get burnt alive, or decapitated, or ... shot in the head execution style. Words are worthless.

Or so I thought.

When the three young students, Deah Barakat (23 years old), Yusor Abu Salha (21 years old), and Razan Abu Salha (19 years old) were murdered in Chapel Hill on Wednesday by an angry and hateful American terrorist, the mainstream media gave it little attention. That was when social media users demanded attention for the brutal crime, that’s when I realized that writing and spreading the word does make a difference.

To have such faith in the power of words restored after this heinous crime is heartbreaking indeed, and I resent the fact that such cruelty had to occur in order for this to happen. But this crime also, and more importantly of course, drew attention again – for the millionth time- to Islamophobia, which most of the mainstream media tried to pretend doesn’t exist.

By now we all know, or so I assume, that this crime is not over a parking spot, and that it indeed is because of hate. I’m not going to give another analysis to prove the obvious, many have done so before. But today, as many also did, we’ll focus on the lives of the three victims.

I don’t know how to be an optimist, and that is on regular days, imagine how impossible it is to be one when awful incidents take place. When I first heard about the murder, and then started reading the details and knowing more about the crime itself I was so angry, bitter, and hateful. When I saw the picture of the man who committed this crime, Craig Stephen Hicks, I wanted to rip his head off. I couldn’t stand listening to his wife and lawyer justifying the ugliness of this man’s actions, and I avoided knowing anything about the victims themselves. Because I knew that getting to know more about them, will make me only feel more helpless and useless since I won’t be able to bring them back, but I was wrong and selfish.

Different people on different social media websites (facebook, twitter, instagram) were sharing pictures and personal stories about the three victims; even eventually their family members did so too. And I started going through all of them, whether it was pictures of them, or interviews about them, or even their short videos on the vine application .. anything and everything that had to do with them.

Deah was a basketball fan, a dentistry student, a devoted Muslim, amazing friend, and a huger. Yusor and Razan were described by their brother as simply “perfect”, and even though he was the older brother he still looked up to them. They were both selfless, beautiful, and ambitious young women who wanted to make the world a better place.

I even learnt that Deah has volunteered with the organization I currently work for, the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund. He came to Palestine to treat refugees and children with disabilities in the West Bank. I had to translate a couple of short stories about him, all of which described his character. How little kids were drawn to him with that big goofy smile of his, his sense of humor, and his genuine warmth. He had his way with kids, and their parents too. He was the whole package, positive, polite, and extremely kind. Everybody there just loved him, whether the children or the adults.

They were short lines describing Deah, but it was extremely difficult to go through. It was extremely difficult to think that this young man, alongside the two amazing young women, with this amazing spirit was killed in that brutal way, under the name of hate. And again, I was finding it extremely difficult to be an optimist and to focus on a better future. But the more I learnt about Deah, Yusor, and Razan; I came to realize how negative I was, and how selfishly and shamefully I’ve been reacting to all of this.

Yes it hurts looking at pictures of the three of them smiling while remembering the fate that took them away, but at the same time it’s extremely difficult to ignore all the amazing deeds they’ve done and the great lives they’ve lived. They’ve touched so many lives in their community, and now they’ve done the same to the rest of the world.

Today was supposed to be Deah and Yusor’s first Valentine ’s Day to celebrate as a married couple. It was supposed to be Deah’s first Valentine with, as interviews with his friends stated, the woman he asked for marriage on their first date. It was supposed to be Yusor’s first Valentine with her high school sweetheart and childhood friend. It was supposed to be these two elementary school friends first Valentine together as newlyweds.  The same Valentine’s Day that Razan, the perfect third wheel as Deah has described her, couldn’t share with them.

But it is the first Valentine’s Day that the entire world has celebrated their amazing lives and the impact they had on so many people, they were truly inspirational in life and in death.

The murder of these three lives’ won’t be forgotten, and it’s our job to make sure it doesn't, but it's also our job to make sure the way they lived their lives won't be forgotten as well. 

I haven’t prayed for a very long time, and my faith in God has been shaken tremendously. But I did pray today, for them, for their families and friends and loved ones. I truly hope from the bottom place in my heart that there will be a heaven, and that they are truly now in a better place than this ugly world we’re living in.

May God rest your souls in peace, you were, and still are, an inspiration to all of us.

Happy Valentine’s Day Deah and Yusor, and the beautiful Razan.

Hopefully one day this world will be worthy of living for beautiful souls like you.

This is a short video of Deah’s visit to Palestine as part of “Muslims without Boarders” medical relief mission in cooperation with the PCRF,

https://vimeo.com/119616512

الله يرحمكم

Khair was a "conclusion"

The first time I consciously became aware of pain was almost 10 years ago when my uncle passed away after a long battle with lung cancer. I was in the sixth grade, and we were at my grandmother’s when she delivered the news of his death to my twin brother and I. I didn’t cry, I tried to because it felt like the normal reaction to have when someone dies but I couldn’t cry. Even at his funeral, not one tear fell down my cheeks. It took me almost 40 days to actually realize what has happened.

I was always thinking about him, I still do. But one day I reached a point where thinking about him wasn’t enough, I needed his physical presence as well and I couldn’t find him physically that’s when it started. When I realized that he’s actually gone, for real, and that I couldn’t even see him, even visit him while laying sick in bed, that was when tears started falling and I couldn’t stop. I locked myself in the bathroom, and tried to not make a sound. My mother was missing him way too much too; he was the closest to her of her brothers at the time, hence I couldn’t let her see me crying over him. So I cried my heart out silently. I just sat there on the bathroom floor crying.

Then I started feeling pain, not just the emotional one but physical pain. My stomach started twisting inside and felt like my guts were trying to come out but since they couldn’t they were punishing me from the inside. It was like there were a hundred drills in my stomach making holes inside of me in an attempt to come out.  And I started shivering compulsively and that made the pain ten times worse. I was holding my fingers in a fist position not able to open my hand or move, and my nails were sinking into my palms. My head was like a punching bag, and I felt like  it was getting punched from every direction there was. My bones felt like I had hundreds of nails inside of them and started stinging as if I was drowning in freezing cold water. I couldn’t breathe, I thought my lungs have stopped working and I started punching my chest with my fist hoping it would make me able to breathe normally again. It was unbearable.

Then I threw up. It felt like throwing up knives. I don’t know how long it took me to stop vomiting but when it finally stopped I was surprised to look down and see I still have a stomach. I thought it too came out with whatever was coming out of my mouth. I was completely drained out. Physically, emotionally … and I just wanted him to come back and stop this, yet I knew he’d never come back. That was the first time I could “picture” what pain looked like. It looked like that day with me crying in the bathroom. Now I could label “pain”. It was that day when I didn’t only feel pain but I also tasted it and finally became familiar with it. I could recognize it. Ever since that day, I felt this way a few times and yesterday was one of them.

Yesterday was an extremely joyous day for me. My friends and I went back to our university – since we’ve graduated last July-  to see our friends and professors and simply hang out. Then I finally got to meet Suad Amiry at her “Golda Slept Here” book-launch event in Ramallah with my friends and even got an autographed copy by her. She was so happy to see us, this young, at her event. We felt proud that she was proud to have us. It was perfect.

Then I came back home all happy and excited only to feel disgusted that I felt this happy while a young man, as old as I am, was shot dead in cold blood by Israeli police in Nazareth. I was sitting with my family discussing the topic of Suad’s book when I picked up my ipad to see what’s up on facebook. The first post I saw was someone who shared a video that said, “The video of how police shot Khair Hamdan dead in cold blood”. I did not want to see it. In these past couple of months too many people were caught on camera getting shot at and killed. Nadeem Nuwarra, Muhammed Dhaher, Salem Shamaly, and now Kahir Din Hamdan. I did not think I would be able to handle it, and I was right.

 I ended up pressing the play button anyway.

I couldn’t understand what I was seeing, so I played it again and again and again and again. Every time I would pause the video right before they shoot him, that moment when the police men come out of the vehicle and Kahir tries to run away, hoping and praying that maybe this time the outcome could be different. That he would run away, but every single time it would end the same, with Kahir rolling and twisting on the ground in pain after getting shot by the police from extremely close range.

Then as remotely as could be I logged off my facebook, took my cup of the tea my father has just made, grabbed my newly purchased Suad’s books and went to my room and locked it. I still haven’t completely grasped what I just saw. So I went back to facebook, looked for the video, and watched it again and again and again. It still hasn’t made any sense.

This scenario could have ended in so many different ways, they could have shot him in the leg, they could have chased him, hit him, and locked him up, or he could have simply run away. But no. Instead he was shot 6 times in the back and chest, and I lost it. It felt like I was sitting on that bathroom floor again and I started crying silently like crazy, then the physical pain started, then it ended with throwing up.

I haven’t cried about anything that’s been happening lately. Not when Enas was run over by an Israeli settler. Not when an Israeli baby was run over by a Palestinian, not when Mu’taz has shot the Israeli Rabbi Yehuda Glick and then got assassinated himself the next morning by Israeli Special Forces putting over 20 bullets in his body. Not when Ibrahim ran over Israeli settlers waiting at the train station and then got out of the car and hit them with a metal bar. Not even when he was also shot dead. I’ve decided for a while now to put a distance between myself and life under occupation; ‘cause I have a future to build. I have tons of payments to fulfill, many scholarships to apply to, assist with the house’s responsibilities with my parents, take the TOEFL exam, get my driver’s license … I can’t keep putting my life on hold every time something happens. I can’t just put everything on hold every time another kid is shot, or another little girl is run over by settlers, or when another fed-up Palestinian responds in the same way as settler and go run some Israelis over. I just can’t.

But turns out, I don’t have much of a choice.

It’s also my responsibility that they are dead right now. Because I was selfish enough to think I had a right to have a bright future while they couldn’t. Because I, you, and all of us stood by and did nothing as all of this has happened. Or so I thought at first, that it was primarily our faults. We just stood by and did nothing, but technically these helpless Palestinian men and youth were pushed into this ruthless path.

This last September there were 14 cases of hit-and-run by Israeli settlers against Palestinians, that’s 14 cases in one month alone! Since 2011 over 33 cases of Israeli settlers running over Palestinians occurred. Nobody took notice. Nobody talked about security, safety, human rights or whatever it is that’s supposed to protect humans. Then a Palestinian does the same as the Israeli settlers have been doing for years now, and suddenly security is threatened, the sanctity of life is violated, and safety and survival measures need to be taken where there were orders by Netanyahu to “eliminate any source of threat any Palestinian may pose”. In other words, kill every Palestinian you think in the future might do anything or if he\she looks suspicious, and that’s exactly what happened with Khair.

There was an arrest raid by Israeli police over Khair’s village, Kufor Kanna, and of course the Israeli police could never ever have a “nice peaceful” arrest. It always has to be accompanied with bullets and tear gas canisters, and with everything that’s been going on lately in Jerusalem and the West Bank, the tension level was tripled. That’s when Khair went after the police car after passing by their house trying to harm them by hitting the car’s windows. Then the police men came out of the car and when he tried to escape they immediately put six bullets in his back and chest, then dragged him instead of carefully carrying him to the car and threw him in it.

And to think that Khair was as old as I am. He probably had similar aspirations and dreams. From the video he also seems as reckless as I am. Yet he's dead right now, and here I am talking about him. 

The Israeli police lied bluntly about this. You can read thoroughly about their lying schemes in this article, yet their lies are not the problem here, we’re kind of used to it. The problem is this entire system that makes it okay to be racist, makes it okay to become a murderer, and makes it okay to punish people collectively. When you can kill Palestinians and simply get away with it, where you can make the lives of Palestinians a living hell and get away with it.

Thirty-three officially documented cases of hit-and-run by Israelis against Palestinians from 2011 till now alone. Constantly denying Palestinians their right to enter al-Aqsa mosque while allowing Jews to, even though Muslims are not allowed – for instance- to go to the “Wailing Wall” and pray. To try and make what’s happening at al-Aqsa Mosque clearer, it’s like not allowing Jews to go pray at the Wailing Wall, and instead let only Muslims go. I bet you that wouldn’t end peacefully. In addition to taking over hundreds of Palestinian houses in East Jerusalem, while ordering several other hundreds to get demolished. That also adds up to the constant harassment and humiliation Palestinians go through due to the different mood swings Israeli soldiers tend to have.

Yet we’re not supposed to have any kind of reaction, and when we do, this is the result that we get; collective punishment and murder. Mu’taz Hijazi who shot the Israeli Rabbi Yehuda Glick, was assassinated the next morning brutally on the roof of his house, and afterwards his parents were dragged for investigation and then let out with an order to demolish their house as a punishment for what their son has done. The same goes for the parents and family of Ibrahim Akari who ran over Israeli settlers in Jerusalem, and the same goes for every Palestinian who’s ever done anything to vandalize the security of Israel. They get killed by Israeli police or soldiers with no chance of ever even getting to trial, their family members get dragged to prison and their houses must be demolished.

While on the other hand, none of the Israeli settlers that ran over Palestinians were ever taken to trial and their murders were considered as “traffic accidents”. This past October, Enas – 5 years old – was run over by an Israeli settler while she was cutting the street to get to her mother. She was killed right in front of her mother and the settler who ran her over is probably sitting on the dining table with his own family and his own daughter enjoying their time, he wasn’t even persecuted. No trial, no arrests, no prison, and no demolished house.

And at the end of the day, Mu’taz, Khair, Ibrahim … were labelled with many titles and accusations. Some Palestinians here named them heroes, Israelis named them heartless terrorists, while in reality they were simply victims of a heartless, cruel, and gruesome occupation.

As Nietzsche would put it; they were “conclusions”. 

  

Kahir Din Hamdan was sitting with his father when the police car passed by and he ran in anger of their arbitrary arrests against his neighbors after them. Ibrahim Akari has two beautiful boys and a gorgeous wife waiting for him back home.  Mu’taz has only recently been released of Israeli prisons and he had his entire life ahead of him. He even, according to witnesses, apologized to the Israeli Rabbi Yehuda Glick before shooting telling him, “ I’m sorry but I have to.”

He had to. He had to shoot him. Imagine reaching this point where you would have to do something this cruel; where you would leave behind a future that is yet to come, beautiful kids and wife, and a father. They didn’t want to, they had to.

They were the conclusions of this inhumane occupation that’s been crushing our souls way before crushing our bodies.

So no. It’s not entirely my responsibility. Yes part of the blame is on me and those who sometimes get defeated and think of having a normal life while others aren’t. But the primary reason, the cause, is the Israeli Occupation. And if this racism, violence, and policies of collective punishments don’t stop, the results will only be more and more violence.

My pain might have ended eventually, the physical pain at least, but Khair’s family hasn’t and till it does and till those who murdered him and every other Palestinian in cold blood are brought to justice, the pains of Israelis won’t be over as well.

So they better take some responsibility for the murders that have been happening or else this cycle of fear they are living in will never end.  Jews might have been victims for a very long time, but those living in Israel right now who are naming us terrorists and savages, pretending to have nothing to do with it are accomplices in crime; they’re murderers as well.

It’s time Israelis understood this clearly, they won’t live in peace until we do.

The video of Khair Din's murder: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Viit3QvQXU0

The video of Salem Shamaly's murder:

http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/video-poem-salem-shamaly-youth-murdered-gaza

The video of Nadim Nuwarra and Muhammed Dhaher's murder:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unCmjL2Za-w

                               "The five-year old Enas that was run over by an Israeli settler."

                              "Picture of kids in East Jerusalem getting run-over by an Israeli."

A Letter to Our International Activists … Please, Pick a Side.

 Dear international friends and activists,

(I apologize beforehand if this is too harsh for some of you, but well … it was asked for)

I love you all, really, I do, but we need to clarify some important matters here. I believe we’re past the “any kind of support is good” phase and we need an upgrade.

There are millions of “Pro-Palestine” activists out there, but to each and every one of them Palestine holds a different definition, and even though having any kind of support to Palestinians is important, sometimes it’s not enough, not any more.

There are two issues affecting Pro-Palestinian activism worldwide. The first issue is that there is no one unified definition of what “Palestine” is. And the second is that some of this activism stands neutral, supporting “both sides” of the “conflict”. And none of these issues are their fault, it’s our fault as Palestinians for not making the matters clearer, and by writing this today it is nothing but a small attempt in changing some of the misunderstood facts, at least directed to my own friends and acquaintances who are pro-Palestinian activists.

The first and most controversial issue is: What is Palestine?

To most of the world – at least those who acknowledge its existence- it’s the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and sometimes East Jerusalem as well (which is always stupid for me to refer to one city as two) and this terrible terrible mistake of defining Palestine as such must stop. I know, it’s the Palestine Liberation Organization’s fault for agreeing on these terms to define Palestine with in the first place, and it’s our fault as the Palestinian people for not speaking up, but let’s set the record straight.

Palestine is the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Jerusalem, and what is now called Israel. By only defining Palestine as the West Bank and Gaza Strip means that you are OKAY with everything that’s happened during 1947-1948 Nakba (Palestinian Catastrophe where thousands were murdered, hundreds of massacres and genocides, and where over 700,000 people were forcibly kicked out of their homes and are now refugees that reached 6 million people worldwide) and you completely accept it as something normal. 

Palestine’s “occupation” as it’s now legally called and acknowledged worldwide hasn’t started only in 1967, it started 66 years when Israel was created on Palestinian soil after eliminating thousands of people and leaving other thousands homeless and scattered around the world, where they are denied the right to come back; denied their “Right of Return”.  

I don’t mean to scare you off when I say that Palestine is also “Israel”, which is what we as Palestinians simply refer to as Palestine 48 (tracking it back to the day where it lost its name as Palestine and was turned into Israel). When I say so, don’t translate it as me saying “Oh, I am anti-Semitic (always funny to hear though, considering I’m technically a Semite myself), I don’t want the Jews to have a home, I am racist, let’s kick the Jews out and send them back to Europe or even better .. drown them in the sea!” No, this is what most people assume we mean when we refer to Israel as Palestine instead. So let’s set the record straight once and for all.

I as a Palestinian, a very proud one too, will never ever allow or want to make other people suffer the same way my people did. I will not kick someone out and take over their home, claim it to be my own, then erase their entire history as if it has never existed, or burn them to death, or demolish their homes, or torture them, or bomb their schools, or steal their land, or build walls –HUGE cement walls- to separate them, or humiliate them on checkpoints … I will try as hard as I can, as long as I breath, to never be turned into the monsters that my culprits were turned into. A holocaust survivor would never want to see another human being suffer the same as he\she did, but if they did eventually do so, or allow such inhumane-cruel crime to take place, then technically the Holocaust was never really over.

Therefore again, saying that Palestine is in fact is “Israel” translates into us not forgetting the tragic history that occurred 66 years ago, it does not mean we want to do the same crime against other people –in this case the Jews, Never! The logo “Never Again” is always connected to the crime of the Holocaust, but when we say “Never Again” it means none of these crimes should ever happen again; Holocaust or Nakba.

Hence no, saying that Palestine is actually what is now called “Israel”-from the river to the sea- won’t make you anti-anything, except being anti-injustice. The concept of Israel is pretty clear, it’s a racist state and a colonial power that keeps gaining its power through genocide and injustice, and being against a state with such “concept” behind it won’t make you any less human, Jewish, activist or anything.

If you’re truly concerned with Palestinian rights, you should be concerned with all Palestinians (West Bank, Gaza, Jerusalem, Diaspora, Palestinians with Israeli IDs) from the very beginning. You can’t start the story of Lion King from where Simba ran off, there is plenty that’s happened prior to that which led him to run (I know irrelevant story and example, but it’s the only thing I could come up with at the moment). It’s not a cause where you “select” what you want to support, either you are in all the way or you’re not. The tragedy started 66 years ago, not 47 years ago, acknowledge this fact.

Also remember, as nice (to Zionist liberals that is) as the idea of a “Two-State” solution is, it’ll only mean that years and years of crimes against Palestinians will go unpunished and not taken care of, and this is not what being a “human rights advocate” and an “activist” is about. There are huge numbers of Israeli activists, historians, scholars, and journalists (such as Gideon Levy) that consider themselves to be pro-Palestinian just because they support a Two-State solution, example of such is “J Street” group. This group defines itself as following, “J Street is the political home for pro-Israel, pro-peace Americans fighting for the future of Israel as the democratic homeland of the Jewish people. We believe that Israel’s Jewish and democratic character depend on a two-state solution, resulting in a Palestinian state living alongside Israel in peace and security.”

Well, I’m sorry to break it for you “J Street” people - and other Israelis and Americans who think they’re pro-Palestine because they support the Two-State solution- technically you’re worse than Settler-Colonial-Zionists themselves; at least these guys are honest, they don’t like us, they want us out of the country so they can have their promised land for the Jews and only the Jews. You people, J Street people and those of the sort, are nothing but –and sorry for being too forward- hypocrites. If you truly cared about Palestinian rights or even human rights for that matter, you would oppose such segregation and racism in the first place. 

You will ask for citizens to be treated equally and not have a country for people with a certain religion while others will be treated as second-class citizens or even less. You will ask for consequences and sanctions to be imposed for all the crimes that have been committed ever since 1948 in order for your “Jewish democratic homeland” to be established. In other words, “wanting peace for Palestinians”, “the Two-State Solution, and “Israel as a Jewish Democratic homeland” don’t even fit in the same paragraph. Groups like these, who preach peace but couldn’t be further away from it, only make matters worse not better; they literally preach racism under the name of peace.

When such groups go with this approach they should think of the following: agreeing to the Two-State suggestion is like telling the persecuted Jews in Europe –back then during the Holocaust- that they should live side by side (after all that’s been committed against them, without any kind of consequences against the culprits) with the Nazis and just deal with that reality, while knowing that they have homes that were taken from them, family members that were brutally murdered, and years and years of injustice. Injustice going unnoticed, unpunished, and without consequences is simply not right. The Jews have refused to let such oppression go unnoticed and prosecuted Germany, so why should we – as Palestinians- just “forget and forgive”?

The second issue with pro-Palestinian activism is being neutral. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want you to give up your humanity or anything, trust me, if there’s anyone out there who would love nothing more than people actually hold on to their humanity regardless of race, ethnicity, color, and religion, it’s us: Palestinians. But … being neutral, is not being humane: it is being a coward.

When you say “both sides are to blame for the Gaza war”, or that “I’m with both sides and this madness should end”, or “Both sides should stop being so stubborn and bury their differences in order to bring peace”, or “well, there’s always two sides to each story”, and some more “both sides, both sides, both sides …” you’re actually making the matters worse, not better.

By saying such statements you’re implying two things: either you don’t know enough about what’s really going on, or that you’re just another conflicted person in the world with double standards and not enough courage.

Only a couple of hours ago, the famous HONY photographer Brandon Stanton shared a picture from occupied Jerusalem, a beautiful picture.

In his recent travels and part of a worldwide journey, he started inserting the names of the cities he’s visiting with the name of the country right in the same space. But when he shared this beautiful picture from Jerusalem, he left the “country” space blank. I know his website is based on focusing only and solely on our humanity, but as all of us grown-ups here know, humanity alone is never enough.

As humans we make decisions, we pick our fights, and chase our passions with all of our hearts. We choose, that is what makes us who we are and helps us become the people we want to be. By choosing we create our identities. But by standing neutral on the sidelines, refusing to choose, in fear of losing popularity or fans, or in fear of criticism, then we become no one. I know by criticizing HONY’s Brandon I am going to be criticized for not “being human” or sympathetic, and that I’m too political … which is fine, because I at least know where I stand. As Aristotle has put it perfectly, “To avoid criticism say nothing, do nothing, BE NOTHING.”

It’s okay to pick a side, and if you picked the Palestinian side it doesn’t mean that you are against Jews or that you’re against Israelis themselves, and it doesn’t say that all Israelis are horrible, we know … there are good Israelis out there who refuse to be part of what the their government is doing under their names, they are not the problem. By criticizing Israel, you are criticizing colonialism, racism, apartheid, genocide, forced expulsion, arbitrary arrests … etc. Here you’re not against “people”, so when picking a side, you’re not losing your humanity, on the contrary, you’re taking a stand and defying inhumanity.

There is this phrase that’s been circulating on Facebook and Twitter during the last Gaza War that I find fitting to help understand what the problem is with such logic, and it says, “Blaming Hamas for firing rockets at Israel, is like blaming a woman for punching her rapist!” And when you, ladies and gentlemen, say “let’s hear what both sides have to say”, it is like asking the rapist how he felt raping her and how much it hurt when he got punched in the face by his victim. Total nonsense right?

So the statement “both sides” better be annihilated from your dictionary. Besides, I’m pretty sure that whoever came up with this “two sides” notion is some bastard colonial settler who wanted to justify why he was murdering innocent people, stealing lands he did not own, and enslaving others to forcibly work on his plantations, since according to him he’s only bringing “civilization” to humanity.

But, if you still want to stick to the whole “two sides” drama, I will give you these two sides you’ve been yearning for. Actually Rafeef Ziadah has already given us the two sides; you have the Occupier and the Occupied, the Colonizer and the Colonized.

So, there you have it, where would you rather stand?

I’d rather have someone come up and say straight to my face that they’re Zionists or Pro-Israel, than come and tell me both sides are hurting and both sides are suffering. I know, we’re all suffering, but there’s a difference between when a murderer suffers and goes unpunished and when a victim –as much as I hate being one- is suffering and no one is doing anything because some people were too afraid to take a stand. You don’t have to be passionate about “Palestinian rights” when talking privately to me, and then whispering the word “Palestine” when surrounded by a group of your international friends, so you wouldn’t hurt your Pro-Israel acquaintances and injure their ears with the word “Palestinian”, or God-forbid you refer to it as a country or a state on its own as Palestine.

Don’t be neutral, take a stand. Neutral is being passive, and isn’t the whole point of being an activist is to actually be “active” and make a clear decision? 

And I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, I really am so much grateful to anyone raising awareness or doing anything in support of Palestine, but some of the fogginess surrounding this cause had to be lifted.

We’re at dark times right now, where massacres are being committed against helpless victims; men, women, children … if we don’t take a stand, a clear stand, to end injustice now, then who would?

In the end, I apologize if I sound too harsh or impolite, but it all came from a heart filled with love and appreciation for you all. If being a Palestinian has taught me anything, it’s being brave, and being brave starts with simply “being”… with taking a stand. You don’t have to necessarily take my stand or support my cause; just don’t be passive and let things pass you by out of fear or ignorance.

So, my beautiful people, be brave.

Much love,

Wa’d