Gaza--it's still here.

Perhaps we in America have the privilege to contain wars. We have a luxury in perceiving Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam, any of them--from a distant place and separating ourselves from what happens "over there." Sure, our "boys" are involved but we really aren't. Moreover, even though the Iraq "war" for example is not finished, we don't have to think about it daily, we don't have to feel frightened or threatened by it, and we certainly do not have to weigh its costs, effects, or consequences as we would have to were it to have transpired on our land.

Over here, war is a continuing, daily event. It's not even an event anymore, it's just life. And certainly the effects are ongoing, real and very immediate. I was watching this piece today and I thought about how on tv it seems distant, like a documentary about something far away in space and time. But it's not really far away because the occupation, the violence, the suffering, the war, the grief--none of it has ended.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UChWtlMGBJ0&feature=player_embedded


Yesterday I went to a demonstration against the Palestinian Authority who has decided not to support the UN Goldstone Report on Gaza. I've never felt such hopelessness here. I'm not sure what we are fighting for anymore. I'm not sure how much longer I can raise my voice when there are so few voices shouting from within these walls and outside of them. Then I saw a man wearing a black shirt and I started screaming louder. It said: "Remember Gaza."

I'm Back

I’m not sure where to start. I’m back in Palestine. The first change I noticed was when I entered Israel, all of the Israeli soldiers, staff, and passport control especially, were so friendly to me. A lot of friends have asked me how I thought Gaza would affect my ability to enter Israel and return to Palestine (for those who don’t know, the occupation of Palestine means that anyone coming to Palestine enters through Israel and their passport control before crossing into Palestine, which has no air, land or sea control). I answered frankly that I didn’t know. I didn’t have any idea if entering would be more difficult or what. My experience says Israel is giving itself a makeover, embodied in that line repeated to me a good six times as I went through security and passport control: “Welcome to Israel.” My analysis is that the image of Israel is so poor after their massacring the people of Gaza that this is one of Israel’s attempts at rectifying the damage. The problem is, the damage is not just one of image. The damage is someone’s home that they built after 20 years of saving their salaries. The schools destroyed. The mosques decimated. The brothers, the daughters, and grandmothers dead. The father who lost his legs and the mother who lost her skin. The child who lost her eyes. The burned school books and pictures. The clothes and food supplies. Life. The health, safety, education, and future of an entire people. Maybe more than those futures are their presents. No shelter, no food or water, no mother or brother now. All dead, destroyed, massacred. Wouldn’t it be incredible if fixing the damage was an honest endeavor, not about branding Israel differently but of rebuilding lives and changing a decades long policy of ethnic cleansing. That sounds so simple that it rings of absurdity. And yet, how is it that halting violent ethnic cleansing could possibly sound absurd?