By Cathy
Today all of Palestine is on strike. No schools, no business as usual…all in solidarity with the people of Gaza. Words truly fail us today, but we are safe and together. The streets are eerily quiet.
When we visited Balata Refugee Camp last week a person on the delegation asked Ibrahim from Balata what he told his children about his life. He had been shot by the Israeli police at a demonstration and had been thought dead.
He told us that he never talked about this with his young children. That he talked with them about the need for a good education and that he wanted them to have hope. This has been our experience here. No one lies to children but they are careful about conversations around them. Everyone wants a better life for their children. As I said in an earlier email, children are loved and older kids, even strangers, are so sweet to young children.
Yesterday the US delivered the embassy as a gift to the Israeli government, and as a deliberate slap to the Palestinians. As the world watched, Israeli soldiers shot and killed scores of Palestinian protesters, and wounded thousands more, along Israel’s boundary with the Gaza Strip.
The people of Gaza have been gathering at the border with Israel for 7 weeks asking for their right to return to their homes and a life with possibility. By degrees Israeli policy has continued to make life for people in Gaza impossible-they are unable to leave, lack fresh water and electricity, and even imports of food is restricted as Israel has declared they are “putting the people of Gaza on a diet.” Read the names of all those shot and killed yesterday and think of what it means to those families, and to us who have a Palestinian family.
The ceremony on Monday marking the embassy was a blatant, deliberate statement to Palestinians. It was timed for the day before Palestinians observe Nakba, or Catastrophe, the expulsion of their ancestors from the newly formed Jewish state. It was a deliberate provocation and given the speakers, absurd and insensitive on so many levels.
The contrast of the deliberate exultation in Jerusalem and the agony of Palestinians in Gaza, could not have been more stark, or more chilling to those who continue to hope for a justice.
Cathy is from the Bay Area with friends in Ocean Beach , who with her husband, Carl, is in Palestine for the birth of their granddaughter . . . their daughter married a Palestinian man and mainly lives there while working for MECA (Middle East Children’s Alliance) a wonderful ngo that does great work on the ground in the West Bank and Gaza.
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A bit one sided Cathy.
Oh, and Chris, wouldn’t you also say the coverage of what’s going on over there is also a bit one-sided, sided against the Palestinians? The US press has always been more on Isreal’s side than trying to educate the American people about the history of that region.
Much of the mainstream press I see is either neutral or leaning in favor of the Palestinians. Obviously right wing leaning medial outlets like Fox, National Review etc lean in favor of Israel. The history of the region is something both sides will go in circles with and that will never end, ever. I don’t like a lot of Israel’s foreign policy, but I DO think they have a right to exist and defend themselves. While bullets are a far advantage over rocks, what are the soldiers supposed to do? I think too many are too quick to vilify them. Well that’s my opinion.
A friend of mine (originally from Israel) posted this: https://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/50-Hamas-members-reportedly-killed-during-Mondays-Gaza-protests-556627
Not sure how accurate it is but this article is true that’s something to consider before condemning the IDF soldiers.