Mother's Day in Palestine

Yesterday, March 21 was Mother’s Day in the Arab World.  It was chosen to coincide with Spring, and the weather today is a truly Spring Day.  But unfortunately, the political weather is as gloomy and morbid as ever. 

Despite the fact that I am blessed with having both my children and some of the grandchildren around to celebrate the day with, I could not but think of all the mothers in Gaza who have  lost their children in this unwarranted war.  Over and above the children who lost their mothers as well as their fathers and other siblings.  Let alone all the Palestinian mothers whose children have been languishing in Israeli jails for years. 

On this usually joyful occasion, please think of those bereaved mothers, and those orphaned children on this special Mother’s Day in Gaza

In the meantime, we continue to wonder how  the world can watch such a genocide, especially when the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared  emphatically   and openly  after October 7 that he was going to raze Gaza completely.  And razing it is what he has been doing since day one.  Netanyahu does not mince words.  What he says he does.  So all those shuttle trips of Mr. Blinken and meetings with Arab leaders to discuss a ceasefire and the day after,  are futile as long as the US is still supplying Israel with money and arms.   Furthermore,  we all remember how Mr. Netanyahu had displayed a map at the UN session showing Israel from the river to the sea, with no Palestine. 

How long will Mr.  Biden and his Western allies continue to block all efforts to put an end to this genocide?  

Remembering Rachel Corrie

 

March 16, 2024  marks the  twenty first anniversary of the slaughtering of  Rachel  Corrie,  from Olympia,  Washington in the USA,  by an Israeli bulldozer in Gaza.  What is happening in Gaza today is not a reaction to  the events of October 7,  2023,  but an on  going genocide that started seventeen years ago when Israel turned  the Gaza Strip into an open prison.  Rachel, 23 years old,  was volunteering in Gaza and was trying to stand in the way of a bulldozer to  prevent it from demolishing a Palestinian home.  Nobody with any sense of humanity could have believed that the bulldozer driver would not stop at the sight of this young woman  waving and  blocking the road to deter him  from proceeding to demolish that home in Gaza.   But without any compunction and in a most brutal manner, Rachel was no more, swallowed by  that monstrous machine. 

As we remember that day,   we Palestinians are never  surprised at what Israel is capable ofdoing including  the genocide that is taking place in Gaza . My generation who lived through the Nakba has witnessed atrocities of such magnitude, but they were not exposed to the whole world to see for months on end.  What is sad and unacceptable is that Israel not only has been   able to dispossess the Palestinians and violate international law with impunity, but furthermore,  it gets rewarded by the USA and its allies for its ongoing plan of our dispossession. All this under the guise of “its right to defend itself,” despite the resounding protests of masses of human beings around the world. 

Please remember Rachel Corrie on this day and here is the link to the foundation side established by her parents after their great loss. Rachelcorriefoundation.org

Bless you dear Rachel.  You will always be remembered by all the Palestinians and especially the people of Gaza who are going through what you have gone through.

J.aacuse

J'accuse the USA and its allies for the thousands of Palestinians who have been massacred in Gaza.  And to add insult injury   for  the decision to withhold funding from UNRWA

I am not sure whether Mr. Biden and his allies   are aware that UNRWA was established as a temporary   organization by a United Nations resolution 302 on December 8,  1949 after the eviction of Palestinians from their homes in 1948 during what is known as the Palestinian Nakba (catastrophe)  and who  ended up as refugees in the surrounding Arab countries.  It was those same countries that are taking measures against UNRWA now, those who committed themselves to support UNRWA as A TEMPORARY Organization  for the Relief of the Refugees until a  just solution was found for them. (Either the return to their homes according to the UN resolution 194 ,  or to be compensated for their losses for those who wished not to return.) Had it not been temporary, the Palestinians would not have accepted the humiliation of standing in line for handouts.  But the situation was dire,  and now it is even worse for the Gaza Strip population. 

Ironically,  however, it is the USA and its allies – those  same countries-  who have always obstructed our  rights are those  who are withholding the UNRWA funding .  And here I wish to differentiate between the stand of the  governments and the people, especially in the latest invasion on Gaza.  The Palestinians had accepted the principle of UNRWA as a temporary relief agency because their cause was a just cause and they were sure they would be returning to their homes soon after the catastrophe.   However 75 years after the original catastrophe, the people of the Gaza Strip,  most of whom are originally refugees from Palestine during 1948, and even after,   are facing now another catastrophe and in the midst of it all, the USA and its allies have decided to withhold funding from UNRWA under the guise that some of its employees took part in the 7th of October 2023 events.   Even if those allegations are true (although there has not been an investigation yet) , and even though they had been fired from their posts,  such collective punishment against millions of Palestinian refugees violates international humanitarian law that the USA allegedly upholds.   

Wake up Mr. Biden and act as a true and honest leader of a superpower country!!