A prayer for Gaza

Prayers for Gaza

Samia Khoury

July 22, 2014

 

 

Today I had a short break from the news and the TV set as I joined Sabeel for  a special service held at the Dominican church  for the people of Gaza.   This church where Yousef and I celebrated our wedding, fifty four years ago, has become a symbol for special prayers held by Sabeel.  The occasions have been many and seem to be endless.  Iraq Syria,  Palestinian prisoners, and now the people of Gaza for a third round of invasions.  

 

No words can describe the brutality of what is happening in Gaza.  With the sophisticated media nowadays, nobody can claim ignorance of this genocide.  We watch TV day and night and see bodies torn apart and people lifting children from under the rubble.    We also  prayed for the Christians  of Mousel in Iraq who are being evicted from their homes or killed.  Not much different from the action of  the sophisticated army of the only democracy in the region shelling a defenseless population under siege.  Thanks to Mr. Bush and Blair for starting this war in Iraq and which, ever since,  had created havoc in the region and more refugees.  It also  brought about all sorts of radical movements that are  to the advantage of nobody but Israel,  as the world turns a blind eye to  how it has been systematically  dispossessing the Palestinians ever since 1948.    The barbaric war on Gaza is  another Nakba.   

 

Despite the grave tragedy and the massacre of whole families in Gaza totaling to over  660 until this evening and thousands injured and homes demolished we find the reaction of the UN and the US not up to the gravity of this beastly  invasion.  In fact it is unbelievable when the US president claims that Israel has the right to defend itself, instead of having the courage to force Israel to lift the siege on Gaza and to withdraw from the occupied territories.  This sounded like the understatement of the year  when an occupying force needs to defend itself from the occupied.  And what  makes  the Israeli narrative more ridiculous and nonsensical is the claim of all  spokespersons that Gaza is not under occupation, and that Israel withdrew from it completely eight years ago.  Really did they?  Who then controls this hugely condensed area whose population is mostly from refugees evicted in 1948?   

 

The people of Gaza  have been under siege for the last seven years,  with no access to land, air or sea.  So is the world surprised that they had to be creative and innovative in finding means to liberate themselves from this big prison and all the brutality of one attack after the other while the world was simply watching without taking any action. Enough is enough.  Those  people  could not wait any longer  for the wishy washy stand of the brokers of peace, the UN  or the Arab leaders and took matters in their own hands.  And at this stage it seems that all the Palestinians are behind them in their right to resist this brutality, despite the high price they are paying with human lives.  But for a desperate population the cry ends up being either freedom or death.  Is anybody listening?  Just envisage your own domestic animal cooped up in a small area, and felt cornered how ferocious it can be and  what damage it would do to be able to get out, and you might end up being its first victim.  The people of Gaza are human beings,  who  deserve a dignified life.    

 

Mr. Kerry wasted his time and energy like his predecessors in trying to forge a peace that could not be possible while Israel continues to flout all agreements and UN resolutions as well as international law.  Indeed as long as Israel can maintain the status quo and  get away with it by being above the law,  why should it bother to heed to the UN, Mr. Obama or Mr. Kerry?  They are all irrelevant as far as Israel is concerned.  But now  they got a taste of the suffering that they have inflicted on others for years.  Would these mothers and wives losing their loved ones make a difference, or will they become as arrogant as their leaders and more aggressive and revengeful and increase the loss of lives on both sides?

 

In his homily, Patriarch Sabbah  said that there is a  need for the transformation of leaders with a change of heart,  and a change of vision whereby all humans are equal and all people deserve to have their own freedom and sovereignty, and to  live   in dignity,  and security.  As I shook hands with the Patriarch, the Bishops and the clergy after the service I told them  I was hoping  the doors of the heavens were open to hear our prayers.  It is indeed going to take much more than our prayers to bring an end to the atrocities and massacres in Gaza.

Sound of Music

At the counter of the supermarket I ran into a friend who seemed very tense because she had family in Gaza.  But then Gaza has been the centre of  our attention and all what we have been talking about recently.  In fact asides from the distraction of the world cup, I have been flipping from one station to another to keep up with the reality on the ground.   My e-mail box has been inundated  with articles, youtubes,  as well as appeals, and  petitions that I am still trying to go through.  As my friend and I were ready to pick up our bags, a young boy standing by,  and  who apparently heard our discussion felt at liberty to contribute a comment:  “It is Hitler who needs to be blamed for all this; they are doing to us what he did to them.”  My friend and I were dumbfounded.   “How do you know about Hitler?” I asked him.  “From the Sound of Music”  he answered. 

I remembered how many times I had watched that lovely musical with my own children, and how the Trap family had to escape from  the Nazis.  I do not think that little boy realized that it was practically taboo to make an analogy between the Nazis and Israel.   However,  more voices nowadays and even Jewish voices are making this analogy as well as  being critical of Israel for having used the Holocaust to justify all the human rights violations against the Palestinians.  In fact I  had quoted  the famous Israeli singer Yaffa Yarkoni in my book Reflections from Palestine – A journey of Hope when she said: “When I saw the Palestinians with their hands tied behind their backs, young men, I said,  it is like what the Nazis  did to us.  We are a people that lived through the Holocaust, how can we be capable of such a  thing?”  Although Yaffa has passed away a few years ago,  there are many other Jewish voices  who are posing this question to the Israeli government.  But Mr. Netanyahu with his arrogance and megalomania, and using different pretexts  is  determined to wage a genocide against the Palestinians, and not only in Gaza.  In his press conference on Friday The Times Of Israel reported that he made it explicitly clear that he could never, ever, countenance a fully sovereign Palestinian state in the West Bank. He indicated that he sees Israel standing almost alone on the frontlines against vicious Islamic radicalism, while the rest of the as-yet free world does its best not to notice the march of extremism. And he more than intimated that he considers the current American, John Kerry-led diplomatic team to be, let’s be polite, naive.

Let us not fool ourselves that the cycle of violence needs to stop.  There is no symmetry between the occupiers and those resisting the occupation.   What needs to stop is the occupation, the  ongoing Nakba and the dispossession of the Palestini

Déjà Vu

June 23, 2014

The events of this past week brought back flashes of the brutal scenes that are still embedded in our memory  from 2000 when Israel invaded the Palestinian territories and  went on a rampage to terrorize the Palestinians.  Ever since the three youth settlers disappeared from Gush Etzion  settlement  in the Hebron area, Israel went wild.    Without even waiting to hear who had claimed the kidnapping,  which up to this day nobody claimed, Mr. Netanyahu announced emphatically that he knows for sure that Hamas was behind it.  If he is  that sure and his sources are so accurate, how come he has no clue where the young lads  are?  Irrespective of who is responsible, the reaction of Israel could not have been spontaneous.  It seems the plan was all set for the right time.  What the army is doing in the Palestinian Occupied Territories is a systematic plan of terrorizing the people to an extent that will provoke them to resort to violent struggle, so that Israel can be justified in doing anything to the Palestinians and blaming it on the Palestinians themselves.  If their main concern is to find the young boys there is no reason to storm offices, universities and homes and destroy anything that comes their way.  Even food stuffs were not spared as we watched an elderly man pointing to the mixture of rice, flour, salt and sugar all dumped together and on top of them the detergent.  Birzeit university was not spared, and they ended up taking two young boys who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.  But it was not the only university that has been stormed.  For all of you who are familiar with This Week in Palestine which I forward to you monthly, the Turbo offices where it is published was another victim of the latest rampage.  Here is a statement of Sani Meo, its general manager.  You can check the university website http:birzeit.edu for the statement of the university.  Until when are we supposed to bear all this and have more young people killed and imprisoned daily? 

PRESS RELEASE FROM THIS WEEK IN PALESTINE MAGAZINE

On Sunday, 22 June, at around 4:00 AM, Israeli Occupation Forces broke into the company premises of Turbo Computers and Software Co. Ltd., a graphic design firm

established in 1985 and publisher of This Week in Palestine magazine, and into the premises of its sister company, Jeel Publishing Co. Ltd., publisher of the Arabic youth

magazine Filistin Ashabab. Seven computers including the servers were confiscated, severely hampering the companies' operating capacity.

As private-sector companies, we deplore such an action which not only clearly violates our personal rights, including freedom of expression, but also jeopardizes the livelihood of our employees. During our 28-year history, we have had no affiliation with any political faction. Our work includes graphic design and print-management services offered to a large number of institutions, both local and international, including the Office of the President. This Week in Palestine is a 15-year-old nonpolitical cultural publication that promotes and documents Palestine, and Filistin Ashabab is a platform for Palestinian youth to express and develop their writing skills as well as their photography and artistic skills.

We call upon the international community, particularly the US and the EU authorities that have been trying to encourage the development of the Palestinian private sector, to voice its opinion on these barbaric actions and recognize the obstacles that we face as a people under military occupation. Our full economic potential will never be realized if actions like this continue – actions that threaten our investments and, more importantly, the livelihood of our people.

The attack on This Week in Palestine and Filistin Ashabab is a message to our readers that they might be deprived of access to these two independent Palestinian publications. But we want to assure them that we will continue to publish both magazines, despite the hardships, in order to continue to play our part in building the independent, secular, and pluralistic society that we all dream of.

We question the uncivilized manner in which we were violated and our computers confiscated. With today's technology anyone with adequate resources can easily tap into any system and have total access to its files. As totally transparent companies, we have nothing to hide and we pose no security threat to anyone.

We demand the immediate restoration of our computers, and we hold the Israeli authorities responsible for the integrity of the data that we have collected and worked on

for over two decades. Finally, we reserve the right to claim reparation for damages incurred, and to consider legal action, both locally and internationally.

Sani Paul Meo

General Manager

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