(Hanan Ashrawi’s daughter telling her story)

I am Palestinian - born and raised - and my Palestinian roots go back centuries. No one can change that even if they tell me that Jerusalem , my birth place, is not Palestine , even if they tell me that Palestine doesn't exist, even if they take away all my papers and deny me entry to my own home, even if they humiliate me and take away my rights. I AM PALESTINIAN.

Name: Zeina Emile Sam'an Ashrawi; Date of Birth: July 30, 1981; Ethnicity: Arab. This is what was written on my Jerusalem ID card. An ID card to a Palestinian is much more than just a piece of paper; it is my only legal documented relationship to Palestine . Born in Jerusalem , I was given a Jerusalem ID card (the blue ID), an Israeli Travel Document and a Jordanian Passport stamped Palestinian (I have no legal rights in Jordan ). I do not have an Israeli Passport, a Palestinian Passport or an American Passport.

Here is my story:

I came to the United States as a 17 year old to finish high school in Pennsylvania and went on to college and graduate school and subsequently got married and we are currently living in Northern Virginia. I have gone home every year at least once to see my parents, my family and my friends and to renew my Travel Document as I was only able to extend its validity once a year from Washington DC . My father and I would stand in line at the Israeli Ministry of Interior in Jerusalem , along with many other Palestinians, from 4:30 in the morning to try our luck at making it through the revolving metal doors of the Ministry before noon – when the Ministry closed its doors - to try and renew the Travel Document. We did that year after year. As a people living under an occupation, being faced with constant humiliation by an occupier was the norm but we did what we had to do to insure our identity was not stolen from us.

In August of 2007 I went to the Israeli Embassy in Washington DC to try and extend my travel document and get the usual "Returning Resident" VISA that the Israelis issue to Palestinians holding an Israeli Travel Document. After watching a few Americans and others being told that their visas would be ready in a couple of weeks my turn came. I walked up to the bulletproof glass window shielding the lady working behind it and under a massive picture of the Dome of the Rock and the Walls of Jerusalem that hangs on the wall in the Israeli consulate, I handed her my papers through a little slot at the bottom of the window.

"Shalom" she said with a smile. "Hi" I responded, apprehensive and scared. As soon as she saw my Travel Document her demeanor immediately changed. The smile was no longer there and there was very little small talk between us, as usual. After sifting through the paperwork I gave her she said: "where is your American Passport?" I explained to her that I did not have one and that my only Travel Document is the one she has in her hands. She was quiet for a few seconds and then said: "you don't have an American Passport?" suspicious that I was hiding information from her. "No!" I said. She was quiet for a little longer and then said: "Well, I am not sure we'll be able to extend your Travel Document." I felt the blood rushing to my head as this is my only means to get home! I asked her what she meant by that and she went on to tell me that since I had been living in the US and because I had a Green Card they would not extend my Travel Document.

After taking a deep breath to try and control my temper I explained to her that a Green Card is not a Passport and I cannot use it to travel outside the US. My voice was shaky and I was getting more and more upset (and a mini shouting match ensued) so I asked her to explain to me what I needed to do. She told me to leave my paperwork and we would see what happens.

A couple of weeks later I received a phone call from the lady telling me that she was able to extended my Travel Document but I would no longer be getting the "Returning Resident" VISA. Instead, I was given a 3 month tourist VISA. Initially I was happy to hear that the Travel Document was extended but then I realized that she said "tourist VISA". Why am I getting a tourist VISA to go home? Not wanting to argue with her about the 3 month VISA at the time so as not to jeopardize the extension of my Travel Document, I simply put that bit of information on the back burner and went on to explain to her that I wasn't going home in the next 3 months. She instructed me to come back and apply for another VISA when I did intend on going. She didn't add much and just told me that it was ready for pick-up. So I went to the Embassy and got my Travel Document and the tourist VISA that was stamped in it.

My husband, my son and I were planning on going home to Palestine this summer. So a month before we were set to leave (July 8, 2008) I went to the Israeli Embassy in Washington DC, papers in hand, to ask 2 for a VISA to go home. I, again, stood in line and watched others get VISAs to go to my home. When my turn came I walked up to the window; "Shalom" she said with a smile on her face, "Hi" I replied. I slipped the paperwork in the little slot under the bulletproof glass and waited for the usual reaction. I told her that I needed a returning resident VISA to go home. She took the paperwork and I gave her a check for the amount she requested and left the Embassy without incident.

A few days ago I got a phone call from Dina at the Israeli Embassy telling me that she needed the expiration date of my Jordanian Passport and my Green Card. I had given them all the paperwork they needed time and time again and I thought it was a good way on their part to waste time so that I didn't get my VISA in time. Regardless, I called over and over again only to get their voice mail. I left a message with the information they needed but kept called every 10 minutes hoping to speak to someone to make sure that they received the information in an effort to expedite the tedious process. I finally got a hold of someone. I told her that I wanted to make sure they received the information I left on their voice mail and that I wanted to make sure that my paperwork was in order. She said, after consulting with someone in the background (I assume it was Dina), that I needed to fax copies of both my Jordanian Passport and my Green Card and that giving them the information over the phone wasn't acceptable. So I immediately made copies and faxed them to Dina. A few hours later my cell phone rang. "Zeina?" she said. "Yes" I replied, knowing exactly who it was and immediately asked her if she received the fax I sent. She said: "ehhh, I was not looking at your file when you called earlier but your Visa was denied and your ID and Travel Document are no longer valid." "Excuse me?" I said in disbelief. "Sorry, I cannot give you a visa and your ID and Travel Document are no longer valid. This decision came from Israel not from me."

I cannot describe the feeling I got in the pit of my stomach. "Why?" I asked and Dina went on to tell me that it was because I had a Green Card. I tried to reason with Dina and to explain to her that they could not do that as this is my only means of travel home and that I wanted to see my parents, but to no avail. Dina held her ground and told me that I wouldn't be given the VISA and then said: "Let the Americans give you a Travel Document".

I have always been a strong person and not one to show weakness but at that moment I lost all control and started crying while Dina was on the other end of the line holding my only legal documents linking me to my home. I began to plead with her to try and get the VISA and not revoke my documents; "put yourself in my shoes, what would you do? You want to go see your family and someone is telling you that you can't! What would you do? Forget that you're Israeli and that I'm Palestinian and think about this for a minute!" "Sorry" she said," I know but I can't do anything, the decision came from Israel ". I tried to explain to her over and over again that I could not travel without my Travel Document and that they could not do that - knowing that they could, and they had!

This has been happening to many Palestinians who have a Jerusalem ID card. The Israeli government has been practicing and perfecting the art of ethnic cleansing since 1948 right under the nose of the world and no one has the power or the guts to do anything about it. Where else in the world does one have to beg to go to one's own home? Where else in the world does one have to give up their identity for the sole reason of living somewhere else for a period of time? Imagine if an American living in Spain for a few years wanted to go home only to be told by the American government that their American Passport was revoked and that they wouldn't be able to come back!

If I were a Jew living anywhere around the world and had no ties to the area and had never set foot there, I would have the right to go any time I wanted and get an Israeli Passport. In fact, the Israelis encourage that. I however, am not Jewish but I was born and raised there, my parents, family and friends still live there and I cannot go back! I am neither a criminal nor a threat to one of the most powerful countries in the world, yet I am alienated and expelled from my own home.

As it stands right now, I will be unable to go home - I am one of many.

So today is the third day of Eid Al Fitr that all Muslims worldwide celebrate right after the culmination of the month of Ramadan. Not sure if it’s only me, but Ramadan seems to have lost its glory. Years ago when I was a child, people’s attitudes towards both Ramadan and Eid (festival) were way different than now. Maybe I have grown up to the extent that I see in them nothing but the mere fact that few arrogant relatives come for a visit for a couple of minutes, and everyone just sucks them up.

It has been a gloomy day in deed. Being self-centered often times, I thought that my own family never enjoyed the Ramadan that other people celebrate. But the night prior to the Eid, I went for a drive to Ramallah with my uncle and three sisters, we toured around Al Manara and the mall a bit, and felt the legendary atmosphere. People were happy. That hit me; I am not accustomed to seeing them vividly preoccupied with the preparation for the big “day.”

So I came back home and wrote to all my contacts wishing them a Happy Eid and expressed my astonishment and satisfaction to see promising smiles in the crowded streets of Ramallah. But the sad part was that I knew it was merely fleeting moments and that those smiles would be wiped off soon. Not only have my fears become true, but I was blind. Yes, blind. Or may be I just chose not to see it. May be I wanted to believe that we are actually happy.

Would I miss Ramadan? NO. Not really. It has been made hell this year.

While Ramadan is believed to be the holy month during which people get closer to Allah by fasting from food and drink all day long and focus on their faith instead, I am not pretty sure this was the case with us Palestinians. It was only a drug. Ramadan numbed our pain. We could handle both the Israeli and Palestinian political, economic, and security pressure knowing that the day of salvation was approaching; the Eid. But after the three days elapsed, then what?

Now thousands of Palestinians are waiting for the next phase. It has been seven months now. Seven months, and thousands of the PA employees have not received their salaries. And two months elapsed with millions of students deprived form their right of education. I have three sisters and two brothers who do nothing but stay at home. They have not attended school from the very beginning of this term. It is both sad and frustrating that they have to “do the time” and pay a high price.

Reading the news headlines on the first days of Eid is not healthy at all. It lessens the effect of the drug, and one starts to get sober. Sounds funny in deed, but that was the case.

Few minutes ago, I surfed some of the blogs and came across few Iraqi bloggers writing on both Ramadan and Eid. If the titles did not mention “in Iraq,” I swear I could never tell the difference between Iraq and Palestine. The hunger, misery, constant killing, and lack of security are all Palestinian symptoms.

I am speechless now; I can hardly verbalize the so many conflicting thoughts. Heaven knows how things would be like next Ramadan, but I would not speculate it already. It is not time to worry about it now, other issues are on stake; food, money, and education. Until then, there are a lot of things to sort out.

Yesterday, I realized that I believe in love at first sight. Not the romantic kind, rather the sense of connecting with another human being without ever having to say a word. Indeed, the person I was so enthralled with last night was a five-month-old girl, who smiled at me and then hid her face in shyness. Those few moments of interacting with this baby lifted my spirits, but it also made me reflect in sadness about the fact that many children in this current conflict are robbed of their joy and their childhood.

I often contemplate how mature Palestinian children seem. Sure, they play the childhood games that we all played in our day, but there is wisdom in their words that is eerily sobering. Their age defines them as children, but if you have a conversation with a Palestinian child, you will realize how much awareness she has of the world around her, of suffering in the next village, in Gaza, in Lebanon. She is a child that has empathy and understands that life, by nature, is wrought with all sorts of difficulties.

A Palestinian child knows better; life is not as it is depicted in cartoons, where those who die are miraculously resurrected not once, but several times, where injuries are healed instantaneously, where death is a joke and life is a series of slapstick moments. A Palestinian child escapes into imagination, but she is never far removed from the reality of children and adults alike being indiscriminately shot outside her window, in her classroom, at the local bakery.

Who would have thought that normal things, simply walking down the street to grab a falafel sandwich, could result in your untimely death? Perhaps the Israeli army mistook the falafel stand for a bomb-making factory, or an ammunition shop? Make no mistake about it; the Israeli military have made too many “mistakes” that there is obviously a pattern there, wouldn’t you think?

A child that is robbed of the sense of security, therefore, is a child that is mature beyond her years. She knows that the bullets and the tank shells do not discriminate. Her father can shield her from the neighbor’s vicious dog, from the crazy drivers, he will hold her hand to cross the street, but he will not be able to capture a bullet in his hand like the mythological superheroes in blockbuster movies out this summer in theatres near you. He might be able to take the bullet for her though. But once gone, who will be her protective shield against the harsh reality of life that goes on in what seems the periphery of the conflict? And who will be there to share some of her joyous milestones; graduation, marriage, the birth of a child? Hers is a joy that is always overshadowed by a greater sorrow.

Is it fair that 31 Palestinian children have died in a 31-day period? A child-a-day; is that the new Israeli army mantra? Khaled was just a one-year-old, Aya was seven, Sabreen was only three. What lost potential, what lost promise – who knows what Khaled would have grown up to be? An astronaut? A veterinarian? A philosopher? What about Aya; she could have become a fashion designer, a teacher, a mother. By what right has this promise been so violently plucked and trampled upon cruelly and without a moment’s hesitation on the part of the Israeli soldier, who heartlessly unleashed a fiery rain of bullets and shells on a neighborhood as if he is in a simulated video game and those who die are fictitious and unreal? Perhaps that is what he is made to believe, otherwise, who in clear consciousness is so willing to pull the trigger and with one spray of bullets destroy life, potential and rob joy?

If you can see the smiling face of your own child, then how do you go out and unquestioningly take the life of others? If you value life, then how do you live with the burden of knowing that you have taken it so unjustifiably? Perhaps that is your perpetual punishment; the judgment of a child scorned is the harshest of them all.

So this is the story of the week, the fact that an elderly woman blew herself up in Gaza on November 23. That women need to blow themselves up in order to get the attention we deserve is widely symptomatic of a global culture that ignores the drudgery women have to endure day in and day out in order to keep food on the table, in order to educate their children, in order to keep their children safe and sound, despite the repeated Israeli onslaught on towns and villages across the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

Only when there is a blast that the media remembers to put a human face to the suffering of the Palestinian people, but the reverse should be true. Instead of singing the praises of women going about their daily life under exceptionally hard conditions, Western media and journalists, even those living amongst us, surprisingly justify horrific acts of violence and qualify them by insinuating that the fact that a woman who was bereaved and living under extreme conditions has warranted such an act. Such a gut reaction should be expected from a people who have to endure daily Israeli violence. Nonetheless, it should never be justified because it becomes a trend; these women (and the men before them) become negative heroines, instead of becoming positive role models among their peers.

So is it fair that the millions of women many of whom are bereaved or endure hardships, and who chose not to use violence to express themselves, are denied their say in the story because they decide that the true act of self-sacrifice is finding ways of staying alive despite an oppressive regime? This society needs to find creative, constructive ways of resistance, but its various attempts are hijacked by those who choose violence as a means of resisting the occupation. The more the media stresses these desperate acts and the more it ignores the stories of ordinary Palestinian women doing extraordinary things, the more they become complicit in an occupation that denies our humanity.

Where are the stories of the inspirational teacher encouraging her students to find their talents; or the visually impaired elderly woman intent on building the confidence of young visually impaired women in a society that is harsh to those with any kind of impairment; or the lobbyist working on abolishing violence against women? Are these stories not worth air time or print space?

The frustration that I face when I try to submit such a piece to a Western media outlet is that because it is a story of the ordinary it is always turned away, cloaked in some obscure thank you. Is it because it does not bleed that this story is not printed? Or is there a more underlying cause in having my pieces cast off? I would not say I am a brilliantly adept writer, but I do have something to say and want people in the West to hear it. Yet, when my story is rejected, I get the feeling, and I could be wrong, that it is not “good enough,” not on the grounds of style or language, but because it does not suffer enough. What kind of warped policy is Western media pushing?

While I admire many journalists, who have supported our cause, and their media that print or broadcast stories of Palestinians, I also feel that there is a hint of an unconscious and unintentional racism in their attitude; that it is only they that can best articulate our suffering. There are many Palestinians, who can express themselves clearly and succinctly, addressing the reason of a Western audience, without being overly emotional or unfeeling either way, but they are not considered credible or impartial because they have a stake in the story. But that is precisely why they should be considered credible.

We are all trying to move away from factional hegemony, but instead of finding support among the liberal media in the West at the very least, they are quite willing to publish op-eds by the rising stars of an abhorrent political party. The falling stars of Palestinian political history also get print space because they are recognizable names, if no longer with the Western public, then at least within the tiers of governing elites. It is quite strange to read their articles knowing that at home, they have lost much of their standing, whereas the West is still intent on giving them trust.

When our voice is drowned out by such power-hungry politicians, by irrelevant has-beens, when the pain of losing a child, a fiancé or a sibling is too much to bear for some women, they blow themselves up. I do not lay blanket blame on the media, but I do feel that they have a role in perpetuating certain ideas and ideals that are counterproductive to our national struggle and political aspirations, simply by ignoring the voices of the majority and willingly handing the platform to the perverse. The media has far more influence than it realizes even in the face of government and public antagonism, but it has failed to be courageous enough to change perceptions and instead continues to push the tired old labels that we have been fighting to eliminate; that “Palestinians are corrupt terrorist monsters and the only language we know and understand is violence and killing,” when the opposite is true.

It is extremely sad that the only way a young woman’s (and indeed and elderly woman’s) life story can be told, is through her acting out in a most tragic manner, taking not only hers, but the lives of others and extinguishing any promise that her life might have held. If the story of each Palestinian woman living in a camp, a village, a town in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip can be told honestly and with human dignity, then perhaps something will snap in people of moral conscious to actually seek to address the core issues that cause so much anguish among women that it drives some to become suicide bombers. As long as the media goes after a story like a wolf after its prey, then the struggling voices of millions of people going about their daily business on Palestinian streets will continue to be muffled. And as long as those stories are not being told, the sound of violence will be the only one that resonates.

Margo Sabella is a member of the Media and Information Programme at the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy (MIFTAH). She can be contacted at mip@miftah.org

Have we ever thought that perhaps the real crisis in the world today is a lack of genuine leaders - people in whom we can trust to not only speak out against injustices, but actually attempt to right wrongs? We forget that presidents and prime ministers are fallible, often falling into the trap of idealizing their role in our lives, often placing them on too high a pedestal so that we are sure to be disappointed with the results when they inevitably fall from grace.

So why has the person that embodies leadership become more important than the act of leadership itself, than policy-making, than diplomacy, than nation-building (in Palestine’s case)? Not to trivialize it, but being a president, a prime minister or a minister is just a job, with huge responsibility; therefore, those in power must acknowledge the trust they were given in order to govern properly and should not use their positions for personal gain.

Sadly, politicians seem obliviously ignorant to this reality or willingly turn a blind eye. They insist on going about their daily business forgetting that it is the voters that put them in that job in the first place and that it is to them that they are most accountable. They have attempted problem solving in secrecy, excluding the population that instated them, and silencing the voices of intelligent ordinary citizens whose experience and expertise, as well as moral conscience, should be taken into account when making decisions that inevitably affect the lives of the very people that politicians claim to serve.

The problem that ails most people in power, in Palestine, at least, is that they are condescending towards their constituencies. They claim that we do not understand the intricacies of politics, of negotiations or of diplomacy. That is a terrible mistake that Palestinian politicians have made throughout our modern history; if you ask any Palestinian what she thinks of anything, you will get a sophisticated political analysis. Decades pass and the same outspoken, fiery people are in the game, but with the passing of each year, their passion seems to have become lukewarm and their bellies seem to have expanded, symptomatic of the “fat cat” syndrome that has come to symbolize people in power everywhere across the “Third World” and indeed in the “civilized” West; corruption is not exclusive to the Middle East or Africa, but that’s a topic for another time.

A mark of a good leader is one that is able to see that time has run out on him, that it is time to pass the torch, so to speak, and bow out of the political limelight with grace and dignity. Yet, in the Middle East, leaders remain leaders way past their expiration date, because they think they are indelible; that if they go, all else will fall apart and crumble into the sea. They have such high opinions of themselves that they do not see beyond the tips of their noses that they are actually a large part of the problem and in no way constitute even a minuscule part of the solution. Opposition is unacceptable and the budding of a new wave of promising leaders is quashed as soon as it dares to rear its head.

We see what’s going on; ordinary citizens are not gullible and understand that it is the privilege and power that come with leadership that people actually crave for. Leadership is not an Armani suit and tie, Italian leather shoes and suitcases. It is not bullet-proof Mercedes or an army of bodyguards. These are just the “pretty” trappings of leadership, but they do not make a leader and do not attest to his essence. And yet it is the lure of the spotlight that sometimes seems to be the motivating factor for people in influential positions and power itself become the ultimate goal rather than a means to an end. This is most clear from the body language of politicians in television interviews, which more often than not belies the sincerity of any grand declarations that they may make in public.

Watching Hamas’ politburo chief, Khaled Mash’al, in a recent press conference in Cairo left no doubt in my mind that it is the limelight and the hunger for power and control that matters to him most, not the fate of the Palestinian people as he would have everyone believe. Unfortunately, he is not alone; the previous Palestinian ruling party "Fateh" did not act any differently and those at the top of the hierarchy still walk around with the air that the Palestinian cause and the common good are less important than their personal interests, even worse, that the Palestinian cause should serve their interests instead of the other way around. Sure many of them have made personal sacrifices, but the fact that they demand some sort of recompense now for what should be offered voluntarily has diminished respect for them even more. Hamas and Fateh each believe they, and they alone, will deliver us from the evils of the occupation, when it is clear that it is their narrow self-interests that will lead us farther and farther away from a resolution and closer to the brink of collapse.

How then does an ordinary citizen reclaim a drowning nation-building process, watching what was once a promising society sinking deeper and deeper into despair? How do we challenge those in a dysfunctional government in seeing us as more than passive voters, easily manipulated in any way suitable to their purposes? Far more difficult, how do we shake them into realizing that they are part of the problem in order to start finding a solution?

The time is ripe for Palestinian society to reject all forms of factionalism and refocus our attention on the real issues at hand; a creation of an independent Palestinian state, free from Israeli occupation. All segments of Palestinian society need to be part of the solution and should not abdicate power to people who have failed us time and again, especially now when it is obvious that factional rivalries have clouded people's judgment to what is really important. Do we leave those holding the power to continue to disparage the integrity of the Palestinian cause or do we usurp power from under them? If we do not take steps to save ourselves from our own folly, who will? The bigger question that remains is how do we get out of this apathetic, tired mood we are in and make our leadership hear our demands?

We are either living in a reverie or in denial. When someone you know gets injured in this conflict, you expect to have feelings of outrage, deep sadness, or at least the manifestation of these feelings should be the normal outpourings of grief, sorrow and concern. And yet, news of casualties of a latest Israeli atrocity or an inter-factional battle does not faze people as it once did.

I want to be in hysterics. I know it is not something ordinary to say, but the truth is, this conflict has made people accept as normal, things that elsewhere would elicit deep reactions of wailing, or at least tears, or the momentary satisfaction of venting anger by breaking dishes across a room. Are the restrained reactions that many Palestinians have are merely a self-defense mechanism? Or are we really in denial about what is going on in down town Ramallah or on the beaches of the Gaza Strip? Has the daily dose of grim stories become such an ordinary thing in our life that we wake up each morning, wanting, needing a fix of the usual blood-drenched front page that we pour over while doing something as normal as having our morning coffee and scrambled eggs?

So, shouldn’t I be in hysterics? When I heard that a photojournalist that I know, Osama Silwadi, had been shot while doing something quite unexciting as to look out his office window during a procession on Ramallah’s main street, I cannot describe the feelings that went through my head. Funny, but I thought emotions are not supposed to be cerebral, and yet, I block feelings, like so many Palestinians (and even some foreigners living among us) have become used to doing, in order not to allow myself the luxury of sinking into a depression every time I hear a story of a child killed or a family annihilated, because there are far too many to count. Many of us have learned over the years that if you allow yourself the slightest chance to let the situation overcome you, you are done for and you will be unable to function.

Osama used to be a photojournalist for AFP and Reuters before he decided to become a freelancer and create a Palestinian image bank (www.apollo.ps). He is a father of three children, who now lies in a coma in a hospital bed in Tel Aviv, so far away from his family and friends in Ramallah that no one can visit him or offer his wife the support she needs at this time.

As Osama watched the procession below on Ramallah’s main street from his office window this past Sunday, boys were shooting into the air to commemorate a fallen comrade. I say boys because my (female) mind cannot accept the fact that mature men would be so irresponsible as to shoot in the air in a densely populated area, where the chance of a stray bullet hitting someone is not a remote possibility, but a certainty. And so, the bullet traveled from the barrel of one of those boys’ guns into Osama’s now non-existent spleen, up near his heart to lodge finally in his spinal cord.

The prognosis is not good and we all hope and pray for his recovery, knowing that when he finally wakes up from his coma, he will find that his reality has changed so dramatically around him and he will have to grapple with whether or not he will be able to resume his life as he had once lived it. All those times in the field when he knew that he was a taking chance on life by snapping shots of stone-throwing youths confronting soldiers, or non-violent protestors against the Wall, did he never stop to think that life is so fragile in any case that even a simple walk under rickety scaffolding or taking the wrong turn in a road can result in a fatal accident?

Not to sound like a cliché, but such is life, whether you have lived in a conflict zone all your life or not, you cannot cower in your house forever in the off-chance that you might be struck by lightening. Perhaps, however, people who have gone through trauma feel invincible and the sense of danger is blunted and lightly brushed aside, and so it could quite have possibly been those thoughts that went through Osama’s mind seconds before the impact of the bullet ripped through his body.

It is odd how yesterday morning, when I heard the news, all I could think about is how ordinary this news sounded, despite the fact that Osama had been on my mind quite often these past few days, because I was looking at some recent photos I had taken with his voice about light, lines and frame running through my head. I realized with some unease that I lost the ability to be shocked, indeed a friend told me once that he also lost the ability to be astonished by such things as the first flowering of spring or the birth of a child and that is how I feel sometimes, like I am a car in neutral mode most of the time. And while I am deeply saddened by what has happened to Osama, I am unable to reach down into that deep place where I will allow myself to feel more than the very superficial of feelings and I know that tears will not come.

It completely worries me, this sense that we are becoming a nation of zombies, who have turned off the tap of basic human responses to bad and good news alike that something like the recent inter-factional fighting is not so shocking or unexpected. Once you stop being shocked, then you stop being afraid, and once you stop being afraid, you can do anything out of the bounds of acceptable human behavior. The signs of intimidating armed men running unrestrained among the population should be dealt with immediately and decisively.

More importantly, the indications that we are heading toward a civil war that so many are trying to suppress and deny, will become a full-blown reality if this is allowed to continue and then there will be no turning back to a time when Palestinians put the national interests before the factional, if ever there were such a time. If that should happen, there will be more innocent bystanders like Osama, who will pay the heavy price of the craziness that we have sunken to in recent months, and ultimately Palestine will hemorrhage outwards and be drained of its wealth of people, who today still have the ability to save it from becoming yet another tragic tale for the history books.

The images of dead children flashed across Arab TV screens all day Sunday and showed nothing but dusty lifeless children, who just a day before may have been flying their kites and enjoying ice-cream in the Lebanese village of Qana. Normal children in abnormal circumstances. The luck of the draw and they were born into a life barely lived and conflict is all they knew of it.

Even if families were forewarned about a military strike, why is it so hard to fathom that a family would rather risk staying in their home, than become refugees somewhere unknown to rely on the mercy of relief organizations and the kindness of strangers? Not only did the house cave in in yesterday’s Israeli operation on Qana, killing children and women, but the blame is somehow laid flatly at their feet; they were told to vacate, yet they stayed, so they must be a legitimate target – and those who issued the ultimatum are thus vindicated! What compelled these people to knowingly stay in their village, despite the certainty of an air strike? Was it faith in God? Was it faith in humanity? Ordinary people sadly believing that the hollow compassion of decision makers and world leaders actually amounts to anything? The romantic notion of leaders standing for the rights of the downtrodden is sadly the substance of legends and fairy tales.

It is hard to breathe sometimes, hard to imagine a world where injustice is so prevalent and yet every press conference, whether by American, Israeli, European or even Arab officials could have been written by any one of us, almost verbatim. The rhetoric of “we are doing this for your own good,” does not go down well with the Arab masses. What of the European public? I hardly believe that masses in the UK or France, or elsewhere in Europe are as naïve as their governments imagine them to be – the American public is another matter, sometimes they seem to be irredeemable. How does one react to atrocities that say one thing loud and clear, while words put a spin on these events that is so falsely transparent we can only suppose that these officials must be living somewhere on another planet and only come down to earth, occasionally, to save us from our own folly, or so they would think?

War is nothing but a test field; that is what one of my old history teachers used to say in class. He always got his wrist slapped by the school administration for veering off the curriculum and actually teaching us something worthwhile; a lesson we could carry with us for a lifetime. Things are not as they seem. There is a reason for the war; or better put there is a reason not to have peace and not to use diplomacy. Today, the perversity of world leaders has lead us to believe that they do not wish for peace, that they never did and possibly never will.

The stores in Ramallah and Jerusalem have decided to shut in protest Monday, people in Palestine are outraged at what is happening in Lebanon and can only wonder that once Israel has satisfied its thirst for violence and killing there, when will our turn be again. The loss of life and destruction we see on TV is so graphic that you can almost smell the decaying bodies in the dusty Middle Eastern air traveling from the South of Lebanon to the heart of Palestinian territory. Palestinians, as everyone else watching Al Jazeera, are incredulous, but not entirely surprised, as to why no one has intervened to stop Israel from inflicting more destruction on the innocent.

Sorry, like peace, is just another word that has been recycled too many times to mean anything to anyone anymore. If you were truly sorry, then would you not demand an immediate unconditional ceasefire? So, spare us the contrived apologies and the artificial outcries and rage; we do not want to hear your supposed words of compassion, for they ring hollow in our ears. When you are ready to become a human again, please inform us, until then, no one wants to hear another peep out of you.