MIFTAH
Friday, 29 March. 2024
 
Your Key to Palestine
The Palestinian Initiatives for The Promotoion of Global Dialogue and Democracy
 
 
 

After my third day of intermittent weeping, my friend said to me: "I've been watching you. You are not strong enough to be here. You should go home and work against the Occupation from there." She is wrong, of course.

"Why are you surprised at the abuses of the Occupation?" she asks me. And adds: "We have been living like this for 37 years. And things will get even worse before they get better."

It is not that I am surprised at the abuses. I am simply dismayed and wounded over and over again. Injustices around me I take personally.

Israel declared total closure of the West Bank and Gaza last Thursday so that Jews could celebrate without interference their Purim holiday. But what gives any country the right to imprison over three million people with the excuse that its own citizens must be free to celebrate in the streets?

How is a country like the US, based at least in principle on "freedom for all" continue to give its financial support to a country that is creating an apartheid system worse than the one it denounced in south Africa only a few years ago?

And why are dozens of countries around the world suddenly changing their vote and denying the authority of the International Court of Justice to rule on the legality of the Israeli Apartheid Wall?

The fact that I cry hard and often does not mean I am weak. I have survived personal loss and tragedy and have fought many battles in my life. And I am still standing. Of course I credit the love and devotion of my sons for my ability to overcome adversity. I doubt that I could do it without them. As for my living here in solidarity with people under occupation, I simply hope that I will never get used to the intentional harm people do to one another.

Yes, I may cry you a river, but at the end, by the grace of God, I will still be standing.

 
 
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