Posts Tagged Occupation
No Way Through
Nov 19
Muntadhar al-Zaidi, the Iraqi who threw his shoe at George Bush gave this speech on his recent release.
“In the name of God, the Most Gracious and Most Merciful.
Here I am, free. But my country is still a prisoner of war.
Firstly, I give my thanks and my regards to everyone who stood beside me, whether inside my country, in the Islamic world, in the free world. There has been a lot of talk about the action and about the person who took it, and about the hero and the heroic act, and the symbol and the symbolic act.
But, simply, I answer: What compelled me to confront is the injustice that befell my people, and how the occupation wanted to humiliate my homeland by putting it under its boot.
And how it wanted to crush the skulls of (the homeland’s) sons under its boots, whether sheikhs, women, children or men. And during the past few years, more than a million martyrs fell by the bullets of the occupation and the country is now filled with more than 5 million orphans, a million widows and hundreds of thousands of maimed. And many millions of homeless because of displacement inside and outside the country.
The Meaning of Occupation
Jun 21
Today I experienced the meaning of occupation. In what is a distance of about 45 miles, I spent 10 hours to get from Swaifiyah (in Amman, Jordan) to the Old City in Jerusalem, seven of those hours at the Israeli border, and maybe a total of an hour and a half in three different interrogations, waiting to be told if I was going to be allowed to go through or rejected a visa. Granted, I was a foreigner who was receiving “special attention” because the “discrepency” between the color of my skin and the color my US passport, however, Israel’s use of intimidation and fear was no less restrained towards the indigenous people of the land (i.e. Palestinians). I witessed Palestinian children at the brink of tears because they were separated from their parents hours on end not knowing if they would ever see them again, a Palestinian women running frantically to and fro trying to retrieve her “travel” documents and being denied any attention by the Israeli border agents (sadly enough those documents were the only living proof she had to verify her Palestinian identity, without them… or even with… Israel could reject her of ever having any connection to Palestine even if her family had been living in Palestine for centuries), an old Palestinian (more than one actually!) forced to stand in the heat of summer day in a LONG line to be issued a stamp to enter HIS home… Palestine.
The interrogations were ridiculous and clearly showed the apartheid regime’s racist and discriminatory policies. Most of the questions had absolutely nothing to do with the security of Israel. The border agents were sure to emphasize to me that I was Muslim and I should have known better than to visit Israel. Throughout my trip I had been emphasizing that I’m here to visit the holy sites and I specifically mentioned Judaic, Christian, and Islamic holy sites. At one point, the border agent asked me how I could possibly believe in Jesus(peace be upon him). He couldn’t fathom that Jesus(pbuh) is considered a revered prophet in Islam and is highly respected. He was “apparently” stunned that I wanted to visit the Church of Nativity, where it is believed that Jesus(pbuh) was born. Anyhow, the border interrogations were simply useless and a complete waste of time and I’m being realistic! Most of the people that go through these checkpoints pose absolutely no threat to the security of Israel. They simply want to make it a living nightmare and to make sure no one, Palestinians and non-Palestinians alike, ever dares to try to come to Israel ever again.
Here’s a picture of the Allenby/Sheikh Hussein bridge (at the border of Jordan and Palestine… I mean so-called “Israel”). I’ve got a lot more to say about the specifics of the exhausting border checkpoint, but I’ll save that for now… just ask me personally and I’ll tell you all about it.
Allenby/King Hussein Bridge