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| America, We Feel your Pain, Do you Feel
Ours? |
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| Friday, September 14 2001 @ 10:19 PM GMT
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Have Palestinians Really Danced on the Pain of America?
By Ramzy Baroud
A six year old Palestinian girl
kneeled and nervously, yet gently laid a flower to join hundreds of
other flowers, banners and candles in a small vigil held in
Jerusalem to commemorate the death of thousands of Americans in New
York, Pennsylvania and Washington.
The little girl rushed
back, bashful, and held on her mother’s hand and both stood quietly
gazing at a burning candle.
At the scene, only a few
reporters gathered, none of them represented foreign agencies; they
were all Arabs and Palestinians.
But Americans who witnessed
the world weeping for their victims, never learned of the deep
sympathy that was felt by many Palestinians across Palestine and
around the world.
However, they did see, with horror and
dismay, a few Palestinian children dancing on an old car, two men
shooting in the air and an old woman with thick spectacles waving
her arms, in celebration of the attacks, we were told.
Every
major American news network prides itself with having its own
exclusive footage and reporting. When it came to the scene of the
dozen dancing Palestinians, they were willing to share the report,
which was syndicated all over the world, and aired endlessly.
A quick conclusion was drawn: Palestinians dance on the pain
of Americans.
Even if the short report was accurate, a few
kids and an old woman hardly represent the Palestinian population,
which consists of millions of people, tens of thousands of them are
also American citizens.
If your grief and pain allow you to
roll the tape of memory a few years back, try to remember New York
City following the Gulf War in 1991.
The American army had
just returned from a mission in the Middle East. Former President
George Bush described the nature of the mission once on TV, so
bluntly and in simple terms, to "bomb Iraq back to the stone age."
Mission accomplished. The American army led the allied
forces in the region bombed Iraq for months and killed with no
remorse as the whole world watched, and as all Americans watched,
the same way they watched the World Trade Center being leveled to
the ground.
Those killed in Iraq were mostly civilians,
innocent men and women, not any more or less innocent than the New
Yorkers who fell to their deaths while sipping their coffee on a
seemingly beautiful morning.
American soldiers returned home
with hands covered in the blood of civilians, after they bombarded
every city, town and village in Iraq, south and north. They used
every weapon, they experimented with the highest killing technology
against a largely defenseless nation, they bombed, killed, and some
times ridiculed their victims.
They were seen on TV loading
warplanes with missiles that read "say goodbye Ahmed," "happy
Ramadan" and "say hi to Allah."
But when they came, they
were not booed; nor were rotten eggs thrown at them; they were
celebrated. As far as America was concerned, "our boys and girls"
were heroes.
And right in New York, where now half of the
city stands in dust and rubble, hundreds of thousands took to the
streets, lined up with happy faces and sang the Sparkled Stars for
the returning chaps; they cheered and chanted, "USA, USA."
Elsewhere in the United States millions of people celebrated
the victory; unlike Palestinians, where only a dozen kids rushed to
the streets to celebrate the killing of Americans, nearly every
American newspaper, TV station, millions of people, their
representatives, young and old danced for the death of Iraqis.
Then, like now, Americans were told that it was a battle
between good and evil; the good has won.
Iraqis might have
not been able to watch the celebrations in the United States; by
that time; their houses were rubble, their dearest possessions were
sold in the black market to buy some bread and milk, and their
electricity was cut off, for it was too, like their water supplies,
hospitals, schools, and every thing else "bombed back to the stone
age."
The attacks on the United States was horrid, humanity
was in shambles when some people thought they had the right to take
the lives of others as an expression of political views, likely,
social, or perhaps religious ones.
But the attack lasted for
several hours. The Congress three days later assigned $40 billion
for emergency funds to rebuild the country, to aid the victims and
to secure the country against future attacks.
But the
Palestinian tragedy have lasted much more than a few hours; it has
lasted for generations.
For 53 years now, Palestinians have
been subjected to some of the most notorious military police ever
used; for 53 years they were forced to live in concentration camps,
to drink polluted water, to have their loved ones killed, their
homes razed, their futures shattered, deprived of all God given
rights, and even UN given rights. Their were forced to flee for
their lives from one place to another, their were imprisoned,
tortured, and assassinated.
Not one day in the calendar
passes without Palestinians siting a massacre or two. They go to the
streets to protest the killing of a child, they return home carrying
another after being shot while protesting.
You might think:
I am already overwhelmed by my own grief, why should I worry about
yours?
The answer is simple. Every bullet that killed a
Palestinian was "Made in the USA", every shell, missile, and tank
was "Made in the USA." Every massacre was financed by America.
When three thousand Palestinians were killed in the refugee
camps of Beirut in 1982, the killers left the camps with piles of
skinned bodies, butchered and raped women, and thousands of empty
bullet shells, also Made in America.
Even the bulldozers
that tried to hide the crimes in mass graves as the killers
departed, were supplied by the United States.
Since the
creation of the state of Israel in occupied Arab land in 1948, the
United States has paid more than $125 billion, to finance the
Israeli army, to construct its illegal settlements and to aid a
racist state that sustains itself at the expense of a subdued
population.
Just two days before the attacks on New York and
Washington DC, President George Bush decreed that the fact that
Israel is using US supplied arms to assassinate Palestinians doesn’t
violate the US policy on Arms exports.
After all of this,
unlike what you would expect, only a dozen children rushed to the
streets to celebrate the death of Americans.
Despite all of
this, most Palestinians mourned the death of Americans and were able
comprehend the tragedy, for they have been living the tragedy for
decades.
Unlike the millions who celebrated the "victory"
against Iraq in 1991, Palestinians didn’t parade in the streets,
they didn’t chant "Palestine, Palestine," they did not raise colored
balloons and break champagne bottles; but they stood in lines in
Ramallah and in Gaza, cities that have been devastated by American
made weapons, and donated blood.
The six year old
Palestinian girl at the vigil finally went home with her mother.
Their trip to Ramallah from Jerusalem, a trip of half an hour, would
take hours because of the Israeli military checkpoints. Nonetheless
they decided to come and show solidarity with the American victims
and their families.
Close to them stood many Israeli
soldiers, gazing with suspicion at the mourning family as they tried
to find their way home.
The little girl, who is forbidden to
carry a Palestinian flag, held a small American flag and appeared
enthusiastic for the idea that no soldiers rushed to take her flag
away.
Back in the West Bank town of Jenin, thousands of
Palestinians desperately tried to defend their community, as the
Israeli army bombarded their homes and killed 11 people in a raid
that lasted several days.
"The helicopters are back"
screamed a Palestinian teenager, as he was armed with a sling shot
and a pocket filled with rocks. The people began running in panic to
nearby alleyways. Two American-made apache helicopters emerged from
behind the hill and showered the fleeing residents with automatic
rifle bullets, American-made bullets.
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| Authored by: angel-six
on Sunday, September 16 2001 @ 07:56 PM GMT |
Hello.
As greatly saddened as some of
us feel by the attack on our country, the USA, I wish to say
that -at least a minority of us- vie with the Palestinians
over their predicament at the hands of the Israelis.
Although we do not have enmity towards Israelites, we
in America are also keenly sensitized to always root for the
'underdog'. Most of us (the few of us) that pay attention to
the world outside our borders, upon looking at your plight,
instantly realize that the Israelis are acting about as
obnoxiously towards Palestine as they were themselves treated
at the hands of the Nazis prior to World War Two. But
unfortunately Power makes men blind.
There are many
reasons that America armed the Israelis in the past. Upwards
of thrity years ago, economic and millitary support was given
to them by my country because, at the time, it did in fact
appear as if certain powers wished to destroy the Israeli
state. That situation has changed. I am certain that no one
within my government pays credence to the idea that we are
supposed to be supplying arms to Israel so that they can
protect themselves, not so they can use the weapons we supply
to them to kill innocent civillians as organized retaliation
against terrorist attacks.
What I mean is: What can be
said for a nation (Israel) that uses its Army and Air Force to
hurt people who have committed no crime other than to live on
the other side of the border? Isreal's ruling goverment is
quite belligerent: a Palestinian may commit a random act of
terrible violence (which is not right), but the Israeli's
*organized retaliation* against such violence marks them as
bullys and cowards.
I think the think to do, if it
could be done, would be to ask you, the Palestinians, as
individuals, to *please* not give the Israelis any provocation
to use their weapons against you any further.
My
country is most probably going to wage an organized offensive
as a counterattack. I support it, because I am angry at what
was done to my fellow countrymen. At the same time, I do *not*
want my country to hurt innocent people. This is going to be
tricky. Hopefully all of you there understand that we harbor
no intrinsic malice towards our Muslim brothers.... but this
has to be stopped. The people who do these acts have to be
stopped. It is a very great shame that this happened in the
first place.
I do not want to see this be used as an
excuse for wanton bloodshed. Neither Jehovah or Allah would
support such a thing.
Unfortunately, I am at a loss of
what I can do to help. What *can* I do? How can I change the
minds of the men in our State Department so that they see that
our Israeli allies are actually the provocators in your shared
conflict? How can I change the minds of the Israelis who are
blind to the injustices they commit? What should I suggest we
do? If I ask my Senators to consider *dropping* funding for
the Israelis, how can I be sure that Egypt or Syria will not
attack them? How can I delicately remind the selfish bastards
in the Knesset that peace --ultimately-- requires that the
*both* of you take a step towards one another without
bloodshed?
O. C. D'Angelis
Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania
United States of America
[ Reply
to This ]
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| Authored by: kebekiya
on Sunday, September 16 2001 @ 08:09 PM GMT |
“America, We Feel your Pain, Do you Feel Ours?”
First let me apologise for the poor quality of my
English, my language is French not English. Also I want to say
that terrorists acts that happened in USA on September 11 are
totally unacceptable and unforgivable and yes I and we share
their pain about that.
What a good question you are
asking here ! but unfortunately I don’t think that America
feel your pain, in fact they don’t care about your pain
otherwise they wouldn’t subsidise the Israeli government to
fight your people. I’m really sorry but I think that your
people will even suffer more because of the terrorist attack
against USA even though you have nothing to do with it.
I live in Quebec (a province of Canada for now) and
here the media are controlled by you know who and the majority
of peoples are not well inform about the Palestinian fight
against the Israeli military occupation. Here people don’t
remind that during the gulf war the occidental powers have
killed at least 150,000 innocents Iraqi civilians. We don’t
remind also that at least one million Iraqi children have died
since the supposed end of the gulf war because of the embargo
against Iraq and it people. Unfortunately it seems that for a
lot of people a life does not have the same value depending
who you are. I must say that when I see all that I’m very
ashamed to be an occidental. Here actually the mood is very
bad for Arabs and Muslims and Bush seems to have a lot of
support to do everything he wants and kill a lot of innocents
peoples like it’s unfortunately USA habits. As I mentioned
sooner in this short comment I live in Quebec and I’m not an
Arab but I’m muslim and I think that we (Arabs and Muslims)
may share America pain but I think it won’t change anything to
what will happened in the near future. The American government
already began to threaten countries who do not want to joint
it’s alliance against terrorism and I think that a lot of
countries will joint this alliance without the support of
their people and I’m sure you can imagine what will be the
consequences of that.
What is terrorism ? Is-it
terrorism to fight against those who invade your country ? The
answer is NO of course and it’s called resistance.
May
Allah protect the Palestinian people and all the Muslims
against tyranny, in sha’Allah.
Nancy Parr (Quebec)
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| Authored by: Steve_in_America
on Monday, September 17 2001 @ 08:23 PM GMT |
It saddens me greatly when I am reminded that
American-made military equipment is being used to commit
attrocities against the Palestinian people. I have voiced my
objections to my elected officials, but I have not received a
response as of yet. I can only hope that President Bush and
others will admit to the truth about what is happening.
Some weeks ago, a Palestinian man and his two young
children were killed at night in their home by an Israeli
attack. They were a victim of Israel's assassination policy.
The two children were excited to have received new clothes and
supplies in preparation to go to school. Tears ran down my
cheeks as I thought about innocent little children who were
now dead.
Palestinians, I feel your pain and I am so
sorry that you are suffering. I am grateful for the many
Palestinians who have expressed their sorrow over the death of
Americans. I look forward to the day when Palestinians and
Americans can join hands together as friends. I pray that that
day will come soon.
[ Reply
to This ]
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