Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Please Don't Demonize Nine Million People
A response to an attempt to demonise Palestinans and Palestinian-Americans:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jun/23/israelandthepalestinians.middleeast?showallcomments=true&commentpage=2&commentposted=1
Some instances of the fine treatment Palestinians and Palestinian-Americans receive courtesy of the "light unto the nations" in Israel's ongoing ethnic cleansing campaign and attempts to keep Palestinians away from the land of their origin:
"New Jersey stand-up comedian Maysoon Zayid describes being strip-searched at Ben Gurion Airport when she was 'seven, eight, nine years old' on family trips to visit her parents original home in Palestine. On her most recent trip in July 2006, Maysoon, an American citizen, had her sanitary pad taken by officials in Ben Gurion Airport. When the search was completed, she says, the Israeli official in charge, Inbal Sharon, then refused to return her pad or allow her to get another.
"Zayid, who has cerebral palsy and was sitting in a wheelchair, was then forced to bleed publicly for hours while she waited for her flight."
Even Holocaust survivors and the elderly aren't immune:
"St. Louis resident Hedy Epstein, whose parents and extended family perished in Nazi camps, and whose story is featured in the Academy Award winning documentary 'Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of the Kindertransport,' reports being strip searched three years ago following her participation in nonviolent protests in the West Bank. Epstein, who was 79 at the time, describes being forced to bend over for an Israeli official to search her internally."
http://umkahlil.blogspot.com/2007/03/easiest-targets-israels-abuse-of-women.html
Please don't demonise nine million people whose crime is that they happened to be born or have origins in Palestine: not Syria, not Jordan, not Lebanon, but Palestine, the land of their origin. Third generation Palestinian refugees continue the struggle for implementation of their inalienable right to return to their homes.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jun/23/israelandthepalestinians.middleeast?showallcomments=true&commentpage=2&commentposted=1
Some instances of the fine treatment Palestinians and Palestinian-Americans receive courtesy of the "light unto the nations" in Israel's ongoing ethnic cleansing campaign and attempts to keep Palestinians away from the land of their origin:
"New Jersey stand-up comedian Maysoon Zayid describes being strip-searched at Ben Gurion Airport when she was 'seven, eight, nine years old' on family trips to visit her parents original home in Palestine. On her most recent trip in July 2006, Maysoon, an American citizen, had her sanitary pad taken by officials in Ben Gurion Airport. When the search was completed, she says, the Israeli official in charge, Inbal Sharon, then refused to return her pad or allow her to get another.
"Zayid, who has cerebral palsy and was sitting in a wheelchair, was then forced to bleed publicly for hours while she waited for her flight."
Even Holocaust survivors and the elderly aren't immune:
"St. Louis resident Hedy Epstein, whose parents and extended family perished in Nazi camps, and whose story is featured in the Academy Award winning documentary 'Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of the Kindertransport,' reports being strip searched three years ago following her participation in nonviolent protests in the West Bank. Epstein, who was 79 at the time, describes being forced to bend over for an Israeli official to search her internally."
http://umkahlil.blogspot.com/2007/03/easiest-targets-israels-abuse-of-women.html
Please don't demonise nine million people whose crime is that they happened to be born or have origins in Palestine: not Syria, not Jordan, not Lebanon, but Palestine, the land of their origin. Third generation Palestinian refugees continue the struggle for implementation of their inalienable right to return to their homes.
