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What
more is there to write. Today is our 4th day under
24-hr lockdown and their is no indication that this
curfew will be lifted tomorrow. As you are seeing
on TV the Israelis are proceeding to do what they
know best - destroy!
Personally,
I'm not surprised. As the first article below, "Fruitless
Foursome" explains, the world community started
to set the end game - one that, as weak as it is,
Israel has no intention of accepting, so it is expected
that they will create a new reality - something that
they are experts at. Also, as the last three articles
in this message show, Israel's economy is starting
to show the pains of occupation, and thus, we should
expect Sharon to escalate his tyranny against us in
order to move domestic attention of Israelis to an
external problem - today it is Palestinians, tomorrow
Iraq, the next day Syria, and so on.
As
I write (6pm Sat), thick black smoke billows above
Arafat's headquarters compound. Something is on fire
but we cannot tell what. The wind is moving the smoke
clouds over all of Al-Bireh. Also, we can hear explosions
in the city. For the last two nights we have returned
to the escalation we lived through this past April.
At around 3 pm the unmanned plane starts wizzing overhead,
out of sight but making a wizzing sound for hours
on end. A nerve wrecking tactic. At 9pm the Apache
helicopters, usually 2-3, start flying at low altitudes
over Ramallah and Al-Bireh. They stay in the air overhead
for 1-2 hours. Then the tanks and APC's rumble through
the streets. The children are horrified. Parents are
in deep depression.
Last
night the IDF destroyed what remains of Arafat's headquarters.
The windows of our house shook with each explosion.
The number of tanks roaming the streets are three-fold
now. We can hear the Israeli soldiers on loudspeakers
at night calling for all in Arafat's headquarters
to surrender. Every hour or so during the night a
tank fires a shell at the headquarters. We now sleep
during the late morning hours after day break when
it is relatively more quiet.
Before
the last suicide bombing I hope it was reported that
a 10yr old was shot in the chest with 6 tank machine
gun shells in front of Al-Amari refugee camp (a few
minutes from my home). His name was Abdel Salam Sumerin.
We heard the barrage of gunfire and heard the ambulances
but only learned of his death via the media. Some
say he ventured out of the curfew to but his father
cigarettes from the refugee camp store, others say
he threw a stone at a 60-ton tank -- it does not rally
matter to me - he did not deserve to die, any more
than the Israelis on the bus in Tel Aviv did later
that afternoon.
In
a separate, similar incident, a Palestinian girl was
wounded in Kafr Usserin near Nablus after residents
who have been under curfew for over two months confronted
soldiers.
As
we ration our supplies and try to fill the long days
Areen asked me a question while I was sitting on our
outdoor veranda staring at the Pesgot settlement (where
my family has land that was confiscated). She asked,
"Dad, do the settler kids go to school when we
are under curfew." I explained that they did,
knowing that the Israeli media machine will one day
say, see they teach their kids to hate us!
My
wife is worried she says it looks like this is as
bad as it can get - no school, no supplies, no work...
I tell her to be thankful - we still have running
water and electricity. I wonder what Sharon and Peres
will tell their people after Arafat is long gone and
we still demand our freedom and an end to occupation...more
importantly, I wonder when the Israeli public will
stop believing their myths.
I
pass the following materials with the hope that a
cumulative effort will one day bring the occupation
tumbling down like Apartheid before it.
•
The
Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global
Dialogue &
Democracy
Fruitless
Foursome
By MIFTAH, September 19, 2002
From
a Palestinian-American friend being torn apart from
the inside
by occupation!!!
The
Rape of a Nation, by Salam Rahal
CounterPunch, September 19, 2002
'6
Weeks of Quiet'
By Chris Meyer, chris@mytechs.com
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