WHY PALESTINE IS OUR SADNESS

Palestine is sad. Stories of people deprived of independence, lands seized and people persecuted.

WHY PALESTINE IS OUR SADNESS

In front of the Israeli parliament building (Knesset) still stands the writing on which Israel’s political foundation, “The total area of Israel is from the river Euphrates (Iraq) to the Nile (Egypt).” While it is still the basis of the State of Israel it seems that the possibility of peace in the Middle East is very small. Israel itself as a State-supported by the United States is a great power that has everything, a tough military, strong financial resources, control of the media, and advanced industries.

So, Palestine is sad. A couple of broken stories about people who lost independence, lands seized and people persecuted. This Palestinian echo is so often forgotten. During the Israeli security crackdown that left 3 people dead and more than 100 wounded in the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, an act of violence and human rights abuses, such as the killing of people attempting to exercise their right to worship at Al-Aqsa Mosque. The world feels painful. “Look!” Israel seems to assert that, “Palestinians can have their own government, but it’s only on paper!”

History is a pattern with multiple repetitions.

On July 11, 1948, the Israeli army, assisted by a Moshe Dayan-led battalion complete with an armored vehicle fitted with a cannon raided al-Ludd, accompanied by war-trained young men from Ben Shemen. The city attempted to defend Arab militias. But within 47 minutes, dozens of Arabs were killed, including women, parents, and children. On the side of Israel, nine people died.

That same night key positions in the city center were seized. Palestinian residents, in the thousands, were forced into the main mosque. When some Arabs tried to fight by shooting at Israeli soldiers from near a small mosque, the reply came unmitigated.

Grenades are thrown into homes. The small mosque was shot with anti-tank bullets. “In 30 minutes, two hundred and fifty Palestinians were killed,” writes Ari Shavit in his book My Promised Land: The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel. “Zionism has committed a massacre in al-Ludd.”

And that’s not the end of the story. After the city was occupied, Yitzhak Rabin, the operations officer, passed Ben-Gurion’s decision in written instruction: “The residents of al-Ludd should be expelled as soon as possible, regardless of age.”

By nightfall, some 35,000 Palestinian Arabs flocked from their hometown in a long line to the east. Never able to return.

Ari Shavit wrote the scene with a sad tone. He knew that cruelty had been committed against innocent and defenseless Palestinians who were expelled in the twentieth century, as the Jewish people, in the 6th century BC.

But he did not condemn. The Haaretz daily reporter was unable to condemn Israeli leaders who ordered the arbitrariness of al-Ludd. “Without them,” he wrote, “I will never be born. They do such a vile work that allows my people, my people, my children, and myself to live.”

Shavit was born in Rehovot, 20 kilometers from Tel Aviv, nine years after the State of Israel was founded. Some are honest in his statement: he claims to be powerless amidst difficult moral choices.

Israel has everything to win the war against the Palestinians. Their fighter planes are roaring in the sky, while the Palestinians have what? Maybe they can only say we have a body that can explode. Imagine a body that can explode. Palestine is not just a “land of blood” in the literal sense, but also people who are forever plunged in pain and constantly beheaded.

Conditions in Palestine, the people there worship with escorted by Israeli soldiers. Photo Reuters / Ammar Awad

We do not know how long the Palestinians can live in the tyranny of Israel, but we all know that Palestine will always live as a desired. The days there are full of tension, between anger and ideals to be achieved, possibilities of life or death, displaced as well as heroism, nostalgia and the difficulty of hope. Palestine may be the only time we should speak because Palestine is not just a territory, but a struggle for independence.

It seems rather difficult to imagine, Israel as a State that overshadows the Jews who brought trauma to the history of the extermination of most of the Jews by the Nazis, now do the cruelty they once experienced. Israel is Israel because it felt that they had been the victims of the Holocaust actually made them feel the right to a more cruel holocaust of Hitler. A circle of endless hatred.

Israel, feeling besieged from birth, attacked and occupied the territory of its people from the first stand. Israel is not just a country, Israel is a combat troop. He is constantly alert and generally never loses.

History never promises a happy ending for everyone, nor (maybe) that ends forever. History is also made up of incessantly defiant acts, demanding, in other words, arbitrariness, should never happen again. So in all our limitations, let us pray for them in Palestine. Because Palestine is us.

Why are we Palestinians? Palestine is not just a territory, nor are people of a particular ethnicity. Palestine is sad, facing the forces associated with knowledge and technology, facing sophisticated weapons, the power of money, a very conquering force. Why do we feel the same fate with Palestine? Because we know it feels sad because our hearts feel the same with Palestine. Ever felt how captured, defeated, and silenced in the world.

Translate From: Mengapa Kita Merasa Senasib Dengan Palestina