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The Israeli army arrived in our street
at 2 am yesterday morning.
For the past two weeks they
have been in Ramallah every night and we knew it was only a matter
of time before we would directly experience their invasion tactics.
Every morning we had discussed where they had been the night
before and how much damage they had inflicted. We had discussed
whom they had arrested and who had managed to escape. We had
listened with utmost sympathy to the stories of those caught
in the apartment blocks that were being searched: to the women
who had no time to cover themselves decently, to their husbands
taken in nightdress and without shoes.
We had listened to the explosions
from neighboring areas of Ramallah and had wondered not if
but when our street would be targeted.
It was on August 14 at 2 am.
The only warning we received
was a phone-call 10 seconds before the army arrived, telling
us that the Israelis were at the Legislative Council, 5 minutes
away.
We were still up as my flat-mate
was traveling at 5:30 am and we were packing and talking about
visa issues and what to do if her visa was denied.
The phone call and then the
horrible sound of 10 jeeps and 2 tanks and an arrest-van.
And instant spotlights and
shooting and explosions.
Then rocks hurled at our door
(aren't Palestinian youths imprisoned for years for throwing
rocks?), and four Israeli soldiers at the door with their faces
painted and all pointing M-16's at our heads. They were shouting
at us in Hebrew, ordering us outside.
We decided that we would distract
them if we could to give any poor hunted man as much time as
possible to escape.
We also gave the neighbors
some relief by giving voice to their anger; a privilege for which
they would have been shot.
The soldiers of the two jeeps
at our doorstep got sick of dealing with us after 10 minutes
and as flares exploded over our heads and heavy gun-fire filled
the open paddock next to our house, they began to shout at us
to get inside.
We went in and sat on the verandah
overlooking the paddock in the spotlight of three other jeeps
while soldiers raked the field with bullets. They were shouting
at the empty field in the vain and arrogant belief that some
wanted man would suddenly appear and they would receive the promotion
for his capture. We were shouting back.
They said "come out!"
so we did.
We went back down the stairs
and told the jeep stationed outside that we were being called
by the soldiers in the next street. They started to shout at
us that the soldiers were not telling us to come out but we assured
them that it must be us they were shouting at, because if any
person had been hiding in the empty field he would long since
have been murdered.
The soldiers were furious at
our interruption and for this we were glad.
When we knew that we had pushed
them as far as we could in the circumstances and realized that
our knees were shaking so much that they were about to give way
beneath us, we went back inside to collapse on the lounge in
tears, wondering if there was actually some man bleeding to death
in the field that we could not reach.
For another hour the jeeps
and tanks circled round and round our block. Shooting barrages
of machine-gun fire and throwing explosives into every shrub
and bush.
And then they departed.
They had not caught anyone
and for that we were also glad.
The next hour passed in deathly
quiet. It was strange to sit in the dark and know that everyone
else in the street was doing exactly the same as us. Sitting
up, sleepless and silent, afraid, waiting for the daylight to
bring some normalcy back into a night-marish situation.
An hour passed. In a half sleep
I heard a sound outside the window and rushed to see what was
there. It was a strange sound and I couldn't work out what sort
of devise Israel was using to produce such a singular noise.
As I stood perplexed at the
window I suddenly realized that the sound was a bird singing;
welcoming the first light of the day. It was sitting in the tree
outside the window, hoping from branch to branch, and singing.
Actually singing!
I wondered then at how I was
becoming conditioned to the inhuman situation here, I was actually
mistaking the singing of a bird for some strange weapon of Israel's.
And I realized how much I missed the simple joy of listening
to the Australian "morning chorus" as we call it; the
great cacophony of sound that no one can sleep through, that
you curse every morning but love none-the-less. The sound of
the freest creatures on earth celebrating that freedom.
There is no freedom in Ramallah.
The West Bank and Gaza are prisons, and this is the reason many
people have given for the inability of the Palestinian resistance
movement to achieve even the sort of uncertain cease-fire that
Hezbollah has managed to achieve in Lebanon.
People here are talking about
this and are asking how Hezbollah has been able to enforce this
cessation of hostilities when Palestine has been unable to do
it for half a century.
Last night I talked with two
Palestinian friends about this and they described to me in geographical
terms the main difference between the Hezbollah resistance and
that of Palestine.
"Here" one said "is
Palestine" and he placed on the table two cigarette packets
and two lighters forming a square, "in the center. Here"
and he pointed to one packet at the edge of the square "is
Hezbollah. What is behind Hezbollah? Nothing. They are fighting
Israel and America face to face and behind them is open fields,
and Syria and other Arab States.
But here is Palestine. Surrounded
on all sides. They are not fighting only in front of them, but
on every side, the enemy is behind them and even among them.
This feeling of imprisonment and lack of support has ground away
at the resistance movement here until it has become nothing more
than isolated cells of militants who are not even supported by
their own families.
Have you seen the wanted men,
our freedom fighters, who are homeless?
Even their families are afraid
to associate with them.
Have you seen them when they
are alone, and the full weight of their situation hits them?
I have seen them, crying like
a child.
This is how Israel has been
winning the war against Palestine.
Dividing the people and terrorizing
them so much that they can not even trust their cousins; half
the population of Palestine are collaborators; they are collaborators
because they have been broken by Israeli forces.
So while there were celebrations
in Al-Minara on the day of the cease-fire there was also a very
clear awareness that Hezbollah's victory will not serve the Palestinian
struggle in any way except to assure them again that without
the backing of Arab States this struggle is doomed to continue
in the insidious and bloody way that it has been continuing for
many years.
And not just the backing of
Arab States will help them. As my friend concluded; "Hezbollah
is indirectly supported by France and Palestinian resistance
is not supported by any western nation."
So a certain sadness envelops
the city of Ramallah. A city that has been caught on the edge
of a crisis which has been in the international spotlight, while
experiencing nightly crisis' on a smaller scale that fail to
register on any international screen.
The people of the West Bank
are still prisoners, as they have been for a long time.
The only thing the Palestinians
have to counter the nightly invasions and terror tactics of the
Israeli forces is their song of freedom.
Still to be heard if you remember
to listen for it.
Despite the humiliation and
the mistrust and the tangled web of conspiracy that exists in
the West Bank and Gaza, there is still absolute dignity in the
resistance of individuals here. I do not agree with my friend
who says that the resistance has been reduced to little cells
of desperate militants always looking over their shoulders; the
resistance is also to be found among musicians who hold weekly
concerts for free to sing the traditional heart-breaking songs
of Palestine, it is also to be found among the teachers of the
fatherless or motherless children who work to daily bring some
joy and learning into their lives, it is even among the bus drivers
who will drive impossible roads to help some passenger avoid
a flying checkpoint.
And those little pure messengers
of freedom have not forgotten these people. They still wake and
sing at dawn to remind of the world existing beyond war and oppression
and man-made instruments of torture.
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