http://www.salam.org/palestine/understand.html
Understanding Palestinian Terror
By Eyad Sarraj
A few weeks ago I said that the struggle of Palestinians today
is how not to become a bomb and that the amazing thing is not the
occurrence of the suicide bombing, rather the rarity of them. The
BBC interviewer appeared to understand. I was shocked because it
is our understanding that the world out there will never
understand. And who on earth in their right mind would understand
terror and the killing of innocent people? Why do Palestinians
kill themselves and Israelis in such an horrific way at the bus
stop or in a crowded market? Do you really care to know? Well,
let me try and explain.
I believe it is an act of absolute despair and a very serious
stage of the seemingly perpetual conflict. Since the uprooting of
the Palestinians in 1948 triggered by Irgun Jewish terror under
the leadership of Yitzak Shamir and Menachem Begin, we have tried
everything. We have tried Nasser and Arab Nationalism, only to be
invaded in 1956 in our second homes in the refugee camps. It was
only because of the Russian threat to bomb London and Paris and
the resolve of US President Eisenhower that ended the Israeli
occupation.
We have tried the United Nations and its Security Council,
which by the way have made excellent resolutions on our behalf.
For example Resolution 194 calls on Israel to allow us to return
to our homeland, but to no avail. So we kept wandering around,
between airports and refugee camps, waiting for a hero or an
earthquake. All we wanted was to go home. But our story was
getting worse and we grew bitter as we heard that a Jew from
Poland would be declared a citizen of our country -- a country
now called Israel. We were told that officially we were stateless
with undefined nationality. So we went to universities. We
believed then that Jews were so clever because they were
educated. We were told that Jews controlled the world with their
education. They are doctors, lawyers and scientists, never
beggars or boxers.
In twenty years many of us became university graduates and we
were in every university. We had some pride. Some of our educated
people formed the resistance movement. They believed that the
Arab countries would never fight Israel, and that we had to force
them to fight. Fatah with Yasser Arafat was born. They forced the
Arabs to fight by inviting Israel to attack Egypt in 1967. In the
course of six days the Arabs were defeated again but worse. This
time we lost Gaza and the West Bank, Egypt lost Sinai, and Syria
lost the Golan. In a sudden stroke our fate was sealed and we had
to live under Israeli military occupation for thirty years. Do
you know what does it mean to live under Israeli military
occupation? Do you really care to know? Let me tell you a few
things.
- You are given an identity number and a permit to reside.
If you leave the country for more that three years in
succession, you lose that right to residence.
- When you leave the country on a trip, you are given a
laissez passez, a travelling document, valid for one year
and it tells you in its recording of your particulars
that you are of undefined nationality.
- Israeli occupation means that you are called twice a year
by the intelligence for routine interrogation and
persuasion to work as an informer on your brothers and
sisters. No one is spared. If you are to be a member of a
political organisation you will be sentenced for ten
years. For a military action you will be sentenced to
life.
- To survive under the Israeli occupation you are given the
chance to work in the jobs that Israelis do not like,
sweeping the streets, building houses, collecting fruit
or harvesting. You will have to leave your home in the
refugee camp in Gaza at 3 am, go through the road blocks
and check posts, spend your day under the sun and
surveillance returning home in the evening to collapse in
bed for a few hours before the following day.
We simply became the slaves of our enemy. We are building
their homes on our villages, and we clean their streets. Do you
know what does it do to you when you have to be the slave of your
enemy in order to survive. No you will never know how painful it
is unless your country is occupied by another force. Only then
will you learn how to watch in silence pretending not to see the
torture of your friends and the humiliation of your father.
Do you know what it means for a child to see his father spat
at and beaten before his eyes by an Israeli soldier? Nobody knows
what happened to our children. We don't know ourselves except we
observe that they lose respect for their fathers.
So they, our children, the children of the stone as they became
known, tried the Intifada -- the uprising. Seven long years our
children were throwing stones and being killed daily. Nearly all
our young men were arrested, the majority were tortured. All had
to confess. The result was every one suspected that all people
were spies. So, we were exhausted, tormented and brutalised. What
else could we do to return to our home? We had almost forgotten
that and all what we wanted was to be left alone.
What else could we try? Oh yes, peace. When the news came that
Arafat had signed a peace treaty in Washington we were jubilant.
At last we thought we were to get rid of that miserable life of
military occupation, at last. So we had hope.
We could not believe our eyes when there were no more curfews
and we could actually spend our evening on the beach or wander in
streets which were now ours after eight o'clock at night. We were
ecstatic. We even had elections and we had a parliament, so we
were told.
Then came Binyamin Netanyahu.
He refused to meet Arafat and was clearly forced to shake
hands in obvious disgust. He refused to free our prisoners, to
have a safe passage for us to move between the West bank and
Gaza. He even surrounded our towns and villages with his tanks
and arrested our policemen. Then he went after our holy places
and opened a tunnel under our holiest Mosque. Tens of our
children and also Israeli soldiers were killed because of that
tunnel, but he went on insulting us and driving out our sanity.
Arafat called for patience and we were patient, then Netanyahu
started to build settlements in Jerusalem and drive the remaining
Palestinians out. Settlers in Hebron spat on our prophet and
called him a pig. All in the name of peace we were humiliated,
even arrested and tortured by Palestinian forces to protect the
peace. Our Authority was turning against us to please Netanyahu.
Our officials were driving in big cars and building big villas.
They have VIP cards and cross the check posts like human beings
while we are left to rot.
I've told you a few things. Now do you understand why we have
turned into suicide killers?
Eyad Sarra is a Palestinian psychiatrist, Commissioner of
Citizens Rights under the Palestinian Authority, and Physician
for Human Rights honoree. He was detained three times by Arafat's
forces in 1996.
