Democratic Palestine : 28 (ص 20)
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- عنوان
- Democratic Palestine : 28 (ص 20)
- المحتوى
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Eyewitnes
«People Are
Louise is a progressive American who works with a human rights organization. In late February and early
March, she visited occupied Palestine. Afterwards she shared her impressions about the uprising with
Democratic Palestine.
I took a group of ten American women to Palestine to in-
vestigate the situation. It was a fact-finding delegation com-
posed mainly of journalists, although we also had nuns among
us. We spent a very intensive week, looking at the situation of
the Palestinians during the uprising. We worked with groups in
the occupied territories who helped us on our tour. We went to
the West Bank, Gaza Strip and the 1948 occupied territories.
We met families of martyrs; we were in camps, villages and
towns. At various times, they were under siege while we were
there. Every member of the delegation was tear-gased at least
once and, I believe, shot at also.
We went to hospitals and viewed the wounded, people who
had been shot and people who had been beaten to brutal
degrees. We saw people who had been slashed with razors by
soldiers, a 14-year-old girl who had boiling water poured on
her by soldiers, people hit in the eye by rubber bullets, young
children who are crippled for life because they were shot in the
spine... We visited Al Ittihad hospital in Nablus, and saw some
pretty bad things there. Two hours after we left, the hospital
was attacked by Israeli soldiers. Patients and their families
were beaten, as were doctors and nurses. Six patients were
taken out and beaten and then brought back. We thought the
attack might have been a sort of retaliation for them having
talked to us, because the last thing the Israelis want is for
anybody to communicate to the outside world...
NEW POWER BALANCE
But despite all these atrocities, the spirit of the people was
tremendous, absolutely tremendous. Although they lamented
their sufferings, they knew that these had to happen and that
nothing would stop them from continuing. So, actually, it was
a very uplifting experience. I have been there before. This time
I saw that people are not afraid. They are not afraid to hoist
the Palestinian flag on top of their house or a building, or to
carry it with them... One day I was in Ramallah, and people
tied 2,000 Palestinian flags to helium balloons; the whole sky
was filled with Palestinian flags... You could see Palestinian
flags everywhere, on houses, telephone wires, mosques and in
the Old City of Jerusalem. People are not afraid to do this
anymore. I mean, in the past, it was illegal, so you didn’t do it,
even though people resisted. Now there is no fear. Areas
become liberated for a day or two, or for a week... People are
not afraid to throw stones. They are not afraid to confront the
soldiers, to hit soldiers. They are just not intimidated anymore.
It’s so obvious that the Palestinians are now in control of their
lives as much as possible, and the soldiers try and try and try to
break this, but they just can’t do it. There are new strategies
20
every week by the Palestinians, to force the schools open, to
stop buying Israeli products, to force the collaborators to give
in.
The issue of the collaborators is a good sign of the change of
the power balance. There were collaborators before and
everybody hated them, but it went on. Why do the col-
laborators give up their arms now? Because they can see who is
in power, and it’s the Palestinians, not the Israelis.
The shops are closed except for three hours a day. In Nablus,
they are open from 7 to 10; Ramallah is open from 8 to 11;
Jerusalem from 3 to 6, etc. Many foreigners assumed that the
closures were imposed by the Israelis. It was news to them
when they learned that the Palestinians decided on the
closures. This shows you the real change in the power balance. - هو جزء من
- Democratic Palestine : 28
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- المنشئ
- الجبهة الشعبية لتحرير فلسطين
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