Democratic Palestine : 28 (ص 21)
غرض
- عنوان
- Democratic Palestine : 28 (ص 21)
- المحتوى
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3s Report
Not Afraid»
At the beginning, the soldiers tried to force open the shops.
Now they don’t even try, because they can’t. The Palestinians
set the schedule. When I was in Nablus, I was just getting out
at 10 a.m. and I heard stones being thrown in the air and
bouncing off the tin roofs. It was a warning to anyone who still
had his shop open. It’s amazing how people live up to these
closing times. The soldiers are dictated by the closing times.
When the shops open, everyone arrives, and so do the soldiers.
THE PALESTINIAN SECTOR
The shops are closed for a number of reasons. First of all, it
shows that the situation is not normal and not acceptable to the
people. It hurts the sale of Israeli products. It gets the business
sector involved in the uprising. That is one thing that is dif-
ferent from before: This is not a revolt led by students, for ex-
ample. Every sector is involved. Of course, things like phar-
macies, hospitals and bakeries stay open - sometimes 24 hours
a day. The workers are striking in Israeli factories, but those
who work for Palestinian concerns do not strike, because they
want to increase the use of the Palestinian sector, and decrease
the use of the Israeli sector. I spoke to people working in the
Palestinian sector, who told me that they don’t keep their
salaries. The money is redistributed by the local committees in
their villages, to whoever is most needy. So those who are
working are helping those who aren’t.
The last week I was there, the Israelis imported about 2,000
Portugese workers to replace Palestinian strikers. They were
put in a settlement in the Gaza Strip to live. But this is not go-
ing to work. The Palestinian workers have to provide their own
food and shelter. For imported workers, the Israelis have to
pay.
When it comes to relief efforts and people want to send
medical supplies, the Palestinians now say, «No, we want
money so that we can buy from our own factories.» In terms of
medicine and medical care, there is enough available if there
was enough money. The hospitals are there and there are a lot
of Palestinian doctors and nurses. There is only some shortage
in specialized areas like physical and occupational therapy,
because the many people whose hands have been broken by the
Israeli soldiers need this in order to regain their abilities. The
Palestinians don’t want foreign therapists to come and do the
job. They want them to come and train the people there; that’s
a very clear demand. They want financial relief, not supplies;
there are Palestinian medical supply companies there.
CONTROL OF THE STREETS
The Palestinians pretty much control the streets and roads of
the occupied territories. One day we were traveling in Gaza on
a day of general strike. Since we were a delegation, we wanted
to see what was happening, but some children started stoning
our vehicle, since no one should be moving on a strike day. It
was interesting to see a 50-year-old Palestinian get out of the
truck to negotiate with the five-year-old boy who was manning
the roadblock. Finally, the man convinced the boy that we
should pass. So now there are Palestinian roadblocks where
you must get permission to pass, not only Israeli roadblocks.
In a lot of ways, these are for the Palestinians own protec-
tion. The soldiers and settlers are quite violent and will spare
no lives. By Palestinian roadblocks I mean huge stones placed > - هو جزء من
- Democratic Palestine : 28
- تاريخ
- مارس ١٩٨٨
- المنشئ
- الجبهة الشعبية لتحرير فلسطين
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