Thursday, October 19, 2000
Dear Diary:
… Will there be a tomorrow for us? Who knows! As I write, I hear a heavy exchange of gunfire nearby. I don’t even leave my chair. There are clashes a few meters away in the town of al-Khader. Oh, what a familiar sound it has become these past three weeks: trrrr tak tak tak, trrrr tak tak tak, and now I hear the Apache helicopters too. Things haven’t calmed down even though Israeli Prime Minister Barak has given us an ultimatum of 48 hours to bring the Intifada to an end! Forty-eight hours or you’ll do what, Monsieur Prime Minister? You’ll send more tanks; your army will shell us some more; your snipers will kill more people? Death, and more death!
One of the TV stations advertises the airtime tonight for Cry Freedom. Remember this powerful movie starring Denzel Washington and Kevin Klein? Sure you do. Remember when the movie was released, apartheid still existed in South Africa? Remember how we all cried when we watched it? Well! Apartheid in South Africa is no more; it is done and finished with. Black South Africans didn’t die for nothing. Those who remained alive are now free.
Do you hear this Mohammed al-Dura? Do you hear me? They may yet make a movie about you, and how you died in the struggle to end apartheid in Palestine. So what if some Israelis are trying to blame you, the victim, by saying that your father didn’t protect you well enough and this is why you died. So what if an Israeli official — was it Dani Yatom, the Chief of Staff — who said that you had it coming because you were part of the Intifada? They say you deserved to die Mohammed. Even our death they try to distort. …
Tuesday, October 24, 2000
Dear Diary:
… Ten Palestinians were killed by Israeli army gunfire this last Friday, then five were killed on Saturday, then four on Sunday, I don’t remember how many on Monday, and the number is three, so far, today. It is only around 10pm. The night, as they say, is still young. If you live under occupation in Palestine, it means that the night is so young that anything can happen. Today can be the very last day of our lives. This is the persisting thought on everyone’s mind. We think about death, about dying, about not being alive, about getting killed, about ceasing to exist, and we think about it all the time. …
Count Muna, always count. Count so you don’t forget how to add the numbers. Soon you may not know what one plus one adds up to. Count and throw-up! Throw-up and count. Lose weight, if you like. Lose your mind too, if you dare. This is just the beginning. They have not killed enough of us already. The blood of the dead and the wounded doesn’t even fill someone’s swimming pool yet. Not yet!
Tomorrow is another day. Will we wake up or won’t we? Will we live or won’t we? Will we lose an eye, an arm, or a kidney? Will we be part of the survivors? Will we live to talk about it? And if we do, will anyone listen. Will they?
Hello! Are you out there? This is Palestine calling. P-A-L-E-S-T-I-N-E, you people out there!
Thursday, November 17, 2000
Dear Diary:
… There is death around us every single day. And each day brings different names, different ages and different places of residence, of people who went away for good leaving immense sadness and emptiness behind. I had no heart to go see Dr. Fisher’s house. Everyone I ran into at the funeral kept urging me to go take a look. “The shell penetrated his body. Go see the pieces of his flesh on the wall.”
… How much longer will the world stand — arms folded — and watch? When will the basic human right to life, the Palestinian’s basic right to life, become an issue of concern? When will the excuses stop? When?
We have adjusted to the death, the shelling and Israel’s ceaseless attempts to blame us for the “violence,” the confrontations and the blockade. Suddenly, we the victims of occupation are made to appear as the villains. The scenes of death are part of our daily lives. Who will remind the Israelis that they are occupiers? Who will make them realize that occupations don’t last? Who will make them understand that Israel cannot exist without Palestine and that if Palestine is not free, then Israel can never live in peace?
… So hold on Beit Jala! Lick your wounds and move on. Bury another human and move on. Weep and move on. History is on your side. They will read about you someday in the history books, and someone will say that Dr. Fisher’s mutilated body, and the pieces of his skin tissue on his living room wall and ceiling, were not plastered there in vain. Freedom doesn’t come before pain. Accept the pain you mothers, fathers, husbands, wives and children of Palestine. Accept the pain. There will be more of it to come. And then one day, you shall be free and white pigeons shall circle your skies. And ships shall sail to your Mediterranean port, and roses and jasmine shall blossom in your gardens. …
From Muna Hamzeh’s Refugees in Our Own Land: Chronicles from a Refugee Camp in Bethlehem (Pluto Press, September 2001).
This article appears in October 19 • 2001.