We feel your pain; do you feel ours?Wednesday, September 19, 2001
By RAMZY BAROUD
PALESTINIAN JOURNALISTA 6-year-old Palestinian girl knelt and nervously yet gently laid a flower to join hundreds of other flowers, banners and candles in a small vigil held in Jerusalem to commemorate the death of thousands of Americans in New York, Pennsylvania and Washington, D.C.
Only a few reporters gathered, none of them represented foreign agencies; they were all Arabs and Palestinians. But Americans who witnessed the world weeping for their victims never learned of the deep sympathy that was felt by many Palestinians across Palestine and around the world.
However, they did see, with horror and dismay, a few Palestinian children dancing on an old car, two men shooting in the air and an old woman waving her arms in celebration of the attacks, we were told.
A quick conclusion was drawn: Palestinians dance on the pain of Americans. Even if the report was accurate, a few kids and an old woman don't represent the Palestinian population, which consists of millions of people; tens of thousands of them are also Americans.
If your grief and pain allow you to roll the tape of memory a few years back, try to remember New York City following the Gulf War in 1991. The American army had just returned from a mission in the Middle East. Former President George Bush described the nature of the mission to "bomb Iraq back to the Stone Age." Mission accomplished. The U.S. Army led the allied forces in the region. They bombed Iraq for months and killed with no remorse as the whole world watched, the same way they watched the World Trade Center collapse to the ground.
Those killed in Iraq were mostly civilians, innocent men and women, not any more or less innocent than the New Yorkers who fell to their deaths on a seemingly beautiful morning.
As far as America was concerned, "our boys and girls" were heroes. And right in New York, where now much of the city stands in dust and rubble, hundreds of thousands took to the streets, lined up with happy faces. They cheered and chanted, "USA, USA."
The attack on the United States was horrid. It lasted for several hours. The U.S. Congress three days later assigned $40 billion for emergency funds to rebuild the country, to aid the victims and to secure the country against future attacks.
But the Palestinian tragedy has lasted much longer than a few hours; it has lasted for generations. For 53 years now, Palestinians have been subjected to some of the most notorious military police ever used; for 53 years they were forced to live in concentration camps, to drink polluted water, to have their loved ones killed, their homes razed, their futures shattered, deprived of all God-given rights, even United Nations-given rights.
They were forced to flee for their lives from one place to another, they were imprisoned, tortured and assassinated. Not one day passes without a massacre or two of Palestinians. They go to the streets to protest the killing of a child, they return home carrying another who was shot while protesting.
You might think: I am already overwhelmed by my own grief, why should I worry about yours? The answer is simple.
Every bullet that killed a Palestinian was "Made in the USA" -- every shell, missile and tank was "Made in the USA." Every massacre was financed by America.
When 3,000 Palestinians were killed in the refugee camps of Beirut in 1982, the killers left the camps with piles of skinned bodies, butchered and raped women and thousands of empty bullet shells, also made in the USA. Even the bulldozers that tried to hide the crimes in mass graves as the killers departed were supplied by the United States.
Since the creation of the State of Israel in occupied Arab land in 1948, the United States has paid more than $125 billion to finance the Israeli army, to construct its illegal settlements and to aid a racist state that sustains itself at the expense of a subdued population.
Just two days before the attacks on New York and Washington, D.C., President Bush decreed that the fact Israel is using U.S.- supplied arms to assassinate Palestinians doesn't violate the U.S. policy on arms exports.
After all of this, unlike what you would expect, only a dozen children rushed to the streets to celebrate the death of Americans. Despite all of this, most Palestinians mourned the death of Americans and were able to comprehend the tragedy, for they have been living the tragedy for decades. Unlike the millions who celebrated the "victory" against Iraq in 1991, Palestinians didn't parade in the streets, they didn't chant "Palestine, Palestine;" they did not raise colored balloons and break champagne bottles.
But they stood in lines in Ramallah and Gaza, cities that have been devastated by American-made weapons, and donated blood. The 6-year-old Palestinian girl at the vigil finally went home with her mother. Their trip to Ramallah from Jerusalem, a trip of half an hour, would take hours because of the Israeli military checkpoints. Nonetheless, they decided to come and show solidarity with the American victims and their families.
Back in the West Bank town of Jenin, meanwhile, thousands of Palestinians desperately tried to defend their community as the Israeli army bombarded their homes and killed 11 people in a raid that lasted several days.
"The helicopters are back" screamed a Palestinian teenager armed with a slingshot and a pocket filled with rocks. The people began running in panic to nearby alleyways. Two American-made Apache helicopters emerged from behind the hill and showered the fleeing residents with automatic rifle bullets -- American-made bullets.
Ramzy Baroud, editor in chief of Palestinechronicle.com, lives in Mountlake Terrace.
