I want to try to tell you what I am learning in and about and from this place. Yet I keep finding myself conflicted over how to speak most truthfully, sensitively, compassionately. I feel a sense of responsibility in my storytelling, and I don't want to give you any wrong ideas. Thinking back to some of the representations that I have seen and heard of Palestine in the past, the weight to speak well of my experiences here becomes even heavier. But reflecting on the ways my own perception has changed and is constantly changing, I realize my pursuit of any "perfect" explanations is futile indeed.
I think what I am most afraid of is somehow allowing you to subconsciously believe what I have found to be at the root of this conflict, which runs parallel to the beliefs that fuel every other system of oppression on this earth: that Palestinians are less than human.
This is what the news will tell you--that somehow Palestinian deaths are not as tragic as their Israel counterparts. That these deaths [even of hundreds of innocent civilians] are justified, deserved, not worth reporting beyond a cold body count [if even that], in a word: unmournable. The news will tell you the same thing about the value of their living, taking a stance of total omission in regards to obvious human rights violations that are simply undeniable when witnessed in person. Context is never given, histories are erased, flat-out lies are advanced without question--in essence, lives are dehumanized.
I want you to know these parts of the story. I wish you could travel through a checkpoint and watch your fellow classmates be shoved around, degraded--for no other reason but that they are Arab. I wish you could see this wall, barbed wire and watchtowers and all, that acts like a cage--cutting off families from their relatives, farmers from their land, Muslims and Christians from their holy sites, Palestinians from the right of movement and self-determination. I wish you could enter a refugee camp and see the mural of names of all the villages that people were forced to flee during the Nakba (the "Catastrophe") of 1948. I wish you could walk through the neighborhoods of East Jerusalem and witness Israeli settlers literally harassing and stealing more land right out from underneath the Palestinian residents.
I wish you could see, so you could know, so that the struggle of these people--who are just as much people as anyone else--could no longer be ignored. This is why I feel I must write, to try my best to convey these things, to try to provide a window into the political situation around me. I feel that I need to take these pieces of my experience here and put them into words that can be shared across oceans. Yet in attempting this, I feel a sort of inexplicable tension, and alarmingly, a risk of a different sort of dehumanization.
I want you to know these parts of the story--but I don't want you to think this is the whole story. To focus only on these details, as real and important as they are, seemingly lends itself to a potentially inaccurate or even dangerous representation. I say this because I fear painting a picture of Palestinians as no more than their political struggle. Perhaps the most important thing I have learned through living in Palestine thus far is this: Yes, the conflict affects everything here, but it is not everything. In other words, the occupation colors all aspects of life for Palestinians, but it is not their sole concern, their only source of identity. To give this impression seems to me to undermine their humanity in a more subtle sort of way.
You see, Palestinians work and study and laugh and dance and fall in love and dream about the future... just like everyone else, of course. They are not simply the subjects of political debates or the content of statistics--as crucial as those things can be. They are fathers and mothers, daughters and brothers, students and friends. Most of the time, they are just living, you know--being human.
This reality, which in so many ways should not even need to be said, is precisely why the stark violations against them demand attention. Yet it is also what must be carefully guarded in our conversations and representations of this place--so as not to lose sight of the human behind the struggle for human rights. In conclusion, it seems there is a delicate balance to strike: We absolutely must not overlook the plight of Palestinians, as if they are somehow less than human, yet we also must not reduce them to their political struggle, for the very same reason. The world needs to know that Palestinians are unjustly oppressed, but it must never be mistaken that this is all that defines them.
This is what the news will tell you--that somehow Palestinian deaths are not as tragic as their Israel counterparts. That these deaths [even of hundreds of innocent civilians] are justified, deserved, not worth reporting beyond a cold body count [if even that], in a word: unmournable. The news will tell you the same thing about the value of their living, taking a stance of total omission in regards to obvious human rights violations that are simply undeniable when witnessed in person. Context is never given, histories are erased, flat-out lies are advanced without question--in essence, lives are dehumanized.
I want you to know these parts of the story. I wish you could travel through a checkpoint and watch your fellow classmates be shoved around, degraded--for no other reason but that they are Arab. I wish you could see this wall, barbed wire and watchtowers and all, that acts like a cage--cutting off families from their relatives, farmers from their land, Muslims and Christians from their holy sites, Palestinians from the right of movement and self-determination. I wish you could enter a refugee camp and see the mural of names of all the villages that people were forced to flee during the Nakba (the "Catastrophe") of 1948. I wish you could walk through the neighborhoods of East Jerusalem and witness Israeli settlers literally harassing and stealing more land right out from underneath the Palestinian residents.
I wish you could see, so you could know, so that the struggle of these people--who are just as much people as anyone else--could no longer be ignored. This is why I feel I must write, to try my best to convey these things, to try to provide a window into the political situation around me. I feel that I need to take these pieces of my experience here and put them into words that can be shared across oceans. Yet in attempting this, I feel a sort of inexplicable tension, and alarmingly, a risk of a different sort of dehumanization.
I want you to know these parts of the story--but I don't want you to think this is the whole story. To focus only on these details, as real and important as they are, seemingly lends itself to a potentially inaccurate or even dangerous representation. I say this because I fear painting a picture of Palestinians as no more than their political struggle. Perhaps the most important thing I have learned through living in Palestine thus far is this: Yes, the conflict affects everything here, but it is not everything. In other words, the occupation colors all aspects of life for Palestinians, but it is not their sole concern, their only source of identity. To give this impression seems to me to undermine their humanity in a more subtle sort of way.
You see, Palestinians work and study and laugh and dance and fall in love and dream about the future... just like everyone else, of course. They are not simply the subjects of political debates or the content of statistics--as crucial as those things can be. They are fathers and mothers, daughters and brothers, students and friends. Most of the time, they are just living, you know--being human.
This reality, which in so many ways should not even need to be said, is precisely why the stark violations against them demand attention. Yet it is also what must be carefully guarded in our conversations and representations of this place--so as not to lose sight of the human behind the struggle for human rights. In conclusion, it seems there is a delicate balance to strike: We absolutely must not overlook the plight of Palestinians, as if they are somehow less than human, yet we also must not reduce them to their political struggle, for the very same reason. The world needs to know that Palestinians are unjustly oppressed, but it must never be mistaken that this is all that defines them.
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