This I believe: Photos of the sea

[ProgressiveMuslim]

Diana Buttu, This I Believe, Mar 13, 2008


This article was originally published by NPR's This I Believe and is republished with the author's permission.


In September 2000, I decided to do my part to bring peace to the Middle East. As a Canadian attorney of Palestinian origin, I believed I could use my legal skills to help broker a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians. Naive? Perhaps.

I left my comfortable life in California and moved to the West Bank. Moving there was not easy: I did not know what life is like under military rule. My Western upbringing left me unprepared for life without freedom. Seven years later, I am still not used to it.

As a lawyer for the Palestinian peace negotiating team, I met Presidents, Prime Ministers, Nobel Laureates, Secretaries of State and other important figures. But none of these individuals hit me with the same emotional wallop as a young woman named
Majda.

Like me, Majda is in her thirties. Like me, she enjoys classical music, theatre and books. But unlike me, Majda has never lived a day as a free human being, for she was born Palestinian in the Israeli-dominated West Bank.

One day, Majda approached me saying: "Ms. Buttu, my son does not believe that Palestine is on the sea. He has never seen it and no matter how many times I tell him, he doesn't believe me. You are allowed to travel. Please, take some pictures of the sea. I need my son to know that Palestine is bigger than just our town and a few checkpoints." I took the camera in disbelief: Majda lived less than 10 miles from the sea.

more, more, more...

http://imeu.net/news/article008153.shtml

[Looking4Light]

1. War sucks n/t

[ProgressiveMuslim]

2. 50 year occupation sucks. nt

[Looking4Light]

4. Don't you mean 60? n/t

[oberliner]

5. I still don't understand what the "50 year" claim is in reference to

What happened in 1958 that marked the beginning of the occupation?

[Vegasaurus]

6. I think Tom and PM and some others

believe that all of Israel is an occupation. That is why there are so many issues with the "dates".

[ProgressiveMuslim]

7. Holy Crap! I truly meant 40. Too early.

[breakaleg]

8. Don't worry. If they are interested in the truth and had read any of your previous posts

they would have known that. Chalk it up to yet another baseless accusation in this forum.

[ProgressiveMuslim]

9. Nah, i did it once before. Oberliner's right to call me on it. nt

[bemildred]

3. Police states suck. nt

[MaryCeleste]

10. Israel is the only real state with any freedom in the region

All the rest are fascist at some level, theocracies are still fascist

[bemildred]

11. Freedom for whom? And to do what?

Freedom is not an abstraction, it consists in the freedom or particular persons to do particular things. What sort of freedom is it that forbids you to go see the sea?

[MaryCeleste]

12. The basic freedoms of western civilzation are there for every Israeli citizen

Thats not true of any other nation in the middle east.

[Crunchy Frog]

13. Sounds kind of similar to South Africa under apartheid.

It's my understanding that they also had freedoms and rights for those they defined as their citizens, which also was not true of most of Africa.

[MaryCeleste]

18. Its basic sovereignity

No nation has to let in non-citizens they believe are undesirable. UK recently did that to a reactionary Israeli politician. Gazans have never been Israeli citizens.

[msmcghee]

19. That's right. It's also interesting that they were . .

. . considered to be Egyptian citizens not so long ago. But Egypt decided to cancel their citizenship when it was politically expedient to do so.

[MaryCeleste]

20. Actually I don't think they ever were Egyptian citizens

When Gaza was occupied by Eqypt after the 1948 war, they had a puppet government run by Egypt which issued Palestine passports until 1959, when Nasser, disolved the Gaza/Palestine government by decree. However Egypt never annexed the Gaza Strip, but instead treated it as a controlled territory and administered it through a military governor. The refugees were never offered Egyptian citizenship.

Gaza has been abused by just about everyone in the ME in some way or the other

[msmcghee]

22. Thanks for the correction. n/t

[MaryCeleste]

23. Thats based on several sources backing up what was taught in a masters class on modern ME history

I may well have missed some subtleties

[bemildred]

15. What sort of freedom is it that forbids you to go see the sea?

Like I said, freedom for whom, and to do what? Apparently Israeli "freedom" includes freedom to harass Palestinians trying to go about their business in peace. When that is no longer true, and anybody who wants to can go see the sea in peace, talk to me about "freedom".

Israel is a highly-militarized police state with a frosting of "freedoms of western civilization." Anyone with a decent appreciation of history knows that "western civilization" has long been the biggest exporter of war, oppression, slavery, and exploitation in the history of the world. It's not even close.

[MaryCeleste]

17. Isreal does not have to let non-citizens into their territory

They could also exit through Jordan. Blaming Israel that a child in the West Bank can not go to Gaza is inane at best. There is no right of passage across the soil of another nation. The entire story is a sham

[shaayecanaan]

14. ???

Morocco
Bahrain
Lebanon

No state is perfect, but I've yet to see a checkpoint in any of the above.

[MaryCeleste]

16. Lebanon ????

- Morocco is not in the middle east by most definitions

[pelsar]

21. guess you've never been to lebanon

but I've yet to see a checkpoint in any of the above.....they've had and have lots of them....

[MaryCeleste]

24. I was there in the early 70s before all hell broke loose

It was truly a beautiful place. As young as I was then I could have seen living there later in life.

[pelsar]

25. parts of it

remined me of New Hampshire......

[shaayecanaan]

27. Apologies...

Yes, I concede that there are checkpoints in Lebanon. I suppose if I'd stopped to think about it, I'd have realised that just about every country has checkpoints at some locations. I was probably thinking more along the lines of checkpoints in the OT where you wait for several hours not knowing whether you'll get through or not.

There were several checkpoints in Beirut when I was last there, although roadblocks would probably be a better description. They werent particularly interested in people on foot, mainly vehicles.

[hack89]

26. When I was there in 1983

there were plenty of checkpoints - along with a nasty civil war.