December 19, 2006
Today I received an email from a friend in Ramallah whose words have been haunting me ever since I read them. I keep reading them and I cannot stop thinking about them. I so want them to disappear, to not be true:
"The situation in Palestine is awful, and getting worse. I am becoming more pessimistic by the day. The murder of the three children on their way to school in Gaza shocked me to no end; this takes things to an entirely new and horrifying level. I want to believe it was an accident, that the children were not deliberately targeted, and that the target was their father, as I am sure he has no shortage of enemies given his position. But most people I talk to say there was no way it was an accident, that the children were for sure targeted, and that Hamas would never do this, so it must have been an internal Fatah crime. And now with an apparent attempt on Haniya's life, followed by an apparent attempt on the foreign minister's life, capped off by Abu Mazen's announcement that he will call new elections and Hamas' response that this is illegal and they will never recognize or participate in new elections---tensions are at an all time high....I expect things to get worse. I hope a civil war can be averted, but things are not looking too good at the moment."
I also wanted King Abdullah's comments a few weeks ago to not be true. His statement that he predicted three civil wars emerging in Iraq, Palestine, and Lebanon are words I don't want to hear. I still don't know if I think this is what is unfolding around me, but the signs don't look good. When I first read about the Palestinian children who were murdered in Ghaza, Salam, 4; Ahmed, 7; and Ussama, 9, not by Israelis, but by Palestinians I was horrified. But then I felt a glimmer of hope when I read about the children who took to the streets in Ghaza to protest the escalating violence among political factions in Gahza. And then, of course, violence broke out in Ramallah which I never imagined.
Every day I read more stories about escalating violence and factionalism or sectarianism growing in Iraq, Palestine, and Lebanon. There are articles aboutan impending civil war in Palestine that are increasing. But are these articles describing a reality? Or are they projecting fears about the future? I know from friends who have spent a good deal of time in Iraq over the past few years working as journalists that much of the rhetoric about civil war or Sunni-Shia' fighting (of course, the mainstream media is forever ignoring the Shia-led militia squads targeting Palestinians or Kurdish Iranians who, like Palestinians in Baghdad, had to flee to refugee camps in Jordan or who are in the No Man's Land area in between Jordan and Iraq or Syria and Iraq because neither Syria nor Jordan will let them inside their borders) was initiated and/or propagated by the U.S. media or the state department in ways that made it a self-fulfilling prophecy. I fear that this is happening in Lebanon and Palestine too with all of the rhetoric in the media about what is to come. I especially think this when I read about the U.S. making promises of arming Fatah against Hamas (though a part of me believes this has already happened).
Meanwhile as people are focused on various other hotspots around the region and the globe, very little seems to have been made of the fact that Israelis opened fire on shepherds in Israeli-occupied Lebanon (Shabaa Farms) last week. While it's unclear whether or not they actually crossed the border or what side of the Blue Line they were on (especially difficult given the Israeli tendency to alter the border at their whim), but what is clear is that they shot two shepherds for absolutely no reason (but then again when has Israel ever had a legitimate reason to kill anyone?).
All of these things have been weighing heavily on my heart lately. And much of this came together for me this evening when I watched the extraordinary Mai Masri's latest brilliant film, Beirut Diaries: Truth, Lies and Videos. The film chronicles the events in Lebanon following Rafiq Hariri's assassination on February 14, 2005 through the eyes of one Lebanese University college student, Nadine, who participates in the sit-in and engages with debates with her peers on the subject of what direction they want to see Lebanon move in. Masri's exceptional talent is for capturing children on camera saying the smartest, most insightful things about the political situation in Palestine or Lebanon and this film is no different. There is a young boy in the film, around nine or ten-years-old, who has such a clear grasp of the situation, who wants Lebanon to be a country for all the people without sectarianism. There is another college-age young woman camped out in Martyr's Square who is especially strong and says one of the most important things that anyone could or should say about the situation here: that all of these good old boys, with the same family names, and the same genealogy should be prohibited from running for office in Lebanon. God how I would love to see a Lebanon (or a U.S. for that matter) free from looking like a monarchy with political power handed down as a right of passage. But one of the most powerful moments of the film, for me, was when Nadine visited another group of (mostly) women protesting near Martyr's Square about the 17,000 missing people from the war. I'm so sick of seeing these martyr posters all around Lebanon of Hariri or Gemayel or anyone else. There are thousands of Lebanese and Palestinians who have died here this summer and throughout the civil war. Are their deaths not as important as one tribunal on Hariri?
Seeing these protesters staging a sit-in felt like deja-vu in some ways given that there is a new sit-in downtown. Both are/were known as "opposition" forces. Both wanted to see a change in the makeup of the government, among other things. But here is my vision of where Lebanon's priorities should be: I would love to see the government make it the number one priority to sign on to the International Criminal Court's (ICC) treaty which would make all crimes committed in Lebanon fall under the ICC's jurisdiction. I want to see some serious energy put in this direction to make Israel pay for its war crimes. I want to see Israeli leaders put through the international court justice system. If not in the ICC then perhaps in Germany through the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR). They can be tried alongside their buddy Rumsfeld who has had a criminal complaint filed against him. For those who want to support this movement to have Rumsfeld tried for war crimes you should go to the CCR's website and sign its petition.
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