Here is a list of 10 Israeli atrocities President Bush and his administration are quick to defend:
1 - The “bored, overfed, sadistic Israeli soldiers are daily humiliating, beating and often murdering the local people.” Men are stripped to their underwear to walk through checkpoints. Tanks are placed at hospital gates. Women are forced to deliver their babies in the streets. (Courtesy of Israeli journalist in Jaffa - Israel Shamir)
2 - Rogue Israeli soldiers are killing unarmed civilians. “Their preferred victims are children. They abuse children of the refugee camps and shoot and maim them on a daily basis”(Courtesy of the above Israeli journalist).
3 - Israeli tanks are firing at ambulances trying to rescue the wounded.
4 - US jets with Israeli pilots have bombed the school for the blind in Gaza.
5 - Palestinian civilians continue to suffer from lack of electricity, water and food supplies.
6 - Israeli tanks fired on the buildings of the Medical Relief Organization where a number of Italian peace activists are barricaded in a show of solidarity with Palestinians.
7 - So far around 1,500 young Palestinians have been arrested in racist and senseless mass arrests in Ramallah and other West Bank cities.
8 - Bodies are still piling up at the Ramallah hospital morgue and denied proper burial.
9 - There is widespread vandalism as Israeli soldiers loot civilians and banks in their door-to-door search for illusive so-called terrorists.
10 - As I write, Israeli soldiers are storming the Church of Nativity where unarmed Palestinians have been given refuge by peace-loving bishops and priests. A repeat of the 1982 Sabra and Shatila massacre is pending.
Here is a list of 10 things we will NEVER do:
1 - We will never applaud Israeli and American destruction of Palestine.
2 - We will never label our resistance movements as “terrorists” and Israeli terror as “retaliation.”
3 - We will never relinquish our right to Jerusalem.
4 - We will never stop aiding all our people in Palestine, including those who choose to die as martyrs.
5 - We will never applaud US jets leveling any of our cities.
6 - We will never stop protesting your biased war on terror and your blind support of Israeli brutality. You call this incitement; we call it courage, faith and resilience.
7 - We will never stop calling for the end of the illegal Israeli occupation of our homeland.
8 - We will never stop honoring our martyrs and observing a moment of silence for our fallen warriors.
9 - We will never forget the Palestinian Holocaust of 1948. We will never watch idly as Israel and America orchestrate a new one in 2002.
10 - We will never side with the Bushes and Sharons of this world. We will never side with genocide, mass murder, transfer and expulsion. I guess this means, according to Bush’s simplistic either-or logic, that we are on the side of the terrorists. So be it. We believe we are on the side of the martyrs, on the side of decency, humanity, civility, fortitude and freedom; concepts which your brave American warriors of the past once strove so valiantly to uphold. But Alas, no more.
In short, Mr. Ambassador, we do not care if we incur the wrath of your President Bush. We do not care if you deny our citizens a US visa or freeze their assets in American banks. We do not care if our children never attend your schools and your universities or our tourists never enjoy the wonders of Disneyland or Universal Studios. What we care most for is our faith, our dignity and our sacred homeland.
He who granted victory to David against Goliath, to Moses against Pharaoh, to Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) against Abu Lahab, will grant victory to the warriors of Palestine against Sharon and Bush and those who sponsor them. Beware Mr. Ambassador that the curse promised by the Lord to the misbehaving children of Israel (Deut. 28) does not fall upon your own heads.
Here is my signature. Here is my name. Let it be the first name listed in this letter of protest and indignation. See! I am not afraid. I dare to speak. Along with Israel Shamir, I call “for citizens to take arms against the bloody dictator Sharon.” If and when this petition ever reaches your embassy doorstep, I am confident the list of names will have grown and grown and grown.
1- Afnan H. Fatani
(Afnan Fatani is a Saudi professor of English language and style. She has published several papers on Arabic linguistics. She is based in Jeddah.)
ورد خطأ في كتابة العنوان السفير 00 بدلا من الفير00 ولكن لم استطع التغيير 