Yesterday afternoon, we were in the office of Women Center for Legal Aid and Councelling. Maha, the director, was on the phone with a cousin from Jenin.
Well, I used to be disgusted, but now I try to be amused. It’s hard to say which has done more damage to my stomach lining this week: the reports and images of yet another Sharon-instigated massacre - adding to what a BBC interviewer today referred to as ‘General Sharon’s rather impressive tally of blood-letting’ - or my repeated run-ins with the thought police, who come in all shapes and sizes and no know borders.
Day sixteen of the siege. The phone and this internet connection are my keys to the outside world. They are my grasp on sanity at this point. My body aches from lack of movement and my soul aches from so many images of carnage and destruction.
It has always been assumed here that any political decision can be enforced militarily, since the gap between Israel and its enemies seemed infinite. But gone now is the superior “human material” Israel was said to rely on.
I no longer believe there should be a Jewish State, and the millions of Palestinians who have long recognized Israel’s existence and hoped that some recompense for their 54 years of suffering might come from repeatedly kissing the asses of their white colonial masters here and in the US are rightly questioning why they’re still doing it.
It has now been confirmed that Israeli troops have committed a massacre in Jenin. The Israeli army admits several hundred people have been killed, but Palestinians fear the numbers are much higher.
The nicest thing about the morning of April 3 was the discovery that electricity existed again. This meant working television. Television meant news. News meant information from outside the confines of the Bethlehem Star Hotel.
There is a growing concensus that Israel’s actions suggest an intention to hide evidence of war crimes committed in Jenin refugee camp. Reports from eyewitnesses speak of horror. We’re not thinking of apartheid-South Africa now, but we fear atrocities of Slobodan Milosovic.
There are rumors that the road between Khan Yunis and Rafah is being closed now. This would suggest that an incursion into Rafah or Khan Yunis is imminent.
It is becoming more and more difficult to write as Israel’s war crimes start to become known to the public. I started this day by distributing an article written almost a year ago. Let me draw your attention to another one I wrote, again about a year ago.
