October 12, 2015 - I don’t know what your sources of news from Palestine and Isreal are, so I may say some things you already know.  But I feel I should report from here.

     This morning’s breaking news was of the assassination of another 13 year old Palestinian boy during a demonstration. It has become important to me to write and pronounce the names of those killed - to honor their identity as human beings who will be mourned by their families. This boy was Ahmad  Sharaka. 

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    Fadi Aloun, age 19, was shot dead by Israeli police after a gang of settlers accused him of stabbing one of their group, pointed at him and yelled to nearby police, “Terrorist!” and “Shoot him!”  Later I read that Fadi was raised as if an only child by a single father.  His story is this. When he was 2 years old, his mother took Fadi’s older brother to Jordan to visit relatives.  When she tried to return, Israel forbade her entry.  From then on, the family could not be reunited and saw each other only by skype.  Fadi’s father dedicated his life to his son, and they were very close.  Fadi had his 19th birthday 5 days before he was shot. As a gift, Mr. Aloun said he would help Fadi to buy a car. He was a high school graduate, and he had dreams.  His father is consumed by grief.

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     Jonathan Cook, an American journalist who has made his home in Nazareth, Israel, and who blogs regularly (www.Jonathan-Cook.net/blog/) wrote about how what is happening in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza, is also happening inside Israel, where 20% of the population is Palestinian (Arab). Caught on video, soldiers, police  and armed civilians surrounded a 30 year old Palestinian woman in a bus station in the small city of Afula, and she looked positively terrified.  Someone thought she had a knife, but she clearly posed no immediate threat. Nevertheless, the armed men moved in on her, and shot her.  Fortunately, she survived, but Jonathan points out that the armed men turned into a mob, and their target was a non-threatening Palestinian.

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     As I sit in the Palestinian Museum of Natural History, baby-sitting the museum while Mazin and Jessie are busy elsewhere, it is quiet and peaceful.  If it weren’t for just BEING here, I would feel quite useless.  But yesterday evening Doris and I, having a Sunday off, went visiting, and every visit is a slice of life here in occupied Palestine. Manar is a school social worker in a public school on the outskirts of Bethlehem.  Her daughter, Nadine, age 14 is in 9th grade in a private school in Beit Sahour. Manar says the school children are more traumatized than ever, meaning more disruptive, aggressive or distracted than ever, making her job ever more stressful.  Nadine, short on words, herself stressed by an upcoming exam in English, answered my questions by saying that she and her classmates are “scared” and “don’t like anyone to be killed.”  

      Our next host, a tour guide named Johnny,  took us to dinner at a restaurant right near the Church of the Nativity. We sat in its quiet garden, where you would never guess you were in a country in complete upheaval. At the next table, a group of adults were celebrating a birthday. A cake came out with a huge sparkler instead of candles. Johnny's 7 year old daughter got over her shyness and -in perfect English - started quizzing me on my Arabic vocabulary.

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     Finally, I want to quote part of the statement on the current situation by the Palestine National Committee of the BDS Campaign (BDS= Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions):

“Like their parents’ generation, the thousands of Palestinian youth in Jerusalem, Gaza, Ramallah, Hebron, Bethlehem, Jaffa, Nazareth and elsewhere who have taken to the streets in large protests against Israel’s occupation and apartheid are first and foremost shaking off despair and liberating their minds of the myth of oppression as fate.  They are also nourishing he entire Palestinian people’s aspiration to self-determination and living in freedom, dignity and a just peace.” (10/10/15)

     Liberating their minds of the myth of oppression as fate.  In other words, empowering themselves to make a difference instead of accepting the occupation as Israel would have them do. Once the mind is occupied, there is no hope of liberation.