Grieving the loss of Ismael, Lama, and Hayya
And I am thinking about Ayda, and wondering what I or anyone else can do to help the mothers of murdered children everywhere.
from the New York Times:
But there were several children in another intensive care unit on Tuesday. Among them was Ismael Hamdan, 8, who had severe brain damage as well as two broken legs, according to a doctor there. Earlier that day, two of his sisters, Lama, 5, and Hayya, 12, were killed.
“I prepared them breakfast that day in the garden,” said their mother, Ayda, 36. “They had the tea, bread and thyme. Lama wanted a second pita, but we all teased her saying, ‘Keep it for lunch.’ She told us, ‘Don’t worry, God will provide us with bread.’
“She made all of us laugh,” the mother said. “I cleaned after them and collected the garbage. Ismael volunteered to dump the garbage, but Hayya and Lama joined him. The garbage can is in front of the house, a five-minute walk away. All of a sudden I heard the news from a neighbor, and I ran barefoot to the hospital. A relative collected the bodies of Lama and Hayya on a donkey cart.
“The neighbors ran trying to save Ismael, who was the only one breathing,” she said. “They say my kids flew 40 meters before hitting the ground.”
Ismael died Wednesday night.
Comments:
I have neve been a supporter of israel. I really should say that I have never been a supporter of zionism. I love biblical Israel , it's ancestors and descendants and even the ones currently trying to live there. The occupants of modern day Israel are colonists and what they have done to Israel, Israelis and the Palestinian people is a sin before God. I don't know how Obama will deal with this situation but if he does not have harsh words and actions for israel I will be so disappointed in him. I know he has a lot on his plate but he/we is/are the change. Keep these people in your prayers.
Rebecca I would like to know how you feel about israel and zionism.
I believe you Jimmy.
It's amazing that I'm still afraid to constructively criticize Israel in a public forum. I know of no other country that one has to actually tip toe around before making an REMOTELY negative statement about- even if you support their right to exist. If there is one thing that a full year of debate on You Tube with White Nationalists, Black nationalists and other racial separatists is that Israel has split the right in half. A huge and ever growing portion of right wing Americans, many of them wealthy and well educated, have embraced anti- Israel and antisemitism something fierce because of what they believe to be Israel's huge hold over the US via AIPAC, the World Bank, Hollywood and the IMF. To me it's regressive and a really dangerous trend that will go mainstream at some point if the US continues as Israel's bulldog.
In regards to Gaza, we are not supposed to be "here" at this point in history. One could argue that after World War II the pattern was fixed and there is nothing that can be done now especially with one side holding the bomb. The voices of the Jews who know these bombings are too much are not being heard at all. I grew up around people who spoke out and also those who believed Israel was "never wrong." It's just atrocious.
There can be no comfort to a mother of a murdered child only the hope that time will ease the grief for what there is no words for.
But Willy Dixon said it best:
"You have made great planes to span the skies
You gave sight to the blind with other men's eyes
You even made submarines stay submerged for weeks
But it don't make sense you can't make peace
You take one man's heart and make another man live
You even go to the moon and come back thrilled
Why you can crush any country in a matter of weeks
But it don't make sense you can't make peace
You can make a transfusion that can save a life
Why you can change the darkness into broad daylight
You make the deaf man hear and the dumb man speak
But it don't make sense you can't make peace"
In regards to the debate over Israel, I think the key is to remember that criticizing Israel is not necessarily being anti-semitic.
Israel has a legitimate right to defend themselves but they must give up the idea that they can displace people from their lands in the name of their state sovereignty.
The Palestinians are an oppressed minority in a country they once owned.
The United States citizens will experience this same oppression within 50 years when the Hispanic / Latino majority takes over the US.
I wonder will Israel support the US when the Hispanic Latino majority changes the US
your thoughts
My thoughts are that the only thing relevant to this discussion is one of world peace. There is no other way. Territoriality is a human urge that must be addressed within the individual and collective psyche of humanity. Otherwise, we will annhiliate ourselves. The issue is not Israel or Palestine or Latinos and the US, the issue is how to encourage, stimulate and support dialog that ends the idea that some have the right to peace and prosperity and some don't.
Until humanity wakes up to the reality that peaceful coexistence must be the goal of every conversation, decision, exchange, piece of legislation, and so forth, we will be on the path to destruction.
And I'm not talking about some romantic idea here--we're not all going to run off into the sunset holding hands. I'm talking about changing the entire discourse from resource hoarding and management and extreme religious and ideological views, to one of how untold billions can eat, be free of violence, be self-determing, etc
The countours of this converstaion may demand the birth of an entirely new language and strategy. As many have said, if we can put a man on the moon...the key is, we all have to change our minds, one of the hardest things for human beings to do.
Sometimes it takes something completely catastrophic--the global economic crisis, for instance, will no doubt change our relationship to spending and money. Hopefully, we won't have to wait for other major catastrophes to wake up to what needs to be done.
We might not see the goal in our lifetime, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't do the work now.
how come you dont post about jewish children murdered by hamas islamic jilhad etc
why are you anti isreal
Actually, my post speaks to that question, and I deliberately focused on mothers of all murdered children. I feel the same about Israeli mothers, Rwandan mothers, American mothers. And fathers. My point being: how do you put human beings back together again after these horrors?
The point is to stop the histrionics. I am not against anyone. I think all people should have the right to exist in dignity. I don't deny that to the people on the land now called "Israel" and "Palestine."
The point is, that land is not inherently "Palestine" or "Israel". That land is open, and perpetually free for redefinition. And the killing of children will only stop when all decide to prioritize peace above their deep seated beliefs about what that land means.
I also do not support any kind of discourse that demands anyone have an allegiance to either side of this particular struggle. As a few commenters have written, people should not have to be afraid to have an opinion about Israel/Palesitine. And I think accusations, especially anonymous ones, like the previous poster, contribute to this fear.
As Audre Lorde wrote, Our silence will not protect us.
The only way out of this quagmire will be through it. Intimidating others who attempt to contribute their insights will only yield more of the same.
i understandf its an awful thing to lose you chilsd my heart goes out to these people i to hate the senseless of warr
And the war at home here in California...
Oscar Grant we grieve your loss too and what it meant to be a 22 year old father. Back in the day you'd rumble, laugh and be on your way home , jumping over the BART turnstile to safety.
Now you are shot dead while unarmed.
Rebecca,
This is an illegal occupation. Israel, with the financial support of the US, has been illegally occupying Palestine since 1967 and for the past 18 months, been making life even more hellish for the 1.5 million residents of Gaza.
Incidentally, Hamas was in talks with Israel. It is Israel who does not want to compromise. Their occupation of Palestine is illegal, the UN tells Israel over and over again to get out of the occupied territories. And this occupation has been brutal, so it's not only about the names of land (Israel, Palestine).
You are trying to gloss over the politics of the matter, but the politics, which are pretty cut and dried and easy to understand despite the media's intentional confusion of the facts, shows that the Israeli government is a monster. They are denying that there is a humanitarian crisis in Gaza, despite the UN reports of workers on the ground and obvious fact. And yes, it doesn't matter what nationality the mothers of slain children are: a child's death is horrific, that's not the point. The point is that Israel instigated this.
If anyone wants more information, they should google: the electronic Intifada, Neve Gordon, or Norman Finkelstein.
MIDEAST: Children Found Starving
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=45333
I hear you anonymous. It is a serious problem. I hope you are as outraged by Oscar Grant's murder and the millions of human beings living in slavery worldwide as you are about the current humanitiarian crisis in Israel.
Israel's problem isn't too different from Germany's or Chechnya's or Rwanda's. Until we find a language to break through the particular identity at the moment, we will never recognize that the underlying issues have to do with resource control and human avarice, attachment to religious ideas and basic human territoriality.
These are the appropriate targets of our upset--not an entire people or government; it is the conditions that create these horrific events, and the human urges that allow them must be addressed in each one of us on behalf of the species.
The point is, as Sweet Honey and Rock sang in one of their amazing songs--none of our hands are clean. To look over there and not over here is to participate in a deadly delusion that the bad people are over there; we must take responsibility for our own participation.
Which is not to say we should be silent in the face of genocide, but it is to recognize what is really at work in the midst of the carnage and direct our focus to dissipating that.
Of course there are other matters in the world to be upset about and that I am upset about (I have protested against police brutality). Just because I discuss Israel and am upset about its imposing a humanitarian crisis on Gaza doesn't mean that I am indifferent about to Oscar Grant or global slavery, so I don't understand your opening comment. People who accuse Israel's critics of anti-Semitism (and by the way, I am NOT saying that you are accusing anyone of anti-Semitism, there is no evidence that I see in your post to suggest that) point to other matters and say, "Well, you complain about Israel and you don't complain about slavery, you don't complain about Rwanda, or the Congo." With all due respect, this is not a legitimate argument against those who criticize Israel. Those who work against police brutality in the US, for womens' rights in Afghanistan, for gay rights in Iran all criticize their own governments, they are not called out for not speaking about other issues in other countries. No one says to RAWA, "Well you criticize the Afghani government, but you don't criticize those allowing the genocide in Rwanda," no one says that to these women because that just would not make sense. So if we criticize Israel, I don't think it's fair for people to say that we are indifferent to other issues. Usually, if you see people protesting one of these issues, that means that they care deeply about the rest. I protest Israel, but I care deeply about what happened to Oscar Grant, slavery in Haiti and elsewhere, homophobia in California, and womens' rights in Afghanistan.
While some would argue that I am not Israeli, but American, I do have the right to criticize the occupation as an American taxpayer, which brings me to my next point:
Israel's occcupation of Palestine does differ from Rwanda, Chechnya and Germany because the occupation would not be able to continue another day without the $3 billion in aid and weapons from the US government, so we the taxpayers are funding this.
So I disagree with the idea that this is "identity" or "human urges", this is a political matter in which a few elite are benefitting by the suffering and exploitation of many. OKay, so the urge of a few elite is at play here, and okay, maybe identity is employed to try to keep the conflict going (the idea of "If you are Jewish and you are anti-Zionist, then you are a self-hater") but that doesn't really work as many of Israel's most vocal critics are Jewish people. And human nature can take all of us in different directions, good and bad, we can choose, and some who have chosen bad because maintaining the occupation is on their interest.
And I also never said that the Israeli people were "bad" but I have criticized their government, which I feel is a legitimate action on my part and the part of millions of others. If you put the vote up to the people in Israel Proper (who are being economically exploited by their government in favor of the Israeli settlers, who most are probably not even originally from Israel) on whether or not they want peace and a two-state solution, most would overwhelmingly vote "Yes".
I always have faith in the people, who are largely good, no matter what country, it's the governments that I never have any faith in, no matter what country. :)
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