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THE HANDSTAND |
AUGUST 2003 |
A message from the children of Beit Furik, a village just outside Nablus. This message was read aloud to Israeli soldiers at the Beit Furik checkpoint just a few days ago. Please hear their words. -Avi This is a message from the children of Beit Furik. These are their words... Today, we have made this demonstration because we need freedom We need to pass freely with no problems We need to live under democratric conditions We want to go to Nablus with no delay Do not catch our fathers and brothers and put them underneath the hot sun When they come back to the village don't make bomb sounds Let emergency cases pass freely to the hospital Do not stop ambulances Treat men and women equally as human beings Do not shoot Palestinian children We need to live under peace Move the roadblocks It should not be up to you when we can and cannot cross Do not put our people in prison Do not destroy our homes Do not search us Treat us like human beings Do not destroy our farms Do not put young people in prison Do not come at night and scare the people Give us our freedom Do not search our houses at night and scare us Do not detain people in the cold night Do not destroy our land and make new settlements Do not cut down our trees to extend settlements Stop letting people shoot at farmers Do not cut down our trees Do not detsroy our olive trees to make roadblocks We are against the wall Do not occupy our houses Do not point lasers at our houses-- it hurts our eyes Do not light flares-- it is dangerous and can start fires Stop assasinating our people Leave our land Stop killing and scaring children Stop destroying our roads with your tanks Leave Palestine We want a free state ******* My bound childhood by Tamer. My bound childhood My childhood . I don't know if I had it in the past or not . because I haven 't come upon the meaning of it in this life, but I am able to describe it, because my childhood is the miracle of its time. Imagine the form of it! I will write for you now and the artists were too feeble to draw it My childhood, it became a toy without meaning.it was shot by the bullets without prevention or prohibition . my toy. I am looking for it under the destruction and asking the emergency group ... My sister... my mother. my father and my uncle. I asked about them in the crowd, they told me come and search with us under the destruction. Maybe you will find a proof or some remainder from the conscience of humanity. it was broken in the past . but it hasn't died until now . maybe you will find it or maybe the time has passed for that! My broken childhood, I am looking for something to fix it with and to return it not destroyed, in that time which the conscience has lost its way and it became like conspiracy in the hands of the criminals. The conscience of the world became without a title, we don't know if it appears like the humanity or it appears like the great injustice. In this time the human was overcoming without reference from constitution or from the Koran. That's my childhood, which suffer from the calamity of the occupation, without mercy and with the injustice and implementation of settlements. We are in it's maze, we don't have prestige .we are being insulted and killed in every time and we don't find any conscience or human rights saying that it will save the smile on the faces of the people. They are suffering until the deliverance from mire, it is still on their life like a nightmare and some fairy tales. That's my childhood which you were too feeble to know and my smile, I lost my time picking it up underneath the tank and I am hopeful and all of me is a wish so help me to create the justice and save the wish The Sad smile will be happy if there will be justice and love with peace Black Pen Friend/Tamer©20 Jul 2003 >From: The Sad Smile <bbf_im@yahoo.com> Press Release 1 August 2003 Police Raid Palestinian Cultural Summer Camp after Accusations of Incitement Israeli police stormed a summer camp for Palestinian youth yesterday, and arrested fourteen of the organizers, after the camp had been accused of incitement against Israel in a TV report on Wednesday. The camp was organized by the Al Balad Cultural Association in the Arab village of Kabul in northern Israel, and was due to end this Sunday. At a court hearing today, the police could present no evidence of incitement. The presiding judge declared that four of the arrested should remain in court until Monday, to allow police to find evidence for the case. According to Ibrahim Makkawi, an activist at the summer camp who witnessed the raid, the case started with a television report by Israeli Channel 10 on Wednesday. Channel 10 had filmed the camp and interviewed children on Wednesday, with cooperation from the organizers, who assumed that the TV station would prepare a regular report about the camp. In the report, however, the TV station accused the organizers of the camp of spreading hatred and anti- Israeli propaganda, and promoting anti-Israeli violence and suicide attacks. The story, a cut-and-paste job in which the filmed materials were taken completely out of context, was repeated the following day in the Israeli newspapers “Haaretz” and “Yedioth”. The media attention apparently forced the Israeli government to react, and led to the police action yesterday, when some 30 to 40 police officers raided the camp. Faced with the choice either to shut down the camp voluntarily or to see it forcefully shut down by the police, the organizers decided for the first option. Al Balad strongly rejects the accusation of incitement, and claims that no illegal action was undertaken at the camp. Al Balad has been organizing summer camps of this kind for fifteen years and has never had a problem with police or other officials. The aim of the summer camp is to educate Palestinian children about their cultural heritage and identity, an education that Palestinian children do not receive in the government school system. The summer camps deal with issues such as the violent foundation of the Israeli state, the destruction of Palestinian villages and Palestinian refugees. While disliked by Israeli officials, none of the actions undertaken at the camp are illegal, including the flying of the Palestinian flag (legalized in 1993). Al Balad and Ittijah strongly protest the raid of the camp and the arrest of organizers. We urge the state to halt the investigation and release the remaining four detainees. Al Balad and Ittijah protest the hostile and intentionally misleading coverage by Channel 10, “Haaretz” and “Yedioth”. We demand that these media retract their statement that “the children in the camp are taught about Palestinian terrorists (“martyrs”)... sing songs that praise suicide attacks and express their hope for returning to Jaffa, Ashdod and Haifa and building a Palestinian state from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River.” Ittijah has strong confidence in the morality of its member Al Balad Cultural Association, and stands behind the association without reservation. Ittijah sees the actions of the police and Israeli media as more incitement against Palestinian civil society inside Israel, similar to the arrest and detention of the leaders of the Islamic Movement. Ittijah demands that the Israeli government, the police and the media stop their smear campaign against the representatives of the Palestinian people in Israel. |
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