PA daily op-ed demonizes Israel as an oppressive occupier with no right to exist
Op-ed by Salah Masharqah in response to Israel granting 180,000 entry permits to Palestinian Authority residents so they could visit Israel during the Eid Al-Fitr holiday in October 2012.
“During the holiday, when you visit your own occupied country using the permit issued by the [Israeli] occupation officer, don’t buy clothes from them. Remember that they stripped you naked in 30 wars and massacres.
Don’t drink their coffee or their juice. Don’t take your [spilled] blood lightly, engaging in tourism and politics. Don’t pay their taxes that they use to buy weapons to kill you. Don’t show any understanding for the Jewish merchants who have retired from the struggle, because they’re just eyeing your pocket and your wallet.
Remember what Marx said: ‘They approach the world as if it were a market place’…
Fill your memories with pictures and your pockets with soil, before they write their articles about the ‘economic peace.’
You are pure, kind-hearted, and poor. But the [Israeli] official and shopkeeper are plotting against you. They want to sell you your memory.
Don’t hold a grudge against their children, but do remember our own little ones who were killed by their bombs in the Gaza war.
If you walk down a street with no name, it will lead to a prison or a cemetery where there are hundreds just like yourself. They refer to them by number because they don’t like our names, and prefer to see us as numbers, steadily dwindling.
If some orange tree winks at you, remember that its grandfather is in an orchard nearby. They cut it down before it became old and worn down, because they don’t like the older generations of anything, whether alive or inanimate.
If some abandoned house secretly gives you a smile, wipe off the dust that hides the crescent (i.e., Islamic symbol) and the tile on which is written “By the Grace of Allah”, or from the cross and the tiles on which it says “May God watch over this home”.
Follow the shadows of the trees. Give the guard at the [Israeli] national park a smirk, and look over the fence or under the asphalt, for the ruins inside and what is buried below used to be yours or your ancestors’…
Don’t read history superficially. Open your senses, because you aren’t a guest. You own this house and place.”
“During the holiday, when you visit your own occupied country using the permit issued by the [Israeli] occupation officer, don’t buy clothes from them. Remember that they stripped you naked in 30 wars and massacres.
Don’t drink their coffee or their juice. Don’t take your [spilled] blood lightly, engaging in tourism and politics. Don’t pay their taxes that they use to buy weapons to kill you. Don’t show any understanding for the Jewish merchants who have retired from the struggle, because they’re just eyeing your pocket and your wallet.
Remember what Marx said: ‘They approach the world as if it were a market place’…
Fill your memories with pictures and your pockets with soil, before they write their articles about the ‘economic peace.’
You are pure, kind-hearted, and poor. But the [Israeli] official and shopkeeper are plotting against you. They want to sell you your memory.
Don’t hold a grudge against their children, but do remember our own little ones who were killed by their bombs in the Gaza war.
If you walk down a street with no name, it will lead to a prison or a cemetery where there are hundreds just like yourself. They refer to them by number because they don’t like our names, and prefer to see us as numbers, steadily dwindling.
If some orange tree winks at you, remember that its grandfather is in an orchard nearby. They cut it down before it became old and worn down, because they don’t like the older generations of anything, whether alive or inanimate.
If some abandoned house secretly gives you a smile, wipe off the dust that hides the crescent (i.e., Islamic symbol) and the tile on which is written “By the Grace of Allah”, or from the cross and the tiles on which it says “May God watch over this home”.
Follow the shadows of the trees. Give the guard at the [Israeli] national park a smirk, and look over the fence or under the asphalt, for the ruins inside and what is buried below used to be yours or your ancestors’…
Don’t read history superficially. Open your senses, because you aren’t a guest. You own this house and place.”