Confessions

In the past I never cared about Palestine, all through my childhood and teenage years I didn’t think twice about what’s happening on the other side of the river. I wasn’t racist or narrow -minded, but I passed through a racist phase in my teenage years, I loathed the Palestinians and accused them of being the root of all evil in the Middle East. I thought they were guests who stayed too long. I went through a phase were I had just 2 or 3 friends and I wouldn’t mingle with them. Yes I was stupid, ignorant and narrow-minded.

This changed as I became mature, as I interacted with more activists on campus and online. I felt it more when I had to cover the demonstrations in Amman during January of 2009 during Operation Cast Lead, were i had to write two editorial pieces and got into a demonstration by the Kallouti Mosque. But I also believed that the Jews should group themselves in some sort of nation, I didn’t mind the two state solution, but it must contain The Right of Return.

When the Freedom Flotilla started to break the Israeli blockade on Gaza, I was nervous and tense. Some part of me said “Israel would dig its own grave if anything happens” and another part said ” Shit will hit the fan”. I was literally attached to my laptop for 72 hrs from Saturday till Monday, I was/still nervous about those activist who are more Palestinian than many Arabs. Shame on us, we just watch many shedding crocodile tears because Gaza is now in fashion, its the trend, it is cool to praise the resistance and call the Zionist pigs.