Palestinians still oppressed despite peace talks’ progress

By Natalie Sweiss

One of my best friends, Nawal, lived in America until she was
eight years old, and she moved to Beiteen, a city about 15 miles
away from Jerusalem. It was September of 1987 and for the first
three months it was, as she remembers it, total bliss. Probably the
happiest time of her life was during those first three months.

Then, in December, as the Intifada began, her childhood ended.
All of a sudden, her life was governed by Israeli soldiers. There
would be curfews for absolutely no reason. The Israeli government
would implement the equivalent of quarantines on the
Palestinians.

These quarantines required them not leave their homes for a
minimum of 24 hours under any circumstances. Surprisingly, this
usually occurred on Fridays when everyone would plan to go to
mosque.

During one of these quarantines, a few teenage boys came out of
their homes and some soldiers started screaming at them and
threatening them. So the boys threw stones at them. And what did
the soldiers do? They threw their own “stones”. What
were their “stones”? Bullets.

All of this occurred right in front of Nawal’s home.As she
and her little sister were looking out the window, they saw one of
the boys being shot in the stomach. Right away they told their
mother and aunt, who immediately went outside, picked him up and
took him into their house. Unfortunately, he died shortly
thereafter.

Nawal still remembers having to scrub the bloodstains off of the
cement for fear that she and her family would be questioned by the
police.

This is not to say that they never had any encounters with the
Israelis. On numerous occasions, Israelis ransacked her home,
breaking windows, dishes, everything. What they were doing was
looking for people, teenage boys mostly, who were hiding from them.
Of course, Nawal’s family was never hiding anyone. Only after
grabbing her 85-year-old grandmother by the shoulders and shaking
her violently or putting a gun to her 12-year-old sister’s
head did they finally leave them alone ““ at least for the
time being.

If she had ample time, Nawal’s mother would tell her
13-year-old son to go to the bathroom and hide when the Israelis
came. Being a teenage boy, they would likely arrest him on
sight.

During the first four years of the Intifada, many male
Palestinians were arrested. The only crime most of these people
ever committed was living with occupiers of their homeland. It
eventually became so dangerous that Nawal’s brother was sent
back to America to live with relatives.

Nawal’s brother was one of the lucky ones. In the Gaza
Strip, a boy who was suspected of being a rebel was murdered by
Israeli soldiers. The soldiers would then tie the dead boy’s
body to the bumper of their Jeep and park the vehicle in front of
his parents’ house.

Or consider another young boy whose ankles were tied to two
opposing Jeeps. These barbarians would drive in opposite
directions, and again tie what was left of the body to one of the
Jeeps, parking it in front of the boy’s home.

Unfortunately these were not simply deviations from the norm
““ this was the norm.

The fact that Nawal’s stomach still churns to this day
when she hears the sound of a Jeep’s horn may seem unreal to
most people, yet this was, and still is, a reality for the
Palestinians. But the closer we get to understanding this problem,
the closer we will be to solving it.

Now, as the final peace talks between Palestinian leader Yasser
Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak are underway, most
Palestinians are not holding their breath. Why?

Well, for example, Barak recently turned over three villages
near Jerusalem to Palestinian rule. Yet these villages were already
under Palestinian civil control, as specified by the 1993 Oslo
Accord.

And even though the two sides are meeting to finally solve the
problem of land, Israel just issued the demolition of more Arab
homes for the implementation of 200 Jewish homes near Jerusalem.
Barak has made it very clear that some Palestinian settlements
would have to be evacuated. It really makes you wonder if he even
knows the concept of peace.

Last spring, the settlers selected a new and more moderate
leadership, so they could possibly get Israeli support. But nothing
has happened. Yet the Palestinians are still, not surprisingly,
cynical about the whole idea. Why? You would think they would at
least maintain some form of hope during these talks. Well, the
Palestinians won’t even get full authority over the West
Bank. And right now, all they have are patches of plots surrounded
by Israeli military zones.

As long as these people feel wronged, peace can never come
about. Something must be done for the fact that Palestinians live
in crumbling, concrete block apartment buildings with sewage
trickling nearby and where children play in a pile of sand, while
less than five minutes away, Israeli life is reminiscent of a
serene American suburb.

The Palestinians must be given the opportunity to develop
economically. The per capita income in the Palestinian territories
is less than $2,000, while in Israel it is $18,000.

What the Palestinians want, what the Palestinians need, is a
chance to live. To deny anyone of that chance is murder.