Ours is a country of words. Speak, speak,
that I may lay my road on the stone of stone to something.
Ours is a country of words. Speak speak
that we may know the end of this travelling.
عَلَى كَتِفَيْكَ وَهُزَّ لَهُنَّ النَّ
لِتَعْرف أَسْمَاءَهُنَّ وَمِنْ أَيِّ أُمَّ سَيُولَدُ طِفْلُ الجليلْ
لَنَا بَلَدٌ من كَلاَمٍ تَكَلَّمْ تَكَلَّمْ لأُسْنِد دَرْبي عَلَى حَجَرٍ مِنْ حَجَرْ
لَنَا بَلَدٌ مِنْ كَلاَمٍ تَكَلِّمْ تَكلَّمْ لِنَعْرفَ حَدّاً لِهذَا السَّفَرْ!
- Mahmoud Darwish
"We Travel Like Other People"
Palestine: Ten Days in October
1 | 1 Oct, Beit Furik. Two Israeli settlers shot and killed
2 | 3 Oct, East Jerusalem. Two Ultra-Orthodox Israelis were killed in stabbing by Palestinian who was later shot dead by Israeli soldier.
3 | 4 Oct, Tulkarem. Teenage Palestinian boy shot dead by Israeli soldiers during protest.
4 | 5 Oct, Bethlehem. 13-year-old Palestinian boy killed by Israeli sniper near Aida refugee camp,
5 | 7 Oct, Kiryat. Gat. Israeli police execute a Palestinian woman at a bus station in occupied Afula. Seven Israeli police & soldiers surround the woman claiming she had a knife. Eye witnesses say she was holding a mobile phone. Video of incident show woman surrounded by seven armed Israeli police & soldiers. Can’t make out what was in her hand.
6 | 8 Oct, Tel Aviv. Palestinian killed after screwdriver attack on armed Israeli soldier and 3 others.
7 | 8 Oct, Shuafat. Palestinian dies during clashes with Israeli security forces
8 | 9 Oct, Nahel Auz. Six Palestinians shot dead by Israeli security forces including two Palestinians aged 12 and 15 in protests along Gaza’s border fence.
9 | 9 Oct, Kiryat Arba. Policeman shoots dead Palestinian who stabbed him.
10 | 10 Oct, Six hundred and fifty (650) Palestinians detained by Israeli forces in the first 9 days of October 2015.
we travel like other people but we return
to nowhere. As if travelling is the way
of the clouds / we have buried our loved ones
in the darkness of the clouds between the
roots of the trees ...
- Darwish
Ian Curr
October 2015
Sources
include Al Maan, Al Jazeera, video of unknown source, Palestinian statements.
Darwish’s poem is translated in Narratives of Diaspora and Exile in Arabic and Palestinian Poetry
Dear Ian,
The violence which is now sweeping Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) is a direct consequence of Israel’s brutal 67 year old occupation and the failure of the UN and the international community to act decisively in bringing Israel to book for its egregious violations of international law.
Radicalised Islamic youth in Australia have alluded not only to our participation in the war on Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan but also to our collusion with Israel.
Israel is singled out by successive Australian governments for visits by parliamentary delegations and by the captains of Australian business and industry who have led 39 trade missions there.
Simon McKeown, Chairman of CSIRO and former Australian of the Year, told me he was going because he wanted to know more about Israel’s entrepreneurial flair and sought closer integration with Israel in joint projects. He was undeterred from going by the fact that Israel tests its weapons, surveillance and crowd control technology on Palestinians, particularly those in Gaza.
Following the success of the anti-apartheid boycott which brought down the South African government Palestinian civil society initiated the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign to force Israel’s compliance with international law.
BDS is a non-violent form of direct action which empowers people to shun products like Soda Stream which originate in the Israeli OPTs, superannuation funds in Norway and the US have divested from companies like Caterpillar and Veolia which profit/aid Israel’s occupation.
At the cultural and academic level Artists like Roger Waters have refused Israeli invitations and Associate Professor Jake Lynch has been vilified for denying an academic from the Technion university an exchange in his department.
All of us have a moral responsibility to stop the bloodshed by supporting BDS and pressuring the Australian government and our media to play fair for Palestine.
Gareth W R Smith
Palestine Liberation Centre
Byron Bay NSW
“Those who can make you believe in absurdities can make you commit atrocities.” Voltaire
George Orwell, ‘Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.’
“The sleep of reason produces monsters.” Goya
—