Voices From the Middle East:
Ala Uwainah
Poetic thoughts from Bethlehem
By Ala Uwainah
 If
you are a Palestinian…
If you're a Palestinian and you get killed, you're "collateral
damage," and if your home is destroyed and you have nowhere
to go to, you're an "issue for negotiation."
If your misfortune dictates that you're a young adult male, you're
a "security threat;" if you're too young, too old, or
the wrong gender, you're a "potential security threat"
and you're treated accordingly — you're guilty until (and sometimes
although) proven innocent.
If you're a Palestinian and you live in a "strategically important
area," you're a "major demographic problem;" if you
live elsewhere, you're a "minor demographic problem, albeit
a significant one."
And the list goes on, and on, with some help from the dictionary,
but the point is, if you're Palestinian, you can be anything, that
is, anything but a human being with a name, a family, and a life.
Well, what did you expect? You're Palestinian!
A Matter of Words…
With Israel's budget problems, it would be a wise choice for them
to save all the money they spend on their barrage of spokesmen and
replace them with a recording: "We are defending ourselves,
we are simply fighting terrorism blablabla…"
Well, that's the answer they are instructed to give to almost any
question, and if you won't take my word for it, just watch the news!
Lets get one thing straight first. I have a long, long list of
reasons why I, and other Palestinians, are totally against suicide
bombings, reasons that are both ethical and strategic. But what
I want to talk about is something that is really getting on my nerves.
It is this elaborate over-simplification that all this turmoil is
simply "Palestinian terrorism" versus "Israeli retaliation."
What do these guys take us for?
Implicitly, they are also trying to make people think suicide bombings
are some kind of national sport! It has slipped their mind, what
these people have put through; every hope for a better life, everything,
even their will to live, has been taking away from them! Imagine
what could take away a person's will to live!
— Ala Uwainah is 20 years old and lives in Bethlehem.
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