Friends-- I'm sorry these first-person accounts are long, but I felt
some of us who had been appalled at the photos of "celebrating"
Palestinians would like to know more accurate info.
This  is from an American woman who lives on the West Bank and who
is shocked by last week's events and might ease your mind a bit.  It
was sent to me by a mutual friend----
*********
Dear Camilla,
  Below is a message that I received from an old family
  friend , Cindy Fairholm.  She forwarded me
  this message that she received from
  Elizabeth Price, an American who
  currently lives in the West Bank.  I'm sharing the email
  because it provides a perspective that isn't being shown on
  the news, and because I found it heartening.
*********
  Written by Elizabeth Price

  As a Bay Area resident living in the West Bank,
  the news of the terrorist attack in America has
destroyed me twice over. I was
  working at  my American development organization when
  we heard the news of
  the first plane. We crowded around the TV to watch
  what we thought was a
  local air  disaster, only to realize, as the second
  plane impacted, that something was terribly wrong.
I spent the next ten hours, glued to the
TV with my Palestinian co-workers and in-laws,
stunned and grief-stricken
  as we  watched the indescribable human
  tragedy unfold.

  Taking breaks
  only to call my family about my brother who lives in
  NY and talk to
  friends who  work near the WTC, I watched as my world
  crumbled around me.

  Even though I live in a place where military
  bombing is a daily  occurrence, sounds of engines
in the sky strike fear into my heart, and Palestinian
  death toll grows daily, I was totally unprepared the
  scenes of  carnage and loss on CNN. Even though I have
  lived through war in the last  ten months, I feel like
  I only lost my innocence on Tuesday, September 11.

  I feel like I have been forced into the cold, harsh
  world of adulthood, here memories sear and hiding
  places are lost.

  I am used to telling my parents, as Israeli tank
  shells fall nearby, that my life is safe and
  everything is ok. But now, it is them that I worry
  for. The loss of innocence of the American people is a
  terrible thing and  the scale of loss is a trauma that

  I wish history did not have
to record  as fact. Every morning since that day, I
  wake up in dread, growing into
  the knowledge that evil has crept in this world for
  good.

  That was the first destruction, and again, I am
  lucky that I am scarred only indirectly. I cannot
  imagine the horrors that have visited countless
  families in America, whose lives were destroyed more
  than I can even imagine.

  The second destruction came when I heard of
  images of Palestinians  celebrating being shown
  repeatedly in America. As the American wife of a
  Palestinian, I felt like I had been punched in the
  stomach. How could anyone celebrate this tragedy
  against my fellow countrymen? Here I was suffering
  with them from the military sieges, the bombings, and
  the  economic misery, and they celebrate my nationÌs
  loss?

  Then I saw the images: eight people in one
  neighborhood of Jerusalem - a  woman ululating, two or
  three boys jumping around and two men honking  their
  horns in broad daylight and a crowd in a Lebanese camp
  shot guns. And I was angry. How dare they celebrate?
  And I was confused.  Why were  they celebrating when,
  everywhere else in the West Bank and Gaza streets,
  streets were empty and people sat, speechless in front
  of their TVs.

  After going to buy CNN-marathon supplies on
  September 11, my sister-in-law said that, in every
  shop, Palestinians were crowded, stunned, in front of
  their TVs, hoping endlessly that the rumors of
  Japanese Red Army involvement were true because they
  could not believe a Middle Eastern  party would do
  such a thing.     My father-in-law called with
  condolences, saying that THE CELEBRATING PEOPLE
HAD BEEN PAID MONEY  TO ACT IN FRONT OF THE TV
CAMERAS.   This is difficult to believe, but it is indicative of
  the anger and bewilderment shown by Palestinians over
  this image and the  desire to deny all connection to
  these unacceptable sentiments.

  As these two images were shown over and over again
  throughout  the world, I  felt like I had nothing to which to
cling. My birth nation
  under attack  and my husbandÌs nation discredited,
  when all were actually united in
  mourning and suspense. As my Palestinian co-workers
  and I spent the  entire of September 12 watching live
  coverage, the drone of Israeli Apache  helicopters and
  F16s filled the skies and the news of 11 deaths,
  including  a little girl, trickled in from a northern
  Palestinian town.

  When a CNN  commentator said that the noise of planes
  scared him now, one colleague  said she knew exactly
  what he meant.

  Now, I want to reach out to my fellow Americans
  and tell them that NO ONE HERE IS
  CELEBRATING.  Those images were taken in one
  small street in  Jerusalem, before the full story was
  revealed, and before the world found  out that America
  had suffered a terrible tragedy. Palestinians are
  angry  that those people dared to put the terrible
  events of NY and DC in the context of this region.

  Although American support to Israel severely
  depresses the Palestinian people, no one here would
  wish the misery of  loss and death on another nation,
  particularly on such a scale.  And I am  angry at the
  media organizations that played those two images over
  and over again for effect, making Americans think that
  it represented the
Palestinian attitude. At best, I counted thirty people
  in the total footage. Compared to over three million
  Palestinians, that is a negligible minority but the TV
  stations saw a good visual
  story. For a  few seconds of interesting filler, those
  stations have destroyed the reputation of an entire
  people and fanned the flames of anti-Muslim and
  anti-Arab feelings that have already led to vandalism
  and violent threats on American citizens.

  Every day, I hear of Palestinians and Muslims who
  are desperate to find
  out if they had relatives in the WTC. I know of a
  Palestinian family  friend in NY who ran through the
  debris-laded streets to find his little sister who
  works in Building 7 and of a close Muslim friend who
  spent  hours on the phone trying to locate her aunt
  who worked on a high-numbered  floor. I know that
many Pakistani and
  Arab Muslims work in the
  financial  institutes whose floors disappeared
  completely. I know that everyone everywhere is
  suffering together.

  As I grieve for my countryÌs loss, far from my
family and far from my
  nation, allow me to tell my fellow citizens that I am
  not alone in my sorrows here. The only emotions I have
  seen in the last few days in the Palestinian
  territories are unspeakable grief and the agonizing
  awareness  that the world has lost its innocence.
  >--- Bonnie Mann
>--- [log in to unmask]
>--- EarthLink: The #1 provider of the Real Internet.
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--

        Camilla Flintermann               <[log in to unmask]>

        on the web at   http://www.geocities.com/camillahf/index.html

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