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 nationĚs
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 husbandĚs 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 countryĚs 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.
>
--
Camilla Flintermann <[log in to unmask]>
on the web at http://www.geocities.com/camillahf/index.html
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