August 23, 2005


Invisible...

Samah Sabawi


It would seem that we have made a grave error!  The land of Palestine was indeed a land without a people.  The Palestinian people were invisible when Israel was established in 1948 and apparently, they are still invisible today.

It is not that we do not exist; it is only that our existence in our human form is so trivial in the eyes of the world and in the eyes of the media that it hardly appears to be of any importance.

Sadly, my conclusion was confirmed this week as I watched in astonishment the dazzling Gaza withdrawal.  It is indeed a great performance: one of Sharon's best so far and worthy of all the attention the gullible naive media has given it.

Orit Shochat, a writer for the Israeli paper Haaretz has eloquently described the staging of the eviction drama:  "For years, the settlers have been making the rules. This time, too. The settlers determined how the evacuation would appear and when it would take place. They decided where to make their last stand, which MKs and rabbis would go in and out, when the forced removals would begin, and how many hours they would wait in the broiling sun before consenting to rise from the dining table and pack a bag. There were some plays-within-a-play. Settlers asked soldiers to restrain them, to use force against them so their evacuation wouldn't be too easy. The synagogue at Kfar Darom, so dear to their hearts, a place of martyrs' blood as Porat said, was erected only four months ago as scenery for this theatrical show."

And a theatrical show it is indeed, with all the glitz and glitter but with absolutely no substance at all.  Despite all the talk in the media this past week about the disengagement and the settlements, no explanation has been offered as to who these settlers are and whose land they had settled on and most important of all, what their eviction will mean to the Palestinians they will leave behind the segregation barriers and Israeli controlled gates that shape the Palestinians' lives.

Although I have received my full dose of brainwashing news clips, I must admit I still have no sympathy for the evicted settlers.  Here is why:
settlers are not average Israeli citizens.  Many are well trained and heavily armed radical extremists who believe in ethnically cleansing Palestinian lands of its native inhabitants and taking over their homes and farms at gun point because they believe it is literally their God given-right to do so.

Those settlers in Gaza have for many years filled their swimming pools with water stolen from Palestinian farmers, have lingered on their spacious balconies enjoying the evening breeze while millions of Palestinians who were forced off their land have had to endure many long nights in over crowded refugee camps wondering if they will make it through another day of without starving.

My heart does not bleed for the settlers who only left after receiving endless apologies and after being promised $150,000 to $400,000 US each in compensations for their property while Palestinians still have not even received an apology from Israel for the decades of oppression and ethnic cleansing let alone any form of compensation.

I am not impressed by the manner in which the IDF has kindly but surely conducted the eviction.  The soldiers who evicted the settlers received sensitivity training and gave the settlers long enough to prepare before making them leave their homes.  More than 63,000 Palestinian homes have been demolished at the hands of the same army which didn't think sensitivity training was needed to deal with the Palestinians.  In many cases the Palestinian inhabitants of these homes were only given five minutes to run for their lives before the bulldozers crushed their hopes and erased proof of their existence.

The Jewish settlers are not average citizens.  They have for long terrorized the Palestinians.  Numerous incidents have been reported and many more were not.  This week alone, eight Palestinians were killed at the hands of settlers.  In places like Hebron, children require assistance from international peace activists to get to school and back as they are subjected to daily attacks by settlers who want to drive Palestinian families from their land.

The settlers and their supporters speak out for Israel's darker side. They are uncompromising, they are filled with hatred toward the Arab population and they will stop at nothing in their manipulation, not only of their own people, but of the world media.   They hoped that by assassinating Rabin they would assassinate any hope for peace. For a long time, they have succeeded.  Their greatest weapon has always been the media's compliance with their crimes.

The most disturbing element this last week has not been the settlers' theatrics as much as this:  Gaza has been closed off to the world media for a long time; finally, Israel has allowed them to go in to film the evictions. Didn't any reporter wander off the beaten track just a few kilometres away to talk to the Palestinians in the camps about how they feel?  Are there no Palestinians in Gaza or are we simply invisible?

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Samah Sabawi is an Ottawa writer and activist who was born in Gaza.