Israel killing people, hope and ambition

Nabil Alshurafa

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Transcribed from the clipping

I am writing on a day during which Israeli strikes have killed more than 460 Palestinians and wounded more than 2,750, many of whom are women and children. After many attempts, I was finally able to reach my family in Gaza.

As I speak to them, I try to calm them down and ask them to remain hopeful, but all of a sudden, my 70-year-old grandmother blurts in frustration, “Every few minutes I jump from the sound of a blast, F-16s all over the place, no electricity, food is scarce, hope? We’ve forgotten the meaning of this word; we’re living dead, trapped in hell.”

I feel their fear and pain as well. I turn on American television stations and notice that, although this may be the greatest massacre in the region since the war in 1967, very little of what’s really happening is being addressed. On the other hand, Al-Jazeera and many other news outlets are covering this matter 24/7.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the American stance are, I believe, at the heart of our homeland security. I hope for long-lasting peace, not only for the safety of America, but for the safety of Israelis and Palestinians alike. The main problem that foments terrorism is not religion, it is insanity, it is hunger and it is oppression.

When we have a population that is habitually oppressed — living under continued blockades, without enough food, unreliable electricity, children unable to go to school, people unable to leave a small swath of land and feeling imprisoned — how do we expect people to act as if they are not captives? Terrorist groups feed on such individuals.

How this transcription was made

Read from the scan by a machine looking at the image of the page, not by optical character recognition and not by a person.

Context added by this archive

Date check: The running head reads “Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2009 FC The Star” at the left, “COMMENTARY” centred, and the folio “A13” at the right. The date matches the slide label exactly, and Jan. 6, 2009 was a Tuesday. The masthead prints the paper as “The Star”, not the full “Ventura County Star” of pub.

Cite this clipping

"Israel killing people, hope and ambition," Ventura County Star, 6 January 2009, p. A13. Covering Palestine archive, CP-2009-037. https://coveringpalestine.org/archive/cp-2009-037