ZGram - 6/5/2002 - "Brutality in Nablus defies reason"

[irimland@zundelsite.org]

ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny

June 5, 2002

Good Morning from the Zundelsite:

Someone named Ayman sent me this article titled "My article in Seattle Times"

Today, the Seattle Times published the article below by me.  It is 
highly expected that they will be getting many negative feedback. 
Positive feedback will help greatly.

Please take few minutes and send them a thank you note at 
opinion@seattletimes.com

And please forward to others. 

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Friday, May 31, 2002 - 12:00 a.m. Pacific

Guest columnist
Brutality in Nablus defies reason

By Ayman Aldahleh
Special to The Times

Earlier this month, two essays on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, 
Christians can't remain on Middle East sidelines" by the Rev. Donald 
M. Mackenzie Jr., University Congregational United Church of Christ 
minister, and "The Jenin offensive: beyond the TV images" by Ruth 
Etzioni, a Seattle resident who is a longtime friend of a major in 
the Israeli Defense Force, appeared on these pages. Today, two 
different perspectives are aired.

I have followed the news about the destruction of Palestinian cities 
and villages during Israel's invasion of the West Bank that began on 
March 29. Jenin and Ramallah have become household names, and images 
of streets lined with the rotting corpses of Palestinians and 
now-homeless children wandering the mounds of ruin that once were 
their homes are known to us all. For me, the experience of this 
invasion has been especially heart-wrenching because in addition to 
watching the tragedy unfold on television, I got to hear about it 
live, day by day.

My sister, Azizeh, lives with her husband and three children in the 
Palestinian city of Nablus. Every day, for weeks, I would call Azizeh 
to make sure she and her family were alive and unharmed, and when 
Israeli tanks tore down telephone poles in Nablus, I would call her 
cellular phone, and we would talk until the battery died, with the 
sound of bombing in the background.

My friends have urged me to share Azizeh's experience because it 
completes the story that we struggle to understand, a story that is 
fraught with falsehoods and polemics. In the U.S., we repeatedly hear 
Israeli spokespersons claim a purity of arms and that great efforts 
were made to avoid harming civilians. What Azizeh witnessed and 
experienced as the invasion unfolded showed me that contrary to that 
claim, Israeli Occupation Forces made every effort to break down the 
Palestinians of Nablus and the West Bank in every way possible.

Azizeh explained that the first action taken by Israeli soldiers upon 
entering Nablus was to impose a strict curfew on all residents. That 
means that more than 150,000 civilians who live and work there could 
not leave their homes for weeks. It became difficult if not 
impossible to meet basic daily needs, and many families struggled to 
feed their children or care for the sick and the elderly. Israeli 
tanks smashed privately owned cars, tore down electricity poles and 
crushed everything in their path.

My sister and her family live in an apartment on the third floor of a 
six-story residential building. Israeli soldiers forced them and 
their neighbors out of their apartments at gunpoint, and the soldiers 
converted her apartment into a command post. The soldiers made 
themselves comfortable in her home, helped themselves to her food, 
and - upon their departure - totally destroyed everything there. 
Furniture, artwork, personal belongings, food stored for emergencies 
such as this one, everything was decimated.

Sounding humiliated and enraged, my sister catalogued the destruction 
surrounding her, but I found myself thankful that she and her family 
had escaped the fate that befell many of Nablus' residents.

One of my sister's closest friends, Fatima Alshoabi, lived in a 
nearby apartment building with her brother Sameer and his family. 
Sameer and his wife Nabila had three children - ages 3, 6 and 9 - and 
were expecting their fourth child this summer. Israeli bulldozers 
demolished the residential building where the Alshoabi family lived. 
The soldiers gave absolutely no warning to the residents inside, and 
everyone in the building died except Fatima's elderly parents, who 
were among the few Palestinians rescued from beneath the rubble.

The grandfather told Azizeh: "I will never forget hearing my youngest 
grandchild's voice screaming, 'Dad! They're going to tear it down!' " 
Nabila's pregnant body was found clutching her three children 
tightly, trapped in the doorway as they tried to escape. To this day, 
the Israeli army has offered no explanation for this act. Neighbors 
observed that it was to clear the path for Israeli tanks to enter the 
heart of Nablus' city with its narrow, centuries-old alleys.

The list of horrors visited on Nablus is endless. Olive trees that 
are the livelihood of Palestinian farmers, with root systems dating 
back 2,000 years to Roman times, have been uprooted by the hundreds 
to clear roads for Israeli soldiers. The ancient city, with its 
600-year-old mosque and Arab baths, has sustained severe damage. And 
like Azizeh, Palestinian parents have had to hold their children 
through night after night of attacks and airstrikes, and pray 
desperately that theirs will not be the next building to collapse.

Witnessing these horrors through my sister's experience has left me 
with a very strong conviction. I can't imagine that peace will ever 
be possible or sustainable if Israelis continue to dehumanize and 
subjugate Palestinians through acts of brutality and collective 
punishment. The single most brutal act and the one that must come to 
an immediate end is the military occupation.

Ayman Aldahleh, a Palestinian American born in Tulkarem, West Bank, 
is an engineer who lives and works in Redmond.

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I repeat Ayman's plea:  Please take few minutes and send them a thank 
you note at opinion@seattletimes.com

And please forward to others. 

=====