071001

They say make lemonade out of lemons But I try and I just can’t understand it All this trying for no good reason Man makes plans and God laughs

No. 

Well let me try to explain to you why palestine is actually not just a “political opinion” that you hop on whenever you want and why Gadot is in fact ugly.

It was Friday during Ramadan and i was taking a journey that would have normally taken 15 minutes but instead, due to israel’s apartheid wall and checkpoints, it took me 5 hours standing in the heat, while fasting along with hundreds of women of all ages. Lining up at Qalandia checkpoint at 5 in the morning, we waited to be ushered to. I will never be able to forget the tears on these women’s faces when the female israeli soldiers told them to turn back and go home; “try again next Friday”. Any protest would mean more yelling and shoving and hurling of violent threats by these female israeli soldiers against palestinian women who had nothing but plastic bags to carry their prayer rugs. I will never forget how families were forced to separate because half of them had the proper papers while the others lacked one or two signatures that allowed them to cross. I will never forget the heartbreak on their faces. I will never forget how the female israeli soldiers forced the women to take off parts of their hijab out in the open. I will never forget the sheer terror on the already exhausted women’s faces when one of the female israeli soldiers wasn’t too impressed with one of the women at the checkpoint and so she called another female officer with a bigger gun to taunt us all in case we decided to utter a word. I will never forget how when we were finally allowed through, leaving at least a third of us behind, we were all forced to stand in the scorching heat in front of yet another metal gate. We were now under the mercy of some officer who would open the gate, allowing a number of us to gush through it like an angry wave, only for him to shut it close and watch us as we find out the family has been separated on both ends and we are unfortunate to have to wait more, our heads boiling under the sun. Women were crying. Men were crying. We were locked up behind a little gate for at least another hour, waiting for the officer to decide to open it for a couple of seconds only to quickly shut it back again in our faces, over and over again. It was clear that this brutality was systemic against those of us who only wished to be able to get to jerusalem so they can pray. I will also never forget how it felt having a gun pointed straight at my and another woman’s face because she didn’t have her id with her and so we were barred from entering our own place of worship and any step further toward its gate or any word would have meant, according to the officer, a rain of bullets.

Mind you, this is only my experience during only one part of one day in palestine. There are millions of stories which i guess you refuse to consider since apparently we are merely “a stance”. Obviously, the people do not exist to those who treat palestine as a “political opinion”. To them, the occupation is “unfortunate” and colonialism is too harsh a word.

Of the perpetrators, Steven Green said, “I didn’t think of Iraqis as humans.” James Barker took a plea deal and immediately after, smoked a cigarette and grinned as reporters passed by.

May Abeer and her family rest in peace while the monsters who did this and allowed it to happen suffer for eternity.