As a result of press censorship which deems certain pictures “offensive,” those who do not live in Palestine have no idea how nightmarish everyday life there is.
As a journalist, I see the daily carnage by way of press releases and photos that are filtered through the Arab News office. A great deal of what I see is considered too graphic by most newspapers to print. For instance, recently I saw a picture of dead and bloodied Jamal Zabbaro, 20, whose family was hugging his bullet-pierced corpse.
Most people’s perception of what is happening in Palestine is formed by what they read in newspapers and what they see on television. Headlines announcing death on both sides are now so commonplace that one is surprised when a day goes by without an atrocity being committed.
For us living in other parts of the world, we take a moment to read the article, shake our heads or frown, then go on with our daily lives. We pick up our children from school, we bring them home and cook their dinner, help them with their homework and wait for our spouse to come home. Meanwhile, in Jerusalem, the West Bank, Tulkarem and Gaza City, people are living in fear that when their loved ones leave home, there is a strong possibility that they may never return, that it may be the last time they are seen alive. For hundreds, that fear has been realized.
I do not intend to enter the political arena by writing this. I just want to draw attention to the human factor on both sides. There are people being killed, and people doing the killing. There are families being shattered and torn apart.
Imagine you wake up one morning, cook breakfast for your children before they leave for school. Three o’clock comes and you are waiting for them to return home. One of them does not. You think to yourself, “He’s probably with his friends.” While you wait, you turn on CNN and find out that a group of children has been killed, an eight-year-old among them. You think to yourself, “How awful, my child is eight.” Then it clicks. Your heart starts racing, “Where is my child?” A few seconds pass, then... “Oh my God, that is my child.”
This is a nightmare that has become a reality for hundreds of Palestinian and Israeli families. Sadly for them, they cannot change the channel or turn to the comics and forget what has happened. Escape for them is not so easy.
What you do, and how involved you get, can help change the face of the intifada and the crisis in the occupied territories. We are all humans, regardless of race, religion, color, political affiliations or personal differences.
Am I naive, you ask?
Perhaps a little; but I choose to care.
Do you?
Arab News Features 17 January 2003