We talked
with several young people who had broken curfew in Ramallah during
our curfew breaking walk on July 31- most of the kids we talked
to were boys about 10 to 16 years old but a few couldn't have
been more than five and some were young girls.
We asked them what they wanted the world
to know about them. One boy said he wanted the world to know that
the Palestinian people are oppressed; another says the Palestinians
are steadfast.
They said they defy the curfew for freedom,
for taking their right to freedom. Another said: If we live our
whole lives under full invasion and occupation we will have to
continue to struggle for our freedom for our whole lives. They
are killing us. They say that we are the terrorists, but they
are the ones that are terrorists they are killing us.
Another conversation with an older Palestinian
man in old Ramallah - on the streets after the army threw tear-gas
into an open-air basement apartment where several old people and
children lived. The same night as a bombing at Hebrew University
in Jerusalem. The old man said: The people that are committing
acts of violence--both the soldiers and the people who did the
bomb today--are hurting us all. I am afraid for the future. After
a few months I think it will be worse. The army will not be good
in this area. Our leaders don't do something good. What the army
did today was very bad, but also, what our people did was very
bad at the university. As a human being, I don't accept these
acts of violence. Americans and Europeans need to push - they
need to do something real.
