It pains me to be waiting for over a week now for a firm step forward towards the aggression of the terrorists in Palestine, because I trust the system, and because I have looked up at the system and the international body since I was young, believing in the salvation and the formation of a body of human rights that protects the weak and vulnerable.
And I am still waiting, because I cannot bear to read the atrocious statements that not only do not condemn the 73 years of terrorism, but also calls for an ‘equal’ ‘cease’ of fire. I refuse to fathom that this is what the international entity chose to do in response to the violent attacks on stone-throwers and penniless youths.
It is a stab in the heart to read a ‘neutral’ statement that calls for peace and civil security, weighing heavily on diplomacy but siding with the aggressors. As if when faced with apartheid, you get to choose to side in between.
Of all the international human rights courses I have taken, they have admitted to many mistakes done by the bureaucratic organization, including Rwanda and Iraq, but never mention Palestine.
As if all resolutions and international laws ‘endorsed’ have been so successful, as if the sieges and the sanctions and the murders have been long stopped by the mythical charter. Even Plato would laugh at the idealism.
As a journalist student, I have idolized, religiously, the men and women of the pen, those who were killed for writing, those who threatened the oppressors so much that the enemy decided to eradicate them, those who killed using words and figures more than bullets ever could.
I stand here remembering Ghassan Kanafani and Naji Al Ali, struggling to keep Handala alive in everything in me, holding my Handala necklace close to my heart and the real cartoon under my pillow; I am fighting for the ten years old boy that has not grown since the exodus, the boy who looks down at the human rights international entities in dismay.
I sit here, 15mins away from where Kanafani and his little niece were murdered, unarmed, in the middle of my city. He never used a gun, never held a rifle, he had his pen and a typewriter and he frightened the nation of thousands armymen.
To dismiss the international laws, charters, and resolutions is a habit we have normalized. If the international entities really think that what is happening in the land of merciless does not violate the human/e laws, let us remember the one law that matters most: resolution 194, the right of return.
Adopted in 1948, not only does resolution 194 stresses the importance of Palestinians returning to their homes-not lands, homes-but that “compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or equity, should be made good by the Governments or authorities responsible”
73 years of violations, yet the international societies remain perturbed. It is sickening to the bone that not only is resolution 194 thrown to the mud, but settlers now dare to occupy the homes of Palestinians, 73 years later, and we remain unfazed. How cruel the world is to be so good at human rights in writing but never in practice.
I remain hopeful of the system I belong to; I remain hopeful because I believe in the better good. I believe in the salvation of the nations and the eradication of starvation and poverty and injustice. I am ignited by the yearning for a painless world where children are happy, so I need to believe in an earthly system that is also working to achieve this.
To end this, I will forever recommend you read Ghassan Kanafani because he is the only one who does not romanticize the cause; he tells you the story from all sides, the ugly and the right ones.