Dear (insert name),
I'm sending this message from Bil'in, Palestine to urge you to join a growing international movement that holds Israel accountable for war crimes. Anyone who has visited this village will tell you that to know Bil'in is to love Bil'in, and to love Bil'in is to fight for it. The necessity for this fight is growing. Illegal settlements and the concrete "security" barrier are confiscating village land, soldiers use nights raids and arrests to terrorize the residents of Bil'in, including minors, and on New Years Eve Israeli soldiers fired tear gas around and behind hundreds of peaceful demonstrators. They used this gas in such volume that a local woman was asphyxiated, and she died the next morning.
Jawaher Abu Rahme happened to be the sister of Bassem Abu Rahme, who was shot in the chest by a tear gas canister in 2009, and killed. The village has mourned the loss of their friend Bassem sever since, and today they buried his sister beside him. My grief is heavy as I mourn for my friends' sister, daughter, cousin, niece, and friend, and for my own complicity in this tragedy. My tax dollars are contributing to all of it: the settlements, the wall, and the bulldozers that uproot the village's olive trees, some of which are thousands of years old. My tax dollars are equipping young Israeli soldiers with gun and gas canisters to be fueled by a militaristic ideology that exploits their youth, and their fear.
I had this crazy idea during the funeral procession this morning. I wanted to walk to the wall, where jeeps full of soldiers were nervously congregating, and invite a soldier to change out of his uniform and attend the burial as a plain-clothes Israeli. Like the Israelis who had attended the demonstration the day before and hugged their friends in Bil'in goodbye, calling them brother. Israelis who come every week and risk being shot by other Israelis, Israelis who are doing more to protect their country than their counterparts in uniform. These soldiers view the people of Bil'in as extremists, with no humanity and no entitlement to their land. Slowly but surely, the world is waking up to the reality of this occupation, and to the realization that our current relationship with Israel is not mutually beneficial, but mutually destructive. I urge you to stand with the pro-peace movement and the people of Palestine as we struggle together for peace and justice, someday, for Jawaher and Bassem.
I'm sending this message from Bil'in, Palestine to urge you to join a growing international movement that holds Israel accountable for war crimes. Anyone who has visited this village will tell you that to know Bil'in is to love Bil'in, and to love Bil'in is to fight for it. The necessity for this fight is growing. Illegal settlements and the concrete "security" barrier are confiscating village land, soldiers use nights raids and arrests to terrorize the residents of Bil'in, including minors, and on New Years Eve Israeli soldiers fired tear gas around and behind hundreds of peaceful demonstrators. They used this gas in such volume that a local woman was asphyxiated, and she died the next morning.
Jawaher Abu Rahme happened to be the sister of Bassem Abu Rahme, who was shot in the chest by a tear gas canister in 2009, and killed. The village has mourned the loss of their friend Bassem sever since, and today they buried his sister beside him. My grief is heavy as I mourn for my friends' sister, daughter, cousin, niece, and friend, and for my own complicity in this tragedy. My tax dollars are contributing to all of it: the settlements, the wall, and the bulldozers that uproot the village's olive trees, some of which are thousands of years old. My tax dollars are equipping young Israeli soldiers with gun and gas canisters to be fueled by a militaristic ideology that exploits their youth, and their fear.
I had this crazy idea during the funeral procession this morning. I wanted to walk to the wall, where jeeps full of soldiers were nervously congregating, and invite a soldier to change out of his uniform and attend the burial as a plain-clothes Israeli. Like the Israelis who had attended the demonstration the day before and hugged their friends in Bil'in goodbye, calling them brother. Israelis who come every week and risk being shot by other Israelis, Israelis who are doing more to protect their country than their counterparts in uniform. These soldiers view the people of Bil'in as extremists, with no humanity and no entitlement to their land. Slowly but surely, the world is waking up to the reality of this occupation, and to the realization that our current relationship with Israel is not mutually beneficial, but mutually destructive. I urge you to stand with the pro-peace movement and the people of Palestine as we struggle together for peace and justice, someday, for Jawaher and Bassem.
