I WILL NEVER FORGET KAZEM

The day starts at 6:00 am when a guard passes through the corridor slapping his club against the iron rods that made the rooms doors. The detainees will have 30 minutes to get ready by folding up their blankets and straighten out themselves. Then they leave their rooms and filed up toward the window of the kitchen to receive their measly, stingy, and miserable looking breakfast placed in a small plastic bowl that was fit for dogs. The breakfast consists of a boiled egg, small portion of margarine, a small slice of bread, and occasionally a small portion of a red jelly that nobody knows its type. The detainees lined up against the wall of a rectangular ceilingless court that is an all-seasons place to eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner as well as to take a daily fifteen minute walk. Prisoners were allowed to take only one shower a week and going to the toilet is only with a permission of the guard. The detainees are old with many of them over fifty years old and as young as twelve years old. Each one of them has a story to tell and none of them were justified to be imprisoned. However, the act of imprisonment created or perhaps forced some sense of nationalism and pride in many of detainees and they considered themselves freedom fighters even though these thoughts and feelings were not by choice.

It was very hard to comprehend how preteen and early teenagers would be captured and imprisoned for no reasons except to terrorize them and frighten them to death. These young children appeared to strike the enemy as potential threat to its existence or perhaps these youngsters were captured to scare others and kill their hopes. It is a psychological warfare waged on millions of Palestinians who are occupied for decades regardless of any respect to any international rules and conventions. Perhaps the enemy of the Palestinians tried to compensate for the suffering of the European Jews under the Nazi Germany and the third Reich in the 1940’s. Ironically, the Palestinian people invited and accepted many of the European Jews into their homeland to protect them from the disastrous events during World War II. Similarly, the Jews lived in harmony in El-Andalous under the Muslim rules with full protection to their rights and believes. When the Muslims were forced out of Spain after several century of ruling the land with full respect to human beings and their integrity, the Jews were left in the cold and under the mercy and brutality of the Spaniards. They were mercilessly and cruelly prosecuted for nothing except for being Jews. The Earth shrunk under their feet and they had nowhere to go except finding sanctuary in other Arab and Muslim land in the Modern Middle East. As a matter of fact, there is a large aggregation of them still living in Turkey and if is not for the lack of strategic goals, many Jews would still have been living in other Arab countries. Mass exodus of Jews from Arab counties to Palestine during the 1948 time frame was due to the lack of national strategies on part of the Arab rulers. Otherwise, Jews would have been living in their own countries such as Syria, Iraq, Egypt, and Morocco.

The point here is that Muslim people and governments respected and protected the Jews throughout history since the foundation of Islam. In return, many Jews manifested and transformed themselves into the modern Zionism movement and pay back their respect by killing men, women, and children; terrorize the young and old; occupy a land that is not theirs; and spread terror everywhere they go. This movement was equated with racism by the international body known as United Nation until the Oslo accord was signed by a motley band of Palestinian stooges. In many cases Zionist based organizations attacked other Jews who do not believe or belong to this menacing movement. We have seen Jewish individuals being prosecuted and jailed by the Zionist government for no reason except for their announcement of their willingness to live side by side with the Palestinians in peace and tranquility.

There is no wonder why young children are considered fair target to detain, jail, and terrorize for no apparent reason except for the fun of it when this Zionism movement is willing to even scrutinize and alienate other Jews who are standing on the other side of the issues. This rogue warmonger modern movement appeared only in recent human history and does not understand integrity, respect to human values, or the rules of civilized cultures. Unlike the Mongol hordes that despised and destroyed anything they did not understand on their way, the Zionist movement is mainly targeting the Palestinians and their land with an intense and focused energy at a level that has not been experienced before. Their intense hatred and extreme dislike made them almost blind to any human values and to the point they are willing to kill fetuses and even animals and trees belonging to the Palestinians. Their hatred brought them to the point where they are willing to demolish houses indiscriminately and even addle every bird egg that exists in Palestine. They poisoned animals and birds for no reason except to spread horror, dreadfulness, and dismay among the villagers and farmers.

This intense revulsion manifests itself in raiding towns and cities on a daily basis to capture and detain men, women, and children to deprive them the freedom that anybody else in this world is taking it for granted. When I met Kazim for the first time he was fourteen years old with blue eyes and fair complexion. I was extremely curious about his case and why he was imprisoned. One could read a very complicated story by staring at his eyes. Both of his arms, hands, and the upper part of his chest wore very deep scars from some sort of fire. I befriended with Kazem and he started telling me his story, which was full of sadness, sorrow, and grief. It was so difficult to hold back the emotion and tears every time I saw him or recall his story. At the end of the six day war, the Monarch of Jordan went on the radio to encourage his subjects to fight the enemy everywhere. His famous speech still resonates in my head when he demanded to fight with our teeth, finger nails, and daggers. At that point of time, many West Bank residents realized it is time to seek refuge in other countries and started flocking eastward across the river. The enemy jetfighters followed the innocent unarmed civilians and began bombing them with Napalm, a weapon that was forbidden to use in wartime. Kazem’s family was caught in the bombing, which killed his father, mother, and baby sister. He tried to rescue his sister, but the fire consumed her and burned most of his upper body.

He was rescued by his relatives and brought back to the West Bank where he was recovered. His crime of being jailed has to do with his body being burnt as if he was a commando or a platoon leader at the age of fourteen. Kazem told his story without shedding a tear or showing any emotion, I guess because he was grieving for so long and his eyes dried up long before he was captured. Several years later I was walking in the streets of Amman and accidentally ran into Kazem who grew up to be a very handsome young man. He remembered me and told me that he was expelled. His eyes were sparkly this time and full of life, but inside his grief was engraved down deep on his bones. His image still with me up to this day and as I promised, I will never forget Kazem so long as my heart is beating.

Omar Manasreh
16 August 2008