MAHMOUD DARWISH

While mourning and paying respect to the deceased are sacred rituals among every culture known to human through history, I feel the Palestinian people need more than paying respect to a dead man. The way Poet Darwish’s death was treated by the fellow Arabs is a warning sign for the Palestinians that they are respected more dead than alive. Perhaps this is the way that is wanted for the Palestinians. The heavy loads on the chests of Arab Rulers will be lefted if for some reason all of the Palestinians were dead. The sigh of relief will be for those who think the Palestinias are standing in the way of their progress. No more knocking on doors asking for lending a hand, facilitate, or rallying around to liberate the land that was handed on a silver plate to the enemy.

Do you see how the Arabs are quite concerned with the death of the Palestinians who are greived over and lamented ? The same deeds, conduct, and behavior were seen when thousands of Palestinias were slaughtered, murdered, and massacred in cold blood in Sabra and Shetil l a in September 1982 by the Christian Lebanes Forces militia group. The enemy allowed Phalangist militiamen to enter two refugee camps, and the militia massacred civilians inside. Condemnation, denunciation, and criticism were plentiful at that time. Now these dreadful events are all forgotten and if one asks any Rulers about the camps, I bet they would not know the locations.

Before Sabra and Shatilla and early in the morning of April 9, 1948, commandos of the Irgun (headed by Menachem Begin) and the Stern Gang attacked Deir Yassin, a village with about 750 Palestinian residents. The village lay outside of the area to be assigned by the United Nations to the enemy; it had a peaceful reputation. But it was located on high ground in the corridor between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Deir Yassin was slated for occupation under Plan Dalet and the mainstream Jewish defense force, the Haganah, authorized the irregular terrorist forces of the Irgun and the Stern Gang to perform the takeover. In all over 100 men, women, and children were systematically murdered. Fifty-three orphaned children were literally dumped along the wall of the Old City.

These Rulers were quick to mourn a poet, but they have forgotten that during the loss of Palestine in 1948, many thousands of Palestinians were killed and over 700,000 were driven or frightened from their homes and lands on which they had lived for centuries. Do you see how the Palestinians are treated by their fellow Arabs? Just look how over 1.5 million of them crammed in a strip of land called Gaza and are not allowed to have the basic life necessities. Please do not show us your grief and sorrow for our dead until the common man in the street is respected while alive. I beg you for not sending flowers, messages of condolences, or showing your sympathy so long as the orphans do not have enough to eat.

Omar Manasreh
14 August 2008