The war of 1948 resulted in a divided city, the Eastern part was occupied by the Arab side (the Kingdom of Jordan) and the Western part became the capital of Israel. (My modest part was to fight in the battle for the road.)
No one liked the division of the city. So my friends and I devised a third solution, which by now has become a world consensus: keep the city united on the municipal level and divide it politically: the West as capital of the State of Israel, the East as capital of the State of Palestine. The leader of the local Palestinians, Faisal al-Husseini, the scion of a most distinguished local Palestinian family and the son of a national hero who was killed not far from my position in the same battle, endorsed this formula publicly. Yasser Arafat gave me his tacit consent.
If President Donald Trump had declared West Jerusalem the capital of Israel and moved his embassy there, almost nobody would have got excited. By omitting the word "West," Trump ignited a fire. Perhaps without realizing what he was doing, and probably not giving a damn.
For me, the moving of the US embassy means nothing. It is a symbolic act that does not change reality. If and when peace does come, no one will care about some stupid act of a half-forgotten US president. Inshallah.
SO THERE they were, this bunch of self-important nobodies, Israelis, Americans and those in-between, having their little festival, while rivers of blood were flowing in Gaza. Human beings were killed by the dozen and wounded by the thousand.
The ceremony started as a cynical meeting, which quickly became grotesque, and ended in being sinister. Nero fiddling while Rome was burning.
When the last hug was exchanged and the last compliment paid (especially to the graceful Ivanka), Gaza remained what it was -- a huge concentration camp with severely overcrowded hospitals, lacking medicines and food, drinkable water and electricity.
A ridiculous world-wide propaganda campaign was let loose to counter the world-wide condemnation. For example: the story that the terrorist Hamas had compelled the Gazans to go and demonstrate -- as if anyone could be compelled to risk their life in a demonstration.
Or: the story that Hamas paid every demonstrator 50 dollars. Would you risk your life for 50 dollars? Would anybody?
Or: The soldiers had no choice but to kill them, because they were storming the border fence. Actually, no one did so -- the huge concentration of Israeli army brigades would have easily prevented it without shooting.
Almost forgotten was a small news item from the days before: Hamas had discreetly offered a Hudna for 10 years. A Hudna is a sacred armistice, never to be broken. The Crusaders, our remote predecessors, had many Hudnas with their Arab enemies during their 200-year stay here.
Israeli leaders immediately rejected the offer.
SO WHY were the soldiers ordered to kill? It is the same logic that has animated countless occupation regimes throughout history: make the "natives" so afraid that they will give up. Alas, the results have almost always been the very opposite: the oppressed have become more hardened, more resolute. This is happening now.
Bloody Monday may well be seen in future as the day when the Palestinians regained their national pride, their will to stand up and fight for their independence.
Strangely, the next day -- the main day of the planned protest, Naqba Day - only two demonstrators were killed. Israeli diplomats abroad, facing world-wide indignation, had probably sent home SOS messages. Clearly the Israeli army had changed its orders. Non-lethal means were used and sufficed.
MY CONSCIENCE does not allow me to conclude this without some self-criticism.
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