Maid Abuse

"One case is that of a 20-year-old woman, her name withdrawn to protect her identity, who worked as a maid in Kuwait.

She claimed the father and son of the household had raped her.

She said her hands were black from exposure to chlorine used to clean toilets without gloves.

The worst cases of maid abuse can be found at Jakarta's police hospital, such as a woman with scars she claims were inflicted by her female employer in Kuwait because she worked too slowly.

"My arm and my buttock were ironed. Then my head was hit with a metal bar, my hair was cut, and my eyes were poked," she told Al Jazeera."

Fighting for Jaffa

A YNet video about the hip hop group System Alley which is protesting, in Arabic, Hebrew, and Russian, the racist policies behind the Judaization/gentrification of Jaffa at the expense of its Palestinian Arab residents.

Caption Anyone?

Shu3a3 D7ailan, Saudi make up artist, with her models
during a European show

More Stories from the Twilight Zone

Jihad Khalil al Sha3er, 20, was beaten to death at a checkpoint near Bethlehem. He approached the soldiers to talk to them but they started beating him with clubs till he died. The army claims he attacked the soldiers with a sharp instrument (a chainsaw?) His family denies that and are planning to sue the army for cold-blooded murder.

Let's think about the army story for a minute. Let's assume this young man did attack the soldiers with something sharp. If they could club him to death, couldn't they overpower him and arrest him instead?

But that's the kind of question that you do not ask in the twilight zone.

A Little Story from the Twilight Zone

Gaza

"During a morning patrol in the village, one of the platoon's soldiers sprained his ankle. The commander decided to stop and apprehend a Palestinian taxi. After the soldiers had tied up the driver and taken control of the vehicle, another Palestinian neared the car. The soldiers decided he was acting "suspiciously" and one of them fired shots in his direction, wounding him in the neck.

The soldiers did not stop to treat the wounded man - who was said to be severely hurt - and did not report the incident to the command headquarters. Later, the soldiers released the cab driver and left the town." Update: The kidnapped taxi driver tells of what happened.

Dahlan Gone

Mohammad Dahlan resigns. He is forced out by Fateh. (in English)

How to Protect Rapists

Hind Mohammad Eid, An 11- year-old Egyptian girl, was raped. She gave birth to a child. Her case seems to have attracted attention and Suzan Mubarak, Egypt's First Lady, issued orders to take care of the mother and child and to open an investigation. (in Arabic)

As if this is a special case!!

But the overall reaction to Hind's rape is to make girls wear the veil regardless of how young they are. While some religious figures see this as an overreaction (since in Islam the veil is for menstruating females), others are encouraging it, and parents are obliging, carting off their little girls to veil land.

What is the connection between rape and veiling?

Well, the patriarchal logic goes like this: if a girl or a woman gets raped, it is because she was provocative. She was not fully covered and therefore it is her fault. So a 7-year- old girl who is raped is to blame. Or at least her parents are to blame because they left her exposed, thus tempting some man to rape her.

According to this logic, the girl must be veiled to protect the man from temptation. He is the victim.

Rapists rape girls as young as one year old. Shall we veil those temptresses too? Rapists rape men and boys. Why don't we veil those seducers as well?

Let us veil the whole universe to protect rapists from temptation. Veil the trees, veil the sea, and don't forget the air because all can be sensuous, all can be sensual, all can be dangerous.

And rapists, we all know, must be protected.

The Three Sisters Mourned

The Palestinian poet and columnist Ali al Khalili is the only one, as far as I can see, to write about the murder of the three sisters in Gaza recently. He decries the fact that not even women's groups or human rights organizations issued a statement against the murders (perhaps it's not funding season?!)

He says:

لا بد من مطاردة مسمى هذا "الشرف" الإجرامي، وإخضاعه لقوانين واضحة وصريحة تنزع عنه أي غطاء اجتماعي، وتردع كل المجرمين القائمين عليه، والمنفذين له، والساهرين على تنميته وتغذيته في المجتمع. ناهيك عن المتغنين به والمنتفعين بنتائجه.

"we must fight the meaning of this criminal "honor", subject it to explicit laws that removes any social support and punish and restrain all the criminals who commit it and all those who support its growth in society and benefit from its consequences."

He mentions that the sisters were 15, 18, and 21 years old. I still don't have names for them. So I name them "Sharaf" (honor), "3izza" (dignity) and "Hayat" (life).

Made Into Beggars!!

Borders have an amazing power to transform people from citizens to ... beggars.

"Palestinians who are stranded at the Rafah Crossing on the Egypt-Gaza border are now begging in the streets after having spent all their money."

Egyptian Workers Strike

An important story about the recent strikes conducted by Egyptian workers demanding raises and better terms. There is hope.

The Farce is Over

The nightmarish farce of the Bulgarian nurses and Palestinian doctor who were jailed in Libya is finally over. Libya seems to have gotten what it wanted. Qatar seems to have played a "mediating" role. I wonder how much $$. For the Palestinian doctor to be saved, he was granted Bulgarian citizenship.

Thank you Bulgaria.

More University Clashes

First it was Birzeit University, and now it's An Najah University that is being closed down after clashes between Fateh and Hamas students. (in English here)

Looking Backward: Asmahan

Asmahan was a Druze princess who became a singer and movie star in Egyptian cinema in the 1930s and 1940s. She was a contemporary of Umm Kulthoum and a major competitor. She represented a more western direction in Arabic music than the one Umm Kulthoum followed. She died in a car accident in 1944. There were always rumors that her death was not accidental, which added to her glamor and mystery.

Trivia: her original name was Amal.

Get a Life!

The head of Tahran's police warned women that the police will arrest any woman who does not wear proper veil and any who wears her hair in a western style. He said the police will learn the names of the shops and hairdressing salons in order to close them down.

He also threatened to arrest any woman who raises her left eyebrow more than the prescribed Islamic height for "eyebrows raised in surprise." He warned that such transgression will be considered an open provocation against the mighty Islamic state.

The Three Sisters

The bodies of three sisters, aged 17-22, were discovered in Gaza. The women were stabbed and suffocated.

Their faces will be on no martyrs' posters, and there will be no public funerals for them. Hamas arrested the brother and cousin as suspects.

Update:

According to this report in Al Hayat, the mother of the three sisters was murdered last year and the sisters ran away from home and were living in a Bedouin village in the hope of escaping their mother's fate. The report mentions the girls' cousins as the criminals.

Turkish Ad

First American Muslim Sorority

The Ben Gurion Treatment

Ben Gurion airport is where non-violent protests against the wall in Bi'lin is classified as "terrorist activity"!!

(thanks kb)

Sayyed Darwish in Cuba

Dania's interpretation of Sayyed Darwish's classic "El Helwa De" was shot in Cuba. I think Sayyed Darwish would have approved of the location, if not of the beat.

Favorite line: Hey people with money, the poor after all have a generous god.

Love Is The Cure

"Love is the cure,
for your pain will keep giving birth to more pain
until your eyes constantly exhale love
as effortlessly as your body yields its scent.”

Rumi

Rape and Marriage

I'm glad to learn that the "marry your rapist loophole" has been closed in the Egyptian penal code.

Border Trap

"I don't want aid, I want to go home."

No Mitigating Circumstances

"Three men who murdered a young Kurdish woman in an "honour killing" during which she was tortured and raped were today sentenced to life imprisonment."

Mahmoud Darwish Interview: "The Aesthetics of Despair"

"Do you know what the difference is between a general and a poet? The general counts the number of dead among the enemy on the battlefield, whereas the poet counts how many living people died in the battle. There is no enmity between the dead. There is one enemy: death. The metaphor is clear. The dead on both sides are no longer enemies."

Number 29

"Sanaa Ahmad Shannan, 27, a resident of Jabalia refugee camp in the Gaza Strip and the mother of two children" died while waiting at the closed Rafah crossing. She was a cancer patient.

Mass'ad on Darwish

This is Joseph Mss'ad on Mahmoud Darwish. I disagree with what he is saying but unfortunately can't comment now because I'm going out of town for the weekend and will have no internet access till I get back.

Attacking Mahmoud Darwish Update

It seems those orchestrating the attack on Mahmoud Darwish are Azmi Beshara's guys! I bet what ticked them off is this line in Darwish's text following the Hamas Gaza takeover. Here's the line:

لا يغيظني الأصوليون، فهم مؤمنون على طريقتهم الخاصة. ولكن، يغيظني أنصارهم العلمانيون، وأَنصارهم الملحدون الذين لا يؤمنون إلاّ بدين وحيد: صورهم في التلفزيون

Translation: "Fundamentalists do not vex me, because they are believers in their own way. But I'm vexed by their secular and atheist supporters who believe only in one religion: their pictures on TV."

(Thanks Dictee)

What Makes a Man?

Maysa Rashed Ghadeer, an Emarati columnist, is alarmed that some UAE men are losing their masculinity. They are doing that by appearing in public dressed up in feminine fashions, with long hair and make up. She is so upset about this catastrophic loss of "manhood," this "deviation" from what is "natural" that she wants the police to interfere. She faults the parents who let their sons behave in this way and of course laments western influences. (in Arabic)

What I always find interesting about this alarmist and homophobic discourse is the insistence that what these men are doing is "unnatural," a deviation from what everybody knows is "natural," and yet the fear that everybody else will be influenced and the whole society will be converted and come tumbling down. This anxiety reveals that perhaps what we think of as "natural" is not that at all.

To put it simply, if it is "natural" that we are all heterosexual or masculine and feminine in the "obvious" way (whatever that is), then why is she calling on the UAE police to enforce what should come naturally?

Birzeit University Closed

The administration of Birzeit University decided to close down the campus after clashes there between Fateh and Hamas students. (in Arabic)

Left Initiatives

What's left of the Palestinian left is coming up with initiatives to solve the current crisis between Fateh and Hamas. The Democratic Front, the Popular Front, and the Palestinian National Initiative Party are offering plans to go beyond the current impasse. It's important that these initiatives insist that things in Gaza return to the status quo before the Hamas takeover. Not to do that means rewarding Hamas for using arms to grab power, something no one who remotely cares about the Palestinians should encourage.

Putting Women in Their Place

Al Arabeya interviewed Reema Maktabi, a TV reporter, who among other things, covered the war in Lebanon last year.

But here's the headline chosen for the interview:

"Reema Makatbi: I love to read news bulletins without wearing make up!"

Right!!

Smiling More Than Once

An Islamic TV station in Kuwait refused to air an interview with a Saudi painter because, according to the interviewer, she smiled more than once during the filming of the two episodes. The artist was given gloves to wear and her clothes complied with stations' "modesty" standards.

But she smiled! More than once!

The station is saying the smile wasn't the reason. That there are other reasons.

Oh. She must have blinked. More than once!

Or maybe they just forgot to give her the station's signature potato sack to wear over her head.

Attacking Mahmoud Darwish

It seems it's time to character assassinate Mahmoud Darwish. I was certain that what he wrote after the Hamas takeover in Gaza (which I translated and posted here) was not going to sit well with them and their supporters. So now he's being subjected to a media campaign that questions his patriotism ostensibly because he got an Israeli permission to attend a poetry event in Haifa. Hasan Khader knows more about it than I do, but the article is in Arabic, hence this little introduction.

Olmert Releases and Olmert Arrests

All this fuss about Israel releasing 250 Fateh prisoners is just hot air to show how good Olmert is and to give the Hamas propaganda machine more slime to tarnish Fateh with. For in the past two weeks alone, Israel has arrested 300 Palestinians affiliated with Fateh. Now, you do the math.

Palestinian Babies and Israeli Discipline

"It is common knowledge that the Palestinians suffer from a serious lack of discipline, which starts in their mother's womb. There are fetuses that insist on coming into this world right at the time when the Israeli soldiers go to sleep."

Nurturing Democracy Hamas Style

Ahamd Yousef, Hamas's political adviser, explains Hamas's Gaza take over in an article published in Haaretz:

"The combined economic blockade and militarization of Fatah forced Hamas to undertake preemptive measures aimed at preserving the integrity of Palestine's fledgling democracy."


So how does Hamas protect the Palestinian fledgling democracy, which it refused to participate in for years? He does not say. But let's not forget how:

by using force to take power
by executing people without trial
by shooting their enemies, mutilating their bodies, film the democratic action, and broadcast it on their TV channel for the people to see.
by throwing men alive from high rise buildings
by deliberately shooting men in their knees to cripple them
by forcefully closing and intimidating all media outlets except those of Hamas
by taking down the Palestinian flag from public buildings and raising the Hamas flag instead.
by showing Hamas fighters praying to God in celebration of liberating Gaza from secularists and collaborators.
by introducing one of the most undemocratic forms of political discourse to Palestinian national life--the Fatwa.
by unilaterally declaring a new epoch, a new regime.

And please don't say that shit happens and mistakes are made and they started first and if we didn't have them for lunch they would have had us for dinner and they are collaborators and we are honorable patriots.

Because it is offensive. And dangerous. Hamas should be held accountable for what it did because it was wrong. They should not be allowed to get away with it.

But Hamas is not apologetic. Ahmad Yousef is willing to engage in civil war if needed. Civil war, he tells us, can result in good things as the French Revolution and the American Civil War proved. This is scary stuff. Here are his words:

"The alternative is open, internecine conflict - something abhorrent to Hamas, yet a necessary evil if the peaceful alternative is not pursued. Civil war is tragic, permanently affecting a nation's psyche if not its geography. Yet when there are forces that reflect the majority's will, their victory can lead to national reconciliation and prosperity, as demonstrated in the decades following the French Revolution and U.S. Civil War. Hamas would, by any measure, be justified in defending itself given the assassinations of Hamas officials and supporters, attempts on the life of the elected prime minister, and kidnappings and bombings by some members of Chairman Mahmoud Abbas' paramilitary groups. And defend itself it shall."

If this is what the adviser advises, we are in deep deep trouble!

Girls of Riyadh in English

Raja' Alsanea's novel Banat al Riyad has just been published in an English translation as Girls of Riyadh. It has been traslated by the author and Marilyn Booth and published by Fig Tree/Penguin.

Al Sanea is a Saudi dental student (what is with dentists turned best-selling novelists? First al Aswani, then Sanea!) who published her first novel to much popular and some critical acclaim. The novel has been a best seller despite (or because of) its censorship in Saudi Arabia. It talks about the lives of four young Saudi women and is narrated in the form of emails that one of these women writes as gossip about the lives of Saudi women. The novel is expected to be translated to eleven languages!

I read it a while ago and wasn't impressed. I can see why it attracted the attention it did. But it's not particularly deep or insightful. I also thought it was homophobic in the way it referred, passingly, to same sex relationships. However, the reception it received in Saudi Arabia is interesting.

My main reservation is now that it's available in English it is inevitably going to cater to the rampant voyeurism that plagues interest in Saudi women's lives. It's another peek behind the veil written by one of them as opposed to an American or Lebanese tourist (by Lebanese I have Hann al Shaykh in mind). The narrative form Alsanea chooses makes us into voyeurs despite ourselves: the narrator is telling stories of her friends as scandals, publicizing them anonymously through the internet. This could have been interesting if it was used to make us self conscious as readers of our objectifying position regarding the women we are consuming. But unfortunately this is not the case.

I should mention that the novel is much less scandalous than its form promises.

What Women Do to Please Men

Or rather what wouldn't women do to please men! They can starve themselves if men like skinny or overfeed themselves to the point of torture if men like fat.

Isn't patriarchy beautiful!

Zionist Tourism

As with Zionist nationalism, there are no Palestinians in sight.

Mowing the Grass

"What do you do for 21 hours, trapped in one room - 28 people, including children and babies? How do you pass the time? How do you calm down crying and frightened children? How do you care for an ailing grandmother? You can't turn on the light, or the television, or talk. Armed soldiers guard the doorway and they've confiscated all the cellular phones. You can go out to the bathroom, but only after receiving permission. Used diapers have to be tossed in a corner of the room. After protracted negotiations, two women are permitted to go cook something," reports Gideon Levy.

One Song I Would Like to Hear

"Palestinian youths in the West Bank and Gaza Strip can listen to a one-and-a-half minute song on their mobile phones slamming both Fatah and Hamas. The producer of the song refused to reveal his identity for fear of both movements."

Censorship Hams Style

Ma'an news agency is accusing Hamas of intimidation and defamation. Hamas challenged Ma'an to back up a report that Hamas activists drove nails in the legs of a Fateh activist. Ma'an accepts the challenge and publishes photographs. Read and see here.

Trapped at the Border

28 Palestinians have died at the Rafah crossing, not allowed to get back into Gaza from Egypt. The crossing was closed by Israel after Hamas took over Gaza and the international observers working there left. Many of those who are trapped at the border are sick. I don't have names or pictures. So this will do:

one
two
three
four
five
six
seven
eight
nine
ten
eleven
twelve
thirteen
fourteen
fifteen
sixteen
seventeen
eighteen
nineteen
twenty
twenty one
twenty two
twenty three
twenty four
twenty five
twenty six
twenty seven
twenty eight

Umm Kulthoum: Amal Hayati

When you're with me it's hard for me
to blink an eye even for one second

It's hard for me to miss your beauty and coyness even a little bit

This is how much I miss you
This is how much I long for you

I wish to call you with a word that wasn't said to anyone else
A word as big as your love, as big as my longing and tenderness
a word like you
and who is like you
none like you was ever created.

Arguing for Women's Mutilation

Al Jama3a al Islameyah's leader in Egypt has objected to the Mufti's fatwa that considers female genital mutilation un-Islamic. He believes banning it is a western conspiracy against Egyptian women and girls who really want their genitals cut because that's what their religion requires.

He is right in one thing: the practice will continue despite the ban. As long as there are people like him promoting the practice in the name of religion, it is going to continue.

Obscene Spin

"In the fighting, Imad Ghanem, a cameraman from Hamas’s television station, Al Aksa, was wounded, and then shot at least twice in the legs as he lay sprawled on the ground. His legs were later amputated in the hospital and he is in critical condition."

What is more obscene than the deliberate shooting of the journalist?

The spin:

"Maj. Avital Leibovich, an army spokeswoman, said today that “many times Hamas takes militants with them and gives them cameras, like this person, who is not in our perspective a regular journalist, but a militant like the others.” She said he wore no vest identifying him as a journalist, and that at other times, such cameramen have also been armed and used their weapons. She said that in the gunfire, “it was not clear who shot” Mr. Ghanem in the legs."

Let's sum up:

He's a militant carrying a camera which can be threatening therefore it's ok to shoot him as many times as necessary although he's already wounded. Even if he was carrying tomatoes, he should be shot because he's a militant. You could see it on his face.
He wore no vest saying he's a journalist so it's ok to shoot his legs to shreds though he's already wounded to teach him a lesson.
He was carrying a weapon. Or rather, he could have been carrying a weapon, but he really wasn't because he was carrying a camera. But he could carry a weapon sometime in the future. Why take any chances? Let's cripple him now once and for all.
We didn't shoot him, although he was a militant carrying a camera and wearing no journalist vest and could have been carrying a weapon. The Palestinians shot him.

There Are Only Illegal Settlements

"According to Dror Etkes, who prepared the report with Hagit Ofran of Peace Now, the official data show how the government has taken West Bank land beyond the needs of the settlements in order to prevent Palestinian construction there and to add a zone of separation between the settlers and the Palestinians. But once an area is closed to Palestinians, settlers have seized adjacent Palestinian lands, often privately owned, without being stopped by the army, which is the legal sovereign in the occupied territories.

“There is a pattern of a failure to enforce the law on the settlers,” Mr. Etkes asserted. “But the lack of enforcement isn’t an accident. It became another tool to achieve the military goals of the occupation, which is to allocate the land and hold it.”

I'm really mystified by what the purpose of Peace Now reports are on settlements in the West Bank. They aim to show that most of the settlements are stealing Palestinian land and that the army is collaborating with the thieving settlers. My worry is that anyone reading their report and the newspapers reports of the report, like this one in the New York Times, will conclude that there are good settlements and bad settlements.

Which is a lie.

There are only illegal settlements. Not according to me and my grandmother but according to international law. If Peace Now really wants peace, they need to accept this basic fact now and stop dancing around the settlements.

When a Girl is a Goddess

She may be a goddess, worshiped by millions, but she still can't travel without permission.

Alan Johnston Free

Alan Johnston is free. Hamas is taking credit for his release to show that they brought security and law and order to Gaza. More about this later. The important thing now is that he's safe and free.

Nazek al Malaika: Poems

The Iraqi poet Nazek al Malaika died recently. She's central to the free verse movement in Arabic. An obituary, an interview in Arabic, and some poems. ( thanks to readers of this blog who drew my attention to my silence about her passing).

From Five Hymns to Pain

1. It gives our nights sorrow and pain;
it fills our eyes with sleeplessness.
We found it on our way,
one rainy morning
and gave it, out of love,
a stroke of pity and a little corner
in our throbbing heart.
----

It never left or vanished from our way,
stalking us to the corners of the world.
If only we gave it no drop to drink,
that sad morning!

It gives our night sorrow and pain;
it fills our eyes with sleeplessness.

2.

Why does this pain come to us?
Where does it come from?
From old it has dwelled in our dreams
and nurtured our rhymes.
For we are a thirsting mouth
by which, thriving, we are satisfied.

------

At last, we dragged it to the lake,
shattered it and scattered it to the waves,
leaving neither a sigh nor a tear,
thinking it would no longer afflict our smiles with grief
or hide the bitter wails behind our songs.

------

Then we received a lovely scented rose,
sent by loved ones from across the seas.
What were we expecting from it?
Joy and happy contentment.
But it shook and began to flow with tears
over our sad-tuned fingers.
O pain, we love you!

3. Can we not conquer pain,
postpone it to another day,
keep it busy one evening,
divert it with a game, a song,
a forgotten ancient tale?
-----

What can it be, this pain?
A tender, little child with searching eyes,
quietened by a gentle, kind touch
and put to sleep with a smile and a lullaby.
-----

O you who gave us our regrets and tears,
who else but you closed his heart to our grief
then came to us in tears, asking for refuge,
who but you bestowed the wounds with smiles?.....

Lament of a Worthless Woman (from http://www.jehat.com/Jehaat/en/)

Nazik al-Malaika

She left, no cheek turned pale, no lip trembled.
The doors did not hear the story of her death.
No window curtain overflew with sorrow and gloom
to follow the tomb until it disappeared
the news tumbled down the avenue its echo not finding a shelter
so it stayed forgotten in some hole, its depression the moon lamenting.

....
The night surrendered itself, without worry, to the morning
The light brought the voice of the milk girl, and the fasting
with the moaning of a starved cat of which nothing remained save bones
the fussing of salesmen, and the struggle of life
kids threw stones at one another in the middle of the road
while dirty water flodded the avenue, and the wind
toyd with the gates at roof tops, alone
in a state of semi-oblivion.

1952

Poems

-1-

"Here am I between the jaws of death
As a heart still throbbing with the love of life
As a couples of eyes athirst
For the enjoyment of the universe;
Making advances to the charms of the evening,
I am still a bud, on the twig of fortune,
Whose dreams and hopes are fresh and new.
It is a shame, O death, that thou shouldst
Bury my youth anon in the world of dead

-2-

And I, O life, what fate is meted out for me?
Am I going to be a word devoid of meaning?
Will the nights carry me away
And cast the gloom of oblivion over me?
In the morrow, fortune will extinguish my lamps.
And death will squander the echoes of my tunes,
Then I shall become, amongst other ghosts, a ghost myself
And shall be erased from mortal existence.
Oh, no, I do not want that.
Would fortune have mercy on my tears.
Misery and sadness
Let there be a lasting echo of my melodious, song
Ringing in the hearing of the coming years,
Song ringing in the hearing of the coming years,
nay even centuries
O mercy! do not let my flowing tears
Be an early elegy on my youth.

-3-

How did our days pass - how did they?
Between the jaws of eagerness and grief!
Your heart and mine were full of love and anxiety
But we took refuge under the wing of secrecy.
Whenever my eyes speak to you of my love
I punish them by depriving them of you.
O my poet, how did we keep it secret?
Yet of old, no two lovers ever disobeyed Cupid.
O my song, when shall my tunes reach thee,
So that thou wilt listen to the joys of my love?
Why do I spend my days suppressing my eagerness,
When my heart is overflowing with emotions?
Always we meet and always I ignore you, perplexed,
while my sad heart is possessed of the anxiety of the lover!
It is pride possessing the soul
That makes a love appear indifferent

-4-

Is then then what they call life?
As lines we continue drawing over the water,
As echoes of a cruel song which does not touch the lips.
Is this then the essence of existence?
Wild scattered nights with no return
and the traces of our feet on the road of the deaf ears of time are gone!
For the storm's hand wipes them kindlessly
and surrenders them to nothingness

-5-

Veiled Utopia.
A haven of magic, we were told
It was.
Made of nectar and twilight roses,
Of tenderness and gold.
In it, they said, was
The panacea for the wounds of man.
We wanted it, but didn't get it.
Back to our hopes, miserable and unfulfilled.
Where is this land?
Are we to see it or
is it to stay enveloped, unattainable
Agitating inside us only
A numbed yearning?
A prayer
Within closed lips?
The millions are
A torrent of desire,
Burning desire,
And a dream of flame.
Open the gates for thousands
of exhausted victims are screaming.

-6-

They spoke of 'life';
It is the color of a corpse's eye
It is the echoing steps of a stealthy killer:
Its curving days
a poisoned coat diffusing death.
Its dreams the humour of a demon
with paralyzing eyes, death - hiding lips.

-7-

Where shall I go?
I'm weary of the ways,
I'm bored with the meadows
And with the persistent, hidden enemy
Following my footsteps.
Where can I escape?
The trails and roads that carry
Songs to every strange horizon,
The paths of life,
The corridors in night's total darkness,
The corners of the bare days...
I've wandered along them all,
With my relentless enemy behind me,
Keeping a steady pace, or sitting firmly
Like the mountains of snow
In the far north.

Crossing Borders

People cross borders to go from one country to another. Palestinians cross borders to go from this world to the next. Ghassan Kanafani's men did it in 1958 hiding in that oven on wheels at the Iraqi-Kuwait border. Today Taghreed, 31, did it trying to cross back to Gaza from Egypt to be with her five children. Yes, some may find it hard to believe, but there are people who are dying to get back into Gaza.

For a place that has been "liberated" twice, Gaza was out of reach for its own.