I just opened my
Facebook page, and I see one of my friends sharing a photo of Channel 2 Newsstatus. The status is: “Jordan: at least 14 killed and 37 wounded in a bus
accident near Allenby bridge crossing.”
The following
comments were posted below the status by people:
[free translation
from Hebrew]
v
Kululululu I couldn’t ask
for a better morning than this… just a shame there isn’t another zero at the
end [referring to the number of killed an injured].
v
Death to all Arabs, there
is no place for an Arab in Eretz Israel. Maybe this sounds terrible to some
people from North of Tel Aviv, but they also don’t deserve to live in this
state. And yes, I am a proud racist, proud of my country and the soldiers
protecting it.
v
Arabushim [a derogatory word
for Arabs] – feel free to die, I don’t mind.
v
A pleasure, such a morning,
big happiness, and if anybody has a problem with it is free to change countries
because this is the country of the Jews, one people for all.
v
To all the leftists, you
know what? I am h a p p y! There’s no happier person than me about what
happened to the Jordanians… and I give you my word… that if, God forbid, this
happened to us, and they published it for example on the news Facebook page of
the Jordanians… I give you my word that all of them would write *
v
Hopa… nothing like starting
the Saturday with a smile.
v
Arab son of a bitch die and
burn Amen and get cancer.
v
14 people?????? But they
are animals!
v
What happiness, a few Arabs
less, it’s a shame that only 14.
v
Today is already beginning
good!!!!
v
For every terrorist that
died, an Israeli lives.
v
Wish for more such
accidents Amen.
v
Not-pleasant, not-terrible.
By the time I write this, I found the original status with the picture of the overturned bus. There are more than 700 comments by now on the status, and most of them are similar to the ones I translated above.
You can read about the accident in English on YNET: "17 Palestinians Killed in Bus Crash."
I feel sick. I feel sick that when I walk outside of my home tomorrow morning, I will probably pass by these very same people.
This is indeed sickening. I am appalled at the blatant --proud-- racism of the commenters. If some Arabs had made comments in the same spirit of invective hate after a busload of Jewish passengers had died and been injured, the Western media would be sure to report the anti-Semitism. Yet, this anti-Arab, particularly anti-Palestinian, racism is made invisible. Besides reading Palestinian and Arab online sources, I actually learn more about the problems in Israel from online Israeli newspapers than from Western media, which is so intent on presenting a homogeneous victim-Jew national identity for Israel that it hides Jewish racism against Palestinians, against Sudanese in Israel, and other peoples the Jewish state subjugates.
ReplyDeleteBtw, I found your blog the other day when I was searching for information about Haifa's Palestinian population today. I liked your story of the bus ride you took through the city. I will read through your past posts to learn more. I am teaching about Palestine at my university; in my class, we are looking specifically at the ways Palestinian histories, identities, narratives, and people have been made to disappear through Israeli nation state policies and Zionist practices.
I had a speaker come in who is originally from Haifa, but her family was expelled; they found refuge in Jerusalem in 1948, but then suffered many harms and the family (minus the father who was murdered by the Israeli soldiers in 1967) were sent into the Palestinian diaspora.
One question I am searching information on is what were the conditions that pushed most Palestinians out of their homes, yet some families managed to maintain their presence? I hope to find more history on this.
thanks for posting this recent post; also, I did want to say, I look forward to reading your novel when it is published. My class has been spending time looking at the ways Palestinians are managed and dispossessed by the Apartheid wall, the permits, and other methods, so your novel seems to be very interesting.
thanks for your elaborate reply. I'm glad you found my blog and that it's being useful for you. When I posted this, I was just so upset that all I could do is a furious translation, and couldn't even think of anything other than the last sentence to write. I'll probably write a follow-up with my personal analysis, tying it personally to me, which is what I often do with stuff happening here.
ReplyDeleteI just checked out your blog, and I see that you write quite a lot about Palestine/Israel. I'll be visiting it soon to read.
Glad we connected :)
let's stay in touch.
in sisterhood,
khulud
I don't mean to be a smart-arse but I would recommend staying away from Facebook and the news for a while. You will always find something to upset you and make you angry if you want, but is it really worth the precious energy? Hope to see you soon! Kisses, Bettina
ReplyDelete