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TITLE: Who am I? |
AUTHOR: Alison Weir |
PUB: |
DATE: February 24, 2001 |
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I'm a single mother of three, a human being, an American, a journalist who was the editor of the Marin Scope Newspaper in Sausalito before I decided to visit the Middle East and see what was going on there for myself... Five months ago I knew as little as the typical American... I wondered why children were throwing stones at tanks, and why the news reports I heard so often cited Israeli sources and so rarely Palestinian sources... and so I began to research things for myself -- something I'm deeply ashamed I didn't do long ago. I was increasingly amazed-- and shocked -- at what I found. I am not Palestinian, I have no reason to favor one side or another. I believe strongly in justice and in facts, and I believe you'll find that people who have known me through the years will vouch for this... When my son was about 7 he, his two older sisters and I watched a TV documentary on the rise of neo-Nazis -- about how some elements of today's youth were beginning to wear swastikas, emulate Nazis, etc. My children, who already knew about the horrors of the Holocaust, were outraged, and my oldest daughter, 12 at the time, grabbed a white t-shirt, a permanent marker, and wrote a fairly direct statement on it: "FUCK OFF NAZI BONEHEADS" I was happy at the sentiment but a little distressed at the choice of wording... she insisted, however, that this was the way to get through to kids, that this was something they would pay attention to.... I listened to her, we talked about the situation some more, and discussed how important it was to always stand up against wrong, even -- perhaps especially --when it wasn't directed at you... A few days later, unbeknownst to me, my son wore this shirt to another child's birthday party. When the next day I received some phone calls complaining about the "F word," I wrote a letter that I sent to the attendees saying, basically, that I felt the obscene word on the shirt was Nazi, not fuck, and explained my son's motivation... Later when I saw some of the mothers and some of the children, it turned out that my son's action and my own letter had stimulated discussion, and people, amazingly, thanked me... Becoming involved in the Palestinian issue grows out of this impulse. I'm here on my own, traveling around randomly, with little plan and no organization. Fortunately, it appears that God looks after fools, at least those who try to have a pure heart, and I've found random people opening their homes and their families to me. I've sipped coffee with farmers, with students, with veiled mothers, with shopkeepers, civil engineers, doctors, teachers. When people hear I'm an American who is hear to learn about the situation, they pour their stories out, and ask me to tell Americans about what is going on. They continuously send me messages for Americans; "Tell Americans what they are doing to us. Protect us." This is no exaggeration. In fact, the greatest difficulty I face in writing about what I'm seeing is how to tell the truth without having it sound too extreme... I have to continually tone things down...I urge anyone and everyone who doubts my observations or my intentions to travel with me around Palestine ... This is not an orchestrated trip ... how much easier that would be... for instance, I probably wouldn't be out of money right now, with US banks closed and a credit card that for some reason keeps, terrifyingly, getting declined... I wouldn't get lost on occasion, and periodically frightened... I wouldn't at times be deeply lonely... but I also wouldn't meet the varied, incredible people I'm meeting... I probably wouldn't be getting so near the ubiquitous bullets... I wouldn't be seeing things for myself... Again, I invite others to take this trip with me, or by themselves. It is wonderful. And horrible. END |