Tears of Hopelessness

June 2nd 2010


I'm laying in bed trying to organise my thoughts after what has been quite a difficult few days here in Palestine.

 My usual Wednesday so far has started with a 9.30 am English lesson in a women's centre just down the road in Rafidyha, a pretty nice part of town consisting of nice little cafes, fallafel bars, shops and restaurants. My students here are all middle aged women and their standard of English is pretty good. Like all middle aged women, they love a good fashioned old chin wag and we gossip about all sorts in the lessons. Always smiling, laughing and joking.I arrived there this morning to find the opposite. I hadn't seen the news about the Israeli's attack on the flotilla of aid ships headed for the illegally blockaded Gaza but they quickly told me.  In fact one of them, maybe my favourite (she offered to adopt me in a previous lesson) in the class  started  to cry.It's tough to watch grown women shed tears. Especially when you can understand their pain and suffering.

The women I teach at this centre are remarkable to say the least. Keeping a family together and raising children through occupation and war is no walk in the park. All have seen day's they'd rather forget.I had predicted a few day's before in passing conversation with other internationals that I thought there could be injury's or deaths if the Israeli navy tried to bump and scuttle the ships. I never for one moment imagined they would board them in the dead of night, with specially trained commandos armed with live ammunition and then open fire. The fiasco which happened this morning in international waters is just further proof for the world  of just how little regard and respect the Israeli State has for international law and for non Jewish  life in general. Their claim that the unarmed activists who were aboard these ships are in-fact agents for Al – Qaida and Hamas is as laughable as the 45minute WMD claims prior to the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Their brutal siege upon Gaza has lasted for nearly three years. Amidst this siege there has been brutal murders and assassinations ,not just in Gaza itself, but internationally as well. The most famous example being just a few months ago when over 10 British identities were illegally stolen by Israeli security forces to facilitate the assassination of a suspected Hamas leader in Dubai.