Just witness, with no political intent.

Historically, Islamic sites have attempted to erase what was before, so the accusations of opaque history are not fairly only levied on Zionists. Better that they be transparent than opaque though, seen.

And, it would be wonderful if Jewish communities expressed thanks to those that came before (if apologies are sincere, wonderful, but without any implication of brow-beating or raging guilt if "thanks" isn't enough).

Only those that are part of a mature "we", an identity (more than just association or defense), can say thank you. The political analysis itself is more impersonal than that.

A year of thanks, or more than a year.

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article9488.shtml

His students are hungry and cold, and in love with literature, and profoundly disappointed that the great anti-apartheid writer, Gordimer, is going to Israel to celebrate 60 years. They've been reading her novels and are very excited about them. The professor lived in S. Africa for five years and acquired his passion for Gordimer's work then.

His statement that some of the students are showing signs of early malnutrition disturbs me the most. People, including college students, really are starving in Gaza, and they're still reading books and writing protest letters. How much more like the Warsaw Ghetto does it have to get before Israelis wake up?

'I still vividly remember my father’s face – wrinkled, apprehensive, warm – as he last wished me farewell fourteen years ago. He stood outside the rusty door of my family’s home in a Gaza refugee camp wearing old yellow pyjamas and a seemingly ancient robe. As I hauled my one small suitcase into a taxi that would take me to an Israeli airport an hour away, my father stood still. I wished he would go back inside; it was cold and the soldiers could pop up at any moment. As my car moved on, my father eventually faded into the distance, along with the graveyard, the water tower and the camp. It never occurred to me that I would never see him again…

My father was a man who always defied the notion that one can only be the outcome of his circumstance. Expelled from his village at the age of 10, running barefoot behind his parents, he was instantly transferred from the son of a landowning farmer to a penniless refugee in a blue tent provided by the United Nations in Gaza. Thus, his life of hunger, pain, homelessness, freedom-fighting, love, marriage and loss commenced…

My oldest brother is buried in the same graveyard that bordered my father’s house in the camp. My father, who couldn’t cope with the thought that his only son died because he couldn’t afford to buy medicine or food, would be found asleep near the tiny grave all night, or placing coins and candy in and around it…

My father’s reputation as an intellectual, his obsession with Russian literature, and his endless support of fellow refugees brought him untold trouble with the Israeli authorities, who retaliated by denying him the right to leave Gaza…

Israeli soldiers stormed our house hundreds of times; it was always him who somehow held them back, begging for his children’s safety, as we huddled in a dark room awaiting our fate. “You will understand when you have your own children,” he told my older brothers as they protested his allowing the soldiers to slap his face. Our ‘freedom-fighting’ dad struggled to explain how love for his children could surpass his own pride. He grew in my eyes that day…

It’s been fourteen years since I last saw my father. As none of his children had access to isolated Gaza, he was left alone to fend for himself. We tried to help as much as we could, but what use is money without access to medicine? In our last talk he said he feared he would die before seeing my children, but I promised that I would find a way. I failed…

Since the siege on Gaza, my father’s life became impossible. His ailments were not ‘serious’ enough for hospitals crowded with limbless youth. During the most recent Israeli onslaught, most hospital spaces were converted to surgery wards, and there was no place for an old man like my dad. All attempts to transfer him to the better equipped West Bank hospitals failed as Israeli authorities repeatedly denied him the required permit…

“I am sick, son, I am sick,” my father cried when I spoke to him two days before his death. He died alone on March 18, waiting to be reunited with my brothers in the West Bank. He died a refugee, but a proud man nonetheless.'

http://www.ramzybaroud.net/articles.php (scroll down to No Checkpoints in Heaven)