Saturday night I was having dinner with my son’s godmother. We’ve known each other for over 35 years and she’s one of my very best friends. She endures my activism. I say that because when we met and for the first few decades of our friendship I was not an activist. She isn’t but her parents were. She told me once she grew up licking envelopes. She has little patience for political conversations although she’s been subscribing to the Nation Magazine since as long as I can remember, certainly before I had ever heard of it.
Anyway, she doesn’t think anything is ever going to change with Israel and Palestine. It pains her and she generally avoids the topic except once in a while after a glass of wine she’ll let something slip like “They never should have put that country there!” She’s Jewish.
We were having dinner and I allot myself the usual 5-7 minutes to inform her what’s going on whether she likes it or not. As long as I don’t carry on for a half hour it’s ok with her. Like I said she endures.
I started telling her about the article Adam Horowitz had published here that day:
Saturday, February 19, 2011, 3pm: Thirteen Palestinian boys, all between the ages of 12 and 15, were arrested by Israeli Forces from a playground in the village of Beit Ommar, in the southern West Bank. The Israeli soldiers, supported by a unit of special forces, attacked the children with sound bombs, tear gas, and rubber bullets before making the arrests.
I started noticing this last fall. Reports began piling up (check Joseph Dana’s Israeli army represses dissent with 3am child arrests – Part 1 ). It occurs to me this has been going on for years so I don’t know if I’m just becoming aware of it or it comes and goes in waves. Either way it’s so abhorrent and sadistic for an army to be targeting children, special forces no less.
I told my friend, “They rounded up 13 boys today at a playground, it’s the new trend to deal with villages engaging in non violent protests. They get to the adults thru the children. Sometimes they barge into the homes and take them in the middle of the night…. kids.”
She used to think I was an alarmist. That was back before everything I told her ended up landing in the mainstream press two months later or a year later or sometimes the very next day. She doesn’t say that anymore. But there’s some kind of cognitive dissonance going on because she said to me:
“Why don’t they report that here?”
HELLLOOOOO
Anyway, I think this is the most important story coming out of Palestine. By leaps and bounds. I want this in the mainstream press. NOW.
A huge shout out to Aya Kaniuk and Tamar Goldschmidt for all the work they do.
