My pro-Palestinian Greek friend was in Israel to interview Yassin, but....

aquart

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Tue Mar-30-04 01:17 PM
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My pro-Palestinian Greek friend was in Israel to interview Yassin, but....

This is the email I received this morning. It's unedited. My friend is barely five feet tall, wears a size 2 or 0, if she's been smoking instead of eating, and is a graduate of the Columbia School of Journalism. She's studied Arabic. We have had many heated, furious arguments over the years on the Israeli/Palestinian topic. Still friends, however. She's back in Greece because there were no jobs here. She has always wanted to be a war correspondent, except, as you'll notice, she cries. I have no idea why she eschews capital letters. Jarrod is my cousin in the Israeli army.

that day we were supposed to go to ramallah. our people there told us not to move from the hotel. my boss in athens asked if we wanted to come back. instead, we decided to go out. we put huge tv signs all over the car and just went to various palestinian villages around jerusalem. we could hear the gunfire. we saw the gas bombs and the stonethrowers. we even filmed an operation by the israeli soldiers against some kids who were throwing stones. they got arrested, pulled by their hair inside the israeli army jeeps and went straight to jail.
another day we were at this remote village behind the hills of ramallah. it started getting dark and we devised a plan with the greek-palestinian woman we had with us NOT to show her palestinian id at the checkpoint, just the greek passport, so we could come back from the safe road. didnt work. she got scared and showed it. so the soldiers didnt let us through and we got stuck in the middle of the night in one of the most dangerous, isolated roads, full of palestinian snipers.
we were told that the israeli special forces use to take cars with TV signs to get into the palestinian territories at night. the villagers had began to block the roads with bumpers and burning tires. what they do is, when they see such a car -which has to slow down because of the tires- they come from the hills with their guns and they start shooting. our driver, who is very experinced, turned the car light on so people could see there were women in the car. he was speeding like hell and i was holding aris hand as tight as i could. we made it out and i learned that tens of poeple have been killed in this road.
isnt israel fun? even in tel aviv, when we were walking in the streets we had improvised a plan what to do in case a bomb exploded.
all i know is that something must be done. from both sides. people cannot keep living like this. oh, and the children...the children we met...how are these kids going to grow up without the anger and the hatred? and again...im talking both sides.
im leaving for cairo this weekend. aris is coming to ny with another reporter from the show. i need to go away for a little while. it was a very intense experience and i dont care when people tell me, oh this is normal, this is everyday stuff. because thats the point: it SHOULDNT be normal and it becomes dangerous when people accept this situation as normal. NO. every child on the planet should have the right to grow up happy and healthy. and i mean EVERY child. and who knows, maybe i can do something about it...i had the priviledge to go, see and leave, almost like the see-buy-fly slogan from the duty free in amsterdam. but these children that i saw dont have that. and they should.im angry, im tired, im upset, im overloaded. too many things to process in very little time. theres paranoia everywhere there. and i thiught about jarrod when i was looking at those 18 year old soldiers at the checkpoints, their hands shaking, their guns firmly held in their hands. no. t! hese kids should be in school, learning something, doing something...same thing goes for the palestinians.
sooooooooo...in brief, that was israel. now that i saw it with my own eyes i believe it. and its very sad. the night before we left, aris was holding me in his arms and i was crying and crying until i couldnt breathe anymore, my chest started to hurt and i fell asleep.