“When the war begins, I’ll be the first one in it,” said Mr. Abbas, “I want everyone to know I am a Christian and I am ready to fight.”
Photo: Bryan Denton for The New York Times
Slide Show of Christian Lebanon, The New York Times, Slide 5 of 13, accessed October 6, 2007
The settlers’ great moment of joy: December 8, 1975. After nine days of resisting the Rabin government’s attempts to remove them from Sebastia in the West Bank, settlers hear that Rabin has blinked. Gush Emunim leaders Hanan Porat (right) and Moshe Levinger are hoisted aloft by their supporters. Photo by Moshe Milner, Israel Government Press Office.
Rina Castelnuovo for The New York Times
Mahmoud Ibrahim, 10, center, and other Palestinian boys survive by selling goods salvaged at a West Bank dump, near Hebron.
West Bank Boys Dig a Living From Settlers’ Trash - New York Times, September 2, 2007
Sara Roy, A Jewish Plea, Counterpunch, April 7-8, 2007. My mother and her sister had just been liberated from concentration camp by the Russian army. After having captured all the Nazi officials and guards who ran the camp, the Russian soldiers told the Jewish survivors that they could do whatever they wanted to their German persecutors. Many survivors, themselves emaciated and barely alive, immediately fell on the Germans, ravaging them. My mother and my aunt, standing just yards from the terrible scene unfolding in front of them, fell into each other’s arms weeping. My mother, who was the physically stronger of the two, embraced my aunt, holding her close and my aunt, who had difficulty standing, grabbed my mother as if she would never let go. She said to my mother, “We cannot do this. Our father and mother would say this is wrong. Even now, even after everything we have endured, we must seek justice, not revenge. There is no other way.” My mother, still crying, kissed her sister and the two of them, still one, turned and walked away.
Standing on a street with some Palestinian friends, I noticed an elderly Palestinian walking down the street, leading his donkey. A small child no more than three or four years old, clearly his grandson, was with him. Some Israeli soldiers standing nearby went up to the old man and stopped him. One soldier ambled over to the donkey and pried open its mouth. “Old man,” he asked, “why are your donkey’s teeth so yellow? Why aren’t they white? Don’t you brush your donkey’s teeth?” The old Palestinian was mortified, the little boy visibly upset. The soldier repeated his question, yelling this time, while the other soldiers laughed. The child began to cry and the old man just stood there silently, humiliated. This scene repeated itself while a crowd gathered. The soldier then ordered the old man to stand behind the donkey and demanded that he kiss the animal’s behind. At first, the old man refused but as the soldier screamed at him and his grandson became hysterical, he bent down and did it. The soldiers laughed and walked away. They had achieved their goal: to humiliate him and those around him. We all stood there in silence, ashamed to look at each other, hearing nothing but the uncontrollable sobs of the little boy. The old man did not move for what seemed a very long time. He just stood there, demeaned and destroyed.
Sara Roy, “Living with the Holocaust: The Journey of a Child of Holocaust Survivors,”
Journal of
On a summer day in 1944, my mother was herded from a cattle car along with the rest of its human cargo, which had been transported from
Amira Hass, Drinking the Sea at
