Since arriving in Jenin, I have been trying to figure out where I am. Everything is different this year.
Last year consisted of constantly reacting to blatant and extreme Israeli army aggression. Essentially, we were constantly tank-chasing, ensuring that some accountability was being levied onto the Israeli occupation forces. With such frequent and indiscriminant massacres of civilians, we had our hands full just trying to keep up. Last year was, without a doubt, high intensity warfare administered against a poorly-armed and mostly civilian populace.
On the outside, this is the good life. There are few, if any, large-scale attacks on any town at any time. When one prods, however, one sees that life is not worth living.
Transportation between cities is possible, but enough of a physical burden that it has become the realm of desperate young men. Unemployment is almost complete. Health and sanitation conditions are below those of even the third world. There is no governorate or judiciary. The law of the jungle rules.
Death is mercy. This is not lost on anybody. There is nothing more appealing than dying in a blaze of glory, never to suffer again. Life is suffocation. Every moment, the people of Palestine lose more freedom, land, and human rights. It happens so slowly, and seems so inevitable.
And so they sit, each breath more laboured than the last. My question is not whether they will die: I know they will die. I wonder at what point each Palestinian decides it is better to die with a bang rather than a whimper.
tarek