We woke up yesterday on yet again another disturbing, frustrating news of arresting a 16year old Palestinian teen Shadi Khoury.
That was not just another arrest of another youth. It was closer to home. Shadi is more than just a name and an age. Not another number in restoring the nonending Palestinian misery in a continuous Nakba. As if we Palestinians are woeful to misery. Shadi can be my son, my daughter, my nephew, my niece, or my very next-door neighbor. Shadi is all those: he is a friend of the kids, and his parents are our friends. His siblings are colleagues and friends. It is another time when we are faced with an occupation that does see us as a potential threat that should be exterminated: killed, jailed, whatever comes first .what remains is a continuous state of misery, despair, and resentment of the unjust life we live in.
It is hard to normalize with such despair and pain of seeing our children dragged to jails or tombs. I think of how the Israeli forces invaded the house to arrest the 16-year-old at dawn, beating his parents. His blood is all over. Photos that are left from an ambush of hyenas at the safety of one’s home. The helplessness of a mother, a father, a sister, a brother, a grandmother, a whole world that stands watching as our children grow to become experts on jails instead of planning a future of hope.
It feels scarier each time when the scenes of the new victim of Israeli military oppression is a face we closely know…. And then they wonder why so much hate is residing in our hearts.