Before I begin blogging about the current situation that is going on in the Middle-East-- Gaza vs. Israel-- I would like to discuss my own personal experiences with the whole Israeli-Arab conflict. Many people think that the Israeli-Arab conflict exists only in the Middle East, however, if you are of either decent you will realize that it also exists in Canada, in the United States and every where else around us. It surrounds us every single day and enters our lives on a daily basis -- most of the time we don't even notice, but it is there.
I have been a victim of war three separate times, two of which surround the Israeli-Arab conflict. My father is Lebanese and my mother is Palestinian, however, we have lived in neither country. My parents, my extended and my immediate family were all born and raised in Kuwait. My great-great-great-great grandparents moved to Kuwait in the early 1900's and they and everyone after them have stayed in Kuwait up until Iraq Invaded Kuwait in 1991 and the Gulf War began.
War 1:
My parents use to travel the world. On this particular long family vacation of visiting several foreign countries, my parents, my older brother and myself stopped in our final destination in Michigan to visit my uncle who had come from Kuwait to do his undergrad. As our trip was coming to a close end, we began to pack up our belongings in order to get ready to go back to our beloved home country of Kuwait. I remember my dad went out with my uncle to get a few last items when we got the news. It was splattered on every single channel, the heading reading "Saddam invades Kuwait".
As we sat there glued in front of the television screen amazed at the idea of war, I knew that my dad was thinking about something completely different. My father is not only the first born child (which means he must serve in the Kuwait army) but my father also worked as both pilot and engineer for the Kuwait Army. It was not long after the news hit the media that my father received a phone call from his commander demanding him to be on the first flight back to Kuwait so he could serve his country. In 24 hours all of my father's co-workers and fellow friends within the Kuwait Army were already slaughtered and thus my dad was not only very scared for his life but also very confused as to what to do for his family. He had two options now: be on the next flight back to Kuwait and die the next day or stay here, with his family, and lose everything he worked so hard to get. So, with only the clothes on our backs, and the few dollars my father had left in his pocket, we crossed over to Canada and declared refuge. Of course, we lost every single little thing that we had; everything from things that were valuable to non-valuable; from money to our memories. We lived like kings and queens in Kuwait; my brother and I had our own separate nannies and besides them we also had three maids for the house and a personal driver (of course my parents drove, the driver was for when my parents didn't feel like driving or when they needed something to pick up). So, imagine, if you will, the lifestyle we lived and then suddenly trading that all in to living off of welfare for what seemed like endless years. However, I am still grateful. I am grateful that I have a father who is very hard-working. Even though my father was a pilot and engineer who graduated from universities in both France and in Kuwait, when he came to Canada he was denied his education. I remember him working as a taxi-driver at night and then coming home early the next morning to get ready to go to school. I remember living in this small little box of a house, sharing bedrooms with my brother and parents and questioning as to why my father was studying when we were having dinner. Now, I have come to realize that he was doing all of this because we literally were poor because of this war. My father worked hard every single day until he became half of what he used to be. We now live in the nicer part of my city and both my older brother and I attend university and pretty much receive anything and everything that we want right at the tip of our fingers; in my opinion I live a very good life, but when you ask my father he will tell you that everything that he has right now only accumulates to 1/5 of what he use to have back home and says “I am living in an open prison, working like a dog every single to make a fraction of what I had”.
War 2:
I made the decision to go with my cousins to Lebanon in the summer of 2006. I was very excited because this was the very first time that I would be going to my home country of Lebanon. I was going to be there for 2 solid months and if that didn't excite me then the idea of my parents not being there with me definitely did. We had tickets to all the hottest shows from Paul Von Dyke's concert to 50 Cent and Snoop Dogg and everyone else in between that were performing in Lebanon that summer. It was looking like it was going to be a great summer.
Six days. That's all my 2 month trip lasted, 6 days; including the day I flew in and the day we escaped the country.
At the time I really didn't know what was going on. We heard the explosions, saw the smoke, and we hid for dear life. We turned on the television and splattered on every single channel was the headline "Israel invades Lebanon." I didn't understand what was going on and everyone else in the country did not care to understand either, everyone's main concern was getting out of the country.
Every Lebanese person knows that Lebanon does not have an army; it barely even has a solid government. Lebanon at that time was seen as the 3rd tourist country in the world, Paris being the first. Thus, 70% of the people in the country were merely tourist --including my family and I.
[View of Beirut from our apartment: those are not clouds]
I remember how we all slept in the hallway of our apartment that night with 5 or 6 candles lighting up the room. I remember how one of my cousins literally shit her pants that night. I remember my aunt the next morning running into our bedroom and shouting "you all have 15 minutes to pack up your things, we are evacuating". I remember looking out of my glass window of the apartment that was situated on the mountains on the outskirts of Beirut and seeing missiles flying in the sky. I remember as me and 6 of my other cousins would stand and watch the missile fly over our building and begin to count down"10..9...8..7..6..5..4.." and then plug our ears because once the missile disappeared we were going to hear that famous "KABOOM" and then watch the dark smoke rise in the sky. I remember how we were telling my little baby cousins that the scary “KABOOM” noise was fireworks that were really far away that we could only hear but not see.
About 15+ of my family members (all of which live in Canada and are Canadian citizens) piled up in a bus (relatively similar to a Greyhound bus) and began our journey out of the country. The situation was getting worse by the hour in Lebanon and seeing that we had a lot of children with us, the parents made the wise decision not to wait for the Canadian Embassy (who were taking there very sweet time to come and rescue the Canadian tourists) and decided to get out on our own before its too late.
[On the way to the Syrian Border and all the civilians who are tyin to escape as well]
I think driving through the country was probably the scariest part. I saw death in front of my eyes. I saw dead bodies and puddles of the freshest red blood I have ever seen. Several times on our way to the border a missile would fly over us and bomb the building near us. The whole bus would shake and everyone would begin to cry. We weren't the only vehicle on the street. The roads were piled with vehicles and people who were both driving and walking out of the country; those who were merely walking were carrying on their backs whatever they possibly could.
[Finally made it to the front of the line on the Syrian border's]
Israel had managed to bomb all of the main bridges out of the country. As a matter of fact, the first thing that Israel bombed and shut down was Beirut-International Airport (it was a very smart tactic on their behalf). There was only one bridge left out of the country that Israel had not bombed yet, and everyone was rushing to it as quickly as possible, including us, and this was the bridge to get into Syria. I remember how much I praised my lord the second we crossed over. But the second I finished uttering the last words in my prayer, we all hearedthat famous "KABOOM" and felt the bus shake. We all turned around to see that that bridge that we were just previously waiting on for the past 6 hours was just bombed and every single civilian who was waiting to get through the customs was now eliminated and buried under the ruble of cement.
War 3:
This is not a war that I have personally lived in but it is a war that has effected me. I speak of the Israeli-Palestine conflict. My mother's family use to live in Palestine
around the 1940's before Europe divided up the territory. One evening a bunch of Israeli soldiers stormed into my mother's grandmother’s house and kicked them out. My blind great-great-grandmother was sitting in a different room then they were when the Israeli soldiers broke into their home and kicked them out. Everyone was kicked out of the house so very quickly that no one had a chance to go back for my great-great-grandmother. And because she was blind, she couldn't get out herself let alone know what was going on. So they slaughtered her.
The Israeli-Palestine war has been going on since the 1800s and has never really stopped. I am effected by this war every single day for the simple fact that I am half Palestinian and because our blood bleeds every single day. In no way am I saying that Palestinian blood is more valuable then Israeli! I value human life, ALL human life, regardless of religion, skin color, ethnicity, background; Black, white, blue, or yellow; Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist or Christian. All human life is the same and every ounce of blood dropped from either or all is equivalent. What I meant by my prior statement is that more innocent Palestinian blood has been shed then anyone else’s. Especially right now with the situation in Gaza where the death toll has reached almost 1000 in approximately two weeks, most of which is the innocent bloodshed of children.
I am effected by this war because every single day I become a victim because I unwillingly was born with a nationality that I did not chose for myself. For my nationality I suffer every single day and fight a personal battle against all of those who judge me based on homelands that I never lived in nor have citizenship to. I carry duel citizenship of both the United States and for Canada because the United States is my birth country and Canada is my home country and yet every single day I am discriminited against because I am still not seen "Canadian/American enough". This is one of the reasons that I have chosen to stay anonymous in my own blog posts because I know that no matter what I write, whether it is pro-Israli or pro-Arab or merely in the middle, this could possibly come back to haunt me because just as these may be simple words, it is and always will be about the politics behind it.
Britain has made three secretive promises thatcontradicted with one another: First they divided the Arab nations amongst themselves, France and Russia. Then they promised those same exact lands to the Sharif of Mecca, Husayn ibn Ali, under Hashemite rule. After promising the Sharif of Mecca that he will have direct rule over all current and forming Arab states (including Palestine), the British went and promised the Jews a national homeland in Palestine. The last promise was made so that the British could gain the United States friendship and keep the Russian’s.
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