Skip to content or view mobile version

Home | Mobile | Editorial | Mission | Privacy | About | Contact | Help | Security | Support

A network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues.

Pretty pink pieces of paper

P | 05.09.2003 14:05 | Anti-militarism | Globalisation | Repression | World

5th September, 2003, Nablus

Yesterday pretty pink pieces of paper rained from the clear blue sky above Nablus and the refugee camps of Balata and Askar. Pink leaflets delivered by an Apache. This is how the Israeli Occupation Forces communicate with the occupied – at a distance, impersonal and untouchable.

The leaflets told the people of Nablus that the IOF was their friend and that the ‘terrorists’ were their enemies. Even while the army remained on the outskirts of the city, while days earlier their tanks had used the streets of the city as their own private racetrack and soldiers had terrorised people by shooting children sat eating on the roadside, arrested and imprisoned their loved ones without evidence or trial [here mere association will suffice and the rule of law died on the 6th June thirty six years ago] and occupied their homes trashing their belongings without respect or remorse.

The leaflets told the people of Nablus that the people of Palestine were not the enemies of the IOF. They wanted the ‘terrorists’ and that is all. Life would be ‘normal’ in Nablus again when the ‘terrorists’ had been caught or killed. This ‘normal’ life being the continuation of the checkpoints, the continuing arrests and administrative detentions, the continuing 80% unemployment, the continuing ‘natural growth’ of settlements, the continuing home demolitions, the continuing occupation that everyday breeds more terrorists.

Did the pilot flying the Apache or the author of the pretty pink pieces of paper think that the people of Nablus were really that ignorant to the reality of the last thirty six years that they would believe the Israeli army to be their friend and not their enemy? After the actions of the IOF this morning those pretty pink pieces of paper will be seen as an ironic insult. If there were some in Nablus who believed what was written yesterday, there will be none who believe it today.

This morning at approximately 11am the IOF exploded a seven storey apartment block in Makhfiya, an area on the southern slopes of the city above Rafidia, the army claimed had housed members of the resistance – or ‘terrorists’ as the captain in the jeep preferred to call them, even though international law allows for armed resistance against a military occupier. An apartment block that housed at least fourteen families, fourteen families who were not given the time to collect any of their belongings or valuables. All their worldly goods destroyed in one second, in one blast of dynamite. Here property is a precarious investment – you never know when your military ‘guardians’ will come and blow up your home. Here people keep their wealth in gold and jewellery, in a similar [and somewhat ironic] fashion to the Ashkenazi Jews of the previous centuries.

I found Radna standing in the playground of the school that stood next to what was once her home. Shell-shocked and alone after the blast of the previous minute, she stood their just staring at the cloud of dust billowing around her, she held the hand I offered her and then she climbed into my arms burrowing her wide shocked eyes into my shoulder. She couldn’t cry, traumatised and alone, her mother and father lost in the confusion of people screaming and crying for the injustice just committed.

We stayed like this, Radna and I for many minutes in silence the two of us trying to comprehend the previous few moments. There were no words, she was too shocked to speak, I was lost for words, but we understood, the two of us, the crime that we had just witnessed, both of us contemplating the future for her, her family, the other families and the future of her people.

I wonder what will fill Radna’s dreams tonight, will she dream of pretty pink pieces of paper falling from the sky, delivered by a machine designed to bring death, destruction and misery to the weak? Or will she dream of her home disappearing in a blast in front of her eyes? Whatever she dreams, I only hope that one day the only thing that falls from the sky above Nablus will be rain, a rain that will fall on a free people, a rain that will bring hope and help heal the wounds of Radna and the thousands of other children whose future like the air around them is filled with pretty pink pieces of paper, Apaches and the dust of their homes.

P, ISM Nablus
+972 67 958 817

www.palsolidarity.org
www.ism-london.org
www.rafahkid.net

P

Upcoming Coverage
View and post events
Upcoming Events UK
24th October, London: 2015 London Anarchist Bookfair
2nd - 8th November: Wrexham, Wales, UK & Everywhere: Week of Action Against the North Wales Prison & the Prison Industrial Complex. Cymraeg: Wythnos o Weithredu yn Erbyn Carchar Gogledd Cymru

Ongoing UK
Every Tuesday 6pm-8pm, Yorkshire: Demo/vigil at NSA/NRO Menwith Hill US Spy Base More info: CAAB.

Every Tuesday, UK & worldwide: Counter Terror Tuesdays. Call the US Embassy nearest to you to protest Obama's Terror Tuesdays. More info here

Every day, London: Vigil for Julian Assange outside Ecuadorian Embassy

Parliament Sq Protest: see topic page
Ongoing Global
Rossport, Ireland: see topic page
Israel-Palestine: Israel Indymedia | Palestine Indymedia
Oaxaca: Chiapas Indymedia
Regions
All Regions
Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World
Other Local IMCs
Bristol/South West
Nottingham
Scotland
Social Media
You can follow @ukindymedia on indy.im and Twitter. We are working on a Twitter policy. We do not use Facebook, and advise you not to either.
Support Us
We need help paying the bills for hosting this site, please consider supporting us financially.
Other Media Projects
Schnews
Dissident Island Radio
Corporate Watch
Media Lens
VisionOnTV
Earth First! Action Update
Earth First! Action Reports
Topics
All Topics
Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista
Major Reports
NATO 2014
G8 2013
Workfare
2011 Census Resistance
Occupy Everywhere
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands
G20 London Summit
University Occupations for Gaza
Guantanamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
COP15 Climate Summit 2009
Carmel Agrexco
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Stop Sequani
Stop RWB
Climate Camp 2008
Oaxaca Uprising
Rossport Solidarity
Smash EDO
SOCPA
Past Major Reports
Encrypted Page
You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.
If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

Global IMC Network


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech