Following the recommendation of Professor Metcalf, I went on gazamom.com to see a little more on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I must admit, I fell in awe of this women’s amazing story telling ability. She achieves the right mix of humanity and political activism with more grace than most bloggers do. For those of you who might not know, this blog is about the story of a Palestinian family, Leila, her husband and their son, living in the United States because they are unable to return to Gaza. Leila depicts the struggle of being denied the right of entry into one’s own country. As a second generation Rwandan, I can relate to her predicament as my parents were unwanted in their own country for many years, and I was born abroad because of this. The sense that one does not belong in a country as a refugee or an exile transfers even to young children. My older siblings knew that their classmates thought of them as different, and teasing ensued. Leila talks about her young son’s struggle to understand his family predicament as a kindergarten assignment asks the children to fill out their address.
There is a picture of Yousuf’s paper, his address city: Gaza, Country: USA. Leila was obviously touched to see that her own child was carrying his real home within, despite his surroundings. I believe that if more people were exposed to this kind of information, that of the suffering of people that are just like us, would bring more compassion, and maybe, maybe some reaction strong enough to bring about change. As long as Palestinians continue to be portrayed as angry Arabs, injustice will continue to be justified and cloaked with a web of lies. This blog made me more sympathetic to the Palestinian cause than I already was as it showed me a humane side of the Palestinian population that I had not, could not find in the current media.
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