Doaa Alremeili
Mondoweiss / March 14, 2022
Hundreds of Ukrainian Jews came to Israel, previously called Palestine, on a plane fleeing their homeland due to the Russian attack. And more are to come.
Israel jumped off its feet and urged the Jews in Ukraine to head to it. Promising them a safe home. And offering them all the necessities they might need.
Those terrified Ukrainian Jews chose my stolen homeland for over 70 years to seek refuge.
It’s okay. I can handle more Jews on the other side. I don’t mind even living with them in the same neighborhood.
You see, I’m not anti-Semitic. I’m anti-Zionist. Which is something I’m really proud of. You can imagine after all the horrors and the daily aggressive attacks of “Jews”, I’m sorry I mean Israelis, on my people “the Palestinians’ ‘ that I would have a “Judaism phobia”. Exactly like that “Islamophobia” you had after 9/11 and the way you stereotyped me and every other Muslim in the world.
Well, I don’t. I’m mature enough to know that people aren’t the same even if they belong to the same ethnic group. I’m informed enough to tell the difference between the two “antis”.
The irony is in Israel calling itself a “safe country” because it’s not. And don’t you even dare to think that this got something to do with us “the Palestinians”. It’s all about how Israel classifies its people and puts them in ranks. Depending on their color, their background, how religious they are, to which sect they belong, from where did they come and the list goes on. You can tell how safe it is living in such a place, can’t you?
That little Ukrainian Jew kid I saw, holding her stuffed animal toy, was about eight or seven years old. This means in about ten years from now she would be eligible to join the IDF. It doesn’t make a big difference that she was raised for a time in Ukraine and she has not been taught about the Israeli-Palestinian “conflict”.
Now Israel has both the chance and the time to indoctrinate her along with all the other kids about the state of Israel, the ultimate right of Jews in Palestine and their duty to defend the colony, I mean the country.
Do you know what’s the most important thing Israel is going to indoctrinate those kids about?
It will tell them that behind this giant apartheid wall there is a savage, inferior species of people, who don’t deserve to live. And that they are a threat to the safety of Israel. And as loyal Israeli citizens, they must work to get rid of them and always shake hands with them with a gun.
So if anyone is interested in raising a child as a killing machine, you know where to go.
I mustn’t forget to thank the American donors who support Israel all the way and who make things easier for it.
After the establishment of Israel, Jews started to pour from all around the world to live in their new home. But some chose not to come and couldn’t see this newly born country that was established in the blood of other people as a home.
Some of those comers were true believers, others had no home and seized the opportunity and some were forced to leave to Israel after things became so hard for them in their original homes.
There is a voice saying that the troubles Jews live around the world and how uncomfortable they might be are made by Israel whether it was indirectly as a result of its barbarism or directly through following a systematic strategy.
Some kind of conspiracy theory Israel is weaving all the time to make Jews run to it. I hear people say that– though I know it is itself a conspiracy theory about faraway powers.
Now with the Ukrainian crisis, the numbers of refugees are escalating. But no need to worry for the prince in his shiny armor “Israel” is here to work things out. There is only this teeny weeny thing. Mostly it will be Ukrainian Jews who will be rescued and he can let two or three of the other Ukrainians cling to the tail of his horse.
What was that thing Israel keeps emphasizing? Oh yes, “Israel is a safe-democratic country.”
As for my kids, you don’t need to worry about them. They aren’t here yet. And I don’t think they will ever be. I chose not to bring or raise a child in this unstable region.
Most of my people would call me a coward. They might be right.
It’s just that I’m living the tragedy, born and raised in the besieged Gaza. I choose not to force my kids to be living on an inescapable battlefield.
I have survived four wars so far. And every level gets more difficult to pass. In every level and each war of them, I was unarmed, unprotected and waiting for death.
I’m in my late twenties and I have never stepped out of Gaza. I don’t know what Jerusalem really looks like or the Pyramids or Mecca or Minnesota, where my friends Steve and Heidi live.
I even got my first passport secretly three years ago. It’s not like my family would prevent me from having one. No. “Leave it for me. I will ask and see around what it takes to get one and you and I would go and get you one,” my dad would protectively say.
And I’m not a patient woman as most people think. I’ve waited for so many things in my life and it was for nothing. I prefer to walk out to the world and get my things done rather than wasting my years for things to come.
This dark endless tunnel that we live in didn’t and never will stop me from dreaming.
“I want to travel abroad and study there. I think I’ll go to Egypt,” I said while heading home after school under the noon sun with the neighbor’s daughter who was one year older than me. I still remember the words that she used to suffocate my dream, “You won’t. You’ll never manage to do so. I bet you 10 shekels that you will never leave Gaza.”
I was only 13 back then. Here I am today after 15 years and I still have the same dream. I will travel and I will manage to get out of Gaza and I will take those 10 shekels and rub her nose with.
So after all I’ve told you, do you think I am silly to make such a decision? And even if you do, I don’t care. I’m not bringing another victim of Israel’s brutality to this world.
“This is nothing. It is still to come that all the Jews from all around the world will be gathered in Palestine and Gaza will be wiped off the face of the earth,” a woman I know said calmly bragging of her piece of information.
“Well, then I must leave this place ASAP,” I replied unconsciously.
Doaa Alremeili is a Bedouin Palestinian woman from Gaza who has the sands of two deserts in her blood
