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Hello.
Hi, I'm Rushdi, 26 years old...
- I'm Ihab. - And I'm Ahmad.
We are living in Ramallah. I'm 23 years old.
I'm also living in Ramallah in Palestine, and I'm 24 years old.
... a Palestinian living in Ramallah.
- I'm a doctor. - And I'm an engineer.
We have one enemy, who takes our land,
who strikes us and takes our rights.
Our problem is not a problem of Islam and Judaism.
Our problem is about Palestinian people and an occupation... and zionism.
Briefly, the suffering of Palestinian people started in 1948.
For us, in this country called "Palestine",
which is occupied by Israel,
we suffer everyday from unjustified arrest,
without any accusation, without any reason.
Our case, briefly, is that the
territories that occupation
takes to build settlements, are our land.
But it's forbidden for us
to build houses there, in our
own cities, in our own villages.
Humiliation and contempt appears in barricades
and checking points between villages and towns.
My brother was ill,
he was at the hospital,
I just wanted to visit him.
But before entering the city of Nablus, there is a barricade,
and after you pass this barricade, there is another one.
I had a gift, and some sweets.
Soldiers searched everything :
They opened the gift, which must
be closed, and they rummaged it.
For example, they force anybody passes
the barricade to take off his clothes.
And even I told them that I was going to the hospital,
I couldn’t convince them. They forced me to take off my clothes,
they delay me for the visit.
They just made me suffer
to dissuade me of coming again.
They can hold people for hours, they can search for
any silly mistake we did, in order to hold us for a while.
Unfortunately, they took my identity card, they made me wait for a while,
the soldier disappeared for 2 or 3 hours, when he came back, he told me :
"This is your ID, but you cannot bring the gift with you."
Then I left the gift, and entered the city.
But the time was late, and the visiting hours had passed.
I couldn't come back home, so I slept in Nablus,
far from my family and in a hard situation.
This is one of the suffering stories here in Palestine.
I hope this case of barricades will be over
and that we regain ability to move between cities easily.
I hope... Thanks.
Suffering also appears in preventing us to visit
sacred places in Jerusalem. They prevent us to visit Al-Aqsa Mosque.
But the real problem of the whole world about Palestine
is that all Muslims have the same belief :
Jerusalem is ours, a sacred place for us, we Muslims.
When I want to come from university to enter Jerusalem
which is Palestinian city, for the Israeli occupation
because I'm a Palestinian, it's forbidden for me to enter.
For them it's their capital, but for us it's a Palestinian city.
Borders, sky, water :
All that is controlled by the Israeli occupation.
Holy places are in the hand of Israeli government.
Any new government forgets the agreement signed by the latter.
For example, if we achieve a peace agreement with a government,
the next one will finish it off.
No agreement could last with Israeli governments.
European countries, US or any country, could send us some funds
in order to help this region. But as we are like pawns in the
hand of the occupying Israeli, they might let these aids entering or not.
No law, no principle,
no ethics they could follow.
And if these aids could not enter, we are the only responsible for everything,
we are responsible to manage our suffering, and nobody else...
When we see the whole world silent
about the crimes of Israel towards us...
... while we don't have any enmity
to any person in the world....
We are proud to be Muslims. Our religion is a religion of peace and love.
Our aim is to preserve our homeland and our families.
We don't want wars under the name of Islam.
We are known as a conservative community,
we have our customs and traditions
that protect human, and especially
the women... the girls.
Al Qaeda does not represent us.
We condemn it because it's a terrorist organization.
For example, they prevent the girl when she becomes
a teenager to appear to others. To appear to men, relatives or not.
For marriage, we have a period called engagement :
It's a period of introduction between the man and the woman
before they get married.
And in case of ignoring this thought, the clash could be very
easy between Muslims and the whole world.
After this period, if they accept each other and feel the compatibility in thought
and other things, they marry. If not, they separate.
We have our elements,
our culture, our civilization.
We want to live it.
Thank you.
Our message is clear to all the people in the world :
We hope that everyone feel us, feel our suffering...
We hope that the world could understand us, our case is fair :
We need a homeland, borders, our holy places...
We don’t need anything else.
Insha'allah that peace prevails the whole world.
And not only dreaming of a country for us,
but fulfilling that in reality.
We feel that there is no end for it.
But we still hope that people listen to us...
Thanks, Nico.
So... how and when could we have peace?
This is the core of the problem...
Thanks.