Story By: Ali Taha Alnobani
Translated by: Fateh Kassab
© 2010-2015 Ali Taha Alnobani rights reserved
I
never imagined that one day I will have a Zionist friend even if it's
online. How did I make such a mistake? How would I approve of the
humanity of someone who doesn't approve of mine? How can I forget this
enormous number of crimes that are broadcast publicly on satellite TV?
And how will I justify it to my friends; the rightists will accuse me of
betrayal, and the leftists will accuse me of treason and normalization
with the enemy. Yes,
I gave them this golden opportunity on a platter of gold because of my
audacity and slapdash reaction. Me! The careful one who used to count to
hundred before taking a single step!
Again,
the circumstances are conspiring against me; I made this mistake in a
critical time, few moments before I left for the damned trip. I was
adding the largest possible number of friends on a social website in
order to mobilize pro-democracy and human rights, and while I was
pressing the button of friendship requests automatically
and sequentially; I discovered that I had sent a friend request to
someone who wrote his name next to his image in Hebrew ... Yes,
in Hebrew; next to his status was the flag of the Zionist entity; the
flag which combines all the opposites: the color blue, which I love very
much, and the memory of blood, carnages, and deportation. The Star of
David, that reminds me of my childhood when a lot of people carried
amulets decorated with this star because they thought that it was a
blessing symbol.
Believe me Sa'eed,
I did not pay attention. It happened by mistake. I fell in deep thought
thinking about the feasibility of what I do. I wondered: Are there
values and
morals that control the world? Is it ruled by the desires of the
criminals and the greedy and the closed horizons of darkness? I
did not see a proof to support the hypothesis of supreme ideals; the
State of evil lasted for centuries; but the state of the good lasted for
hours. Why should I run eagerly towards the light while grievances keep
on pulling me back?
I regretted a lot and said to
myself, he will reject my friendship request and disburden me the
consequences of his appearance in the list of my friends.
Today, before I left home, I had
twenty minutes to check it out; unfortunately I found his image among
the list of my friends. I tried to cancel his friendship, but I did not
know how to do it in this damned website. It is different from other
social websites; its complexities need a special skill to deal with. And when I received your call, I left for the trip very upset.
Sa'eed was
looking out of the window of the bus toward the distant horizon:
"Beyond this desert, a friend of my new friend is sitting in house built
above the ruins of my house, and the key that my father keeps for
decades has become an icon for the virtual meetings that did not happen,
like your virtual meetings, Ahmad! All those whom I was supposed to live among in Haifa[i]
, and be my neighbors, relatives and friends grew up with other men and
women, in worlds extending from the shantytowns to the palaces of the
Arabian Nights. Their heights and weights changed depending on new space
and time made by a friend of my new friend, who scattered papers at
this very time to make me live in the palaces of confusion and loss, and
to compare my short life with the time and the maze of days.
All
of those places that were supposed to shape me and I was supposed to
shape them, and to fill me with excitement and fill them with memories
and songs, and be a core pillar and ring of their existence are now a
space for outsiders who do not understand their language and pulse; and
do not know how many of the stories sent their curses on them from an
ancient profound depths of knowledge that became Gods and sang: 'O my children, sing with us: Yuya Yuya, Palestine is my mother ... Yuya ...[ii]
Ahmed patted on Sa'eed's shoulder, and looked around in apprehension: What's up Sa'eed? Will you say any word to relief me?
Sa'eed
said, while rubbing his nose with his finger tip: "Don't worry. When we
arrive we will cancel this friendship and things will be just fine".
Ahmed looked at him while murmuring: "Yes, even if I had to cancel my
account on that website".
Sa'eed
fell in a deep thought again:" They lived here among us for thousands
of years, oh God! My humanity can not endure all this hostility, how can
they endure it? Aren't they human beings with souls, mouths and eyes?
Don't they hurt for seeing blood and wailing? Didn't they see Muhammad
al-Durrah [iii],
with his tiny body, trembling behind the iron barrel till his voice
left to the memory of eternal hostility to flame curses of an endless
time of war and destruction? Didn't they listen to the screams of Huda Ghalia[iv] when she choked with maize grains after hearing the last breaths of her family?
Ahmed said- while Sa'eed was drying his
cheek as he looked out the window-:" We have arrived, let's end this
problem before it gets worse."
They
hurried to the nearest Internet café; it is too urgent matter to do it
at home. Ahmed logged into his account and started a search for his
Zionist friend. Then he shouted "Sa'eed!"
- What's the matter? said Sa'eed.
- He deleted me from the list of his friends
[i]
Haifa is a Palestinian city occupied by Israel in 1948. Most of its
Arab citizens were deported by Israelis to the nearing Arab countries
and the rest of the world.
Yuya : is a famous Palestinian Folklore first sang among Palestinian refugees to express their agony. [ii]
[iii] Muhammad al-Durrah:
is a Palestinian child whose killing by Israeli soldiers was documented
by press in the west bank in Palestine in the second Intifada , you can
watch on the following link :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUTwGnRzXos
[iv] Huda Ghalia
: a poor palastinian child whose family was killed by Israeli bombing
on Gaza beach while they were on a picnic. She was the only survivor of
her family, the bombing targeted civilians and there were no military
encounters to justify the bombing in that time. You can watch on the
following link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEwEjgXTsOk
My Other Half
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