Jerusalem

If you have ever walked the ancient streets of Jerusalem, you understand how your heart simply melts as soon as you enter within the walls of the ancient city. Your body is walking the cobbled streets, but your soul is transported between heaven and earth. The magic of the bustling vendors – purses, hijabs, toys, phones, kunafa, falafel, cash exchange, this is a world between antiquity and modernity. Your senses are heightened and you simply feel alive. This is love, in its purest form, because never has the heart found rest as it did while prostrating in prayer on the grounds of the Aqsa Mosque. In that moment, there is nothing standing between you and your Lord but prayer.

Ethereal it might be, but I am quickly reminded I am only a tourist in this Holy Land. An American by document and fortune, Palestinian by blood, and wanderer by nature. And if you need to be reminded that Palestine is under illegal occupation, and the soul of Palestine is under direct attack, simply turn on the news.

Disbelief

Imagine watching in disbelief, as the leader of the free world announces the movement of the United States embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Simply moving the diplomatic mission of the Free World to appease an apartheid regime. Watching in disbelief after a long day, the President of the Free World declaring triumphantly: “while previous presidents have made this a major campaign promise, they failed to deliver. Today I am delivering.” What a narcissistic statement to make, further destabilizing a volatile region in an attempt to out-due his predecessors!

What about all of the implications? Does he think that just because he declares this, everything will fall into place? His simple mind doesn’t comprehend the complexity, or implications, of the situation.

And yet, there he is, with his white supremacist agenda declaring that Jerusalem, in all its grace and beauty, is the capital of an illegal occupation.

The White Boys’ Club

The New York Times reported: “Ten days before Donald J. Trump took office, Sheldon G. Adelson went to Trump Tower for a private meeting. Afterward, Mr. Adelson, the casino billionaire and Republican donor, called an old friend, Morton A. Klein, to report that Mr. Trump told him that moving the American Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem would be a major priority.”

Can you just imagine? A bunch of white men, chatting it up and giving away land that does not belong to them? Sounds pretty familiar, as we’ve seen this repeatedly throughout history (ahemm…Balfour Declaration). All it takes is a pat on the back, a few chuckles and in between a few chauvinist jokes; the world is thrown into further chaos. No where in this picture has thousands of years of history been taken into consideration, no where in this picture has the lives of people that will be cut short because of this decision, taken into consideration. They simply don’t care about what goes on beyond the bubble of their ultra rich, ultra white, boys’ club.

It is a political power trip.

It needs to stop.

A Message to the Main Stream, American Press

I would love it if I went on [name your site mainstream news outlet] to find an actual person from the ordeal, writing on the issue. I am tired of reading information coming from people who are not part of the situation, an outsider looking in. There are enough Muslim-American Scholar, Palestinian-Christian scholars, Palestinians in general who can speak on this issue.

Seek them out and give them a voice, give me authentic journalism and let people claim their own narrative.

To the Broken Palestinian Leadership

You have failed your people.

You are corrupt and incompetent.

Where we find ourselves today is due to your lack of sincere efforts to lead the Palestinians, wherever they may, to freedom, and for that – history will judge you accordingly.

#HandsOFFJerusalem #FreePalestine #Resist