Jerusalem-forum@wanadoo.jo

Some thoughts by Palestinian expatriates

Kids Speak Out 

Jerusalemites.org received the following paragraph from Nicole Meo via email.

I am a Palestinian child. I am nine years old and live in Sydney, Australia. I was born in Jerusalem and left Palestine when I was two. I am in year four. I go to drama class and I am a member of the intermediate band at school. I play the flute. I play in the school's netball team. I also play with my brother's soccer team. My position is a defender. I like drawing and swimming and hope to visit my grandmother in Jerusalem one day. Maybe when there is less trouble.

I find your letters very sad and hope things will get better for all the children.

By Yusra Shihabi

This 16 year old student handed in a report titled “A Scrapbook of Peace: Ideas on Stopping the Violence in the Middle East” for her English class project at Howland High School in Warren, Ohio. Yusra gave Jerusalemites.org some of her material. The following poem, song, and essay are posted online without editing. Yusra, of Palestinian origin, lives in Ohio.


*Intifada

With sticks and stones
We’ve broken so many bones
With bullets and guns
You’ve killed my sons

-and yours and his and theirs

With fallacies and lies
Ruined are too many lives
With each new day
For my salvation I pray

-and yours and his and theirs

A solution to end the fighting would seem simple,
Yet too vast are our differences
My mosque will never be your temple
Just as your riches will never be mine.
But neighbor, countryman, (enemy)
Our children play together
One tree shading them from the hot desert sun
The same sun that day after day
Bakes the land and burns our backs
You see them laugh and I see them play
Together, unified, like I wish my country could be

-and yours and his and theirs

*The Intifada was a battle between the Arabs and Jews in Israel (Palestine) that started when an Israeli man hit a Palestinian with his car. The Palestinian children (teenagers mostly) revolted and launched an attack on the Israeli soldiers with stones and sticks gathered by them by the weak, elderly, or very young. The Intifada lasted from 1987 until 1993 during which time at least three hundred children were killed. 

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