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GAZAN YOUTH’S MANIFESTO FOR CHANGE


Posted by On December 29, 2010 by Marivel Guzman
Original posted by Abu Yazan
GAZAN YOUTH’S MANIFESTO FOR CHANGE

F**k Hamas!, F**k Israel!, F**k Fatah!, F**k UN. F**k UNWRA. F**k USA!
We, the youth in Gaza, are so fed up with Israel, Hamas, the occupation, the violations of human rights and the indifference of the international community!

We want to scream and break this wall of silence, injustice and indifference. Like the Israeli F16’s breaking the wall of sound; we want to scream with all the power in our souls in order to release this immense frustration that consumes us because of this f*****g situation we live in.

We are like lice between two nails living a nightmare inside a nightmare, no room for hope, no space for freedom.

We are sick of being caught in this political struggle, sick of coal dark nights with airplanes circling above our homes, sick of innocent farmers getting shot in the buffer zone because they are taking care of their lands, sick of bearded guys walking around with their guns abusing their power, beating up or incarcerating young people demonstrating for what they believe in.

Sick of the wall of shame that separates us from the rest of our country and keeps us imprisoned in a stamp-sized piece of land.

Sick of being portrayed as terrorists, homemade fanatics with explosives in our pockets and evil in our eyes.

Sick of the indifference we meet from the international community, the so-called experts in expressing concerns and drafting resolutions, but cowards in enforcing anything they agreed on.

We are sick and tired of living a shitty life, being kept in jail by Israel, beaten up by Hamas, and completely ignored by the rest of the world.

There is a revolution growing inside of us, an immense dissatisfaction and frustration that will destroy us unless we find a way of canalizing this energy into something that can challenge the status Quo and give us some kind of hope.

The final drop that made our hearts tremble with frustration and hopelessness happened on November 30th, when Hamas’ officers came to Sharek Youth Forum, a leading youth organization (http://www.sharek.ps) with their guns, lies and aggressiveness, throwing everybody outside, incarcerating some and prohibiting Sharek from working.

A few days later, demonstrators in front of Sharek were beaten and some incarcerated. We are really living a nightmare inside a nightmare. It is difficult to find words for the pressure we are under.

We barely survived the Operation Cast Lead, where Israel very effectively bombed the shit out of us, destroying thousands of homes and even more lives and dreams.

They did not get rid of Hamas, as they intended, but they sure scared us forever and distributed post traumatic stress syndrome to everybody, as there was nowhere to run.

We are youth with heavy hearts. We carry in ourselves a heaviness so immense that it makes it difficult to us to enjoy the sunset. How to enjoy it when dark clouds paint the horizon and bleak memories run past our eyes every time we close them?
We smile in order to hide the pain. We laugh in order to forget the war.
We hope in order not to commit suicide here and now.
During the war we got the unmistakable feeling that Israel wanted to erase us from the face of the earth. During the last years Hamas has been doing all they can to control our thoughts, behavior and aspirations.

We are a generation of young people used to face missiles, carrying what seems to be a impossible mission of living a normal and healthy life, and only barely tolerated by a massive organization that has spread in our society as a malicious cancer disease, causing mayhem and effectively killing all living cells, thoughts and dreams on its way as well as paralyzing people with its terror regime. Not to mention the prison we live in, a prison sustained by a so-called democratic country.

History is repeating itself in its most cruel way and nobody seems to care. We are scared.

Here in Gaza we are scared of being incarcerated, interrogated, hit, tortured, bombed, killed.
We are afraid of living, because every single step we take has to be considered and well-thought, there are limitations everywhere, we cannot move as we want, say what we want, do what we want, sometimes we even cant think what we want because the occupation has occupied our brains and hearts so terrible that it hurts and it makes us want to shed endless tears of frustration and rage!

We do not want to hate, we do not want to feel all of this feelings, we do not want to be victims anymore. ENOUGH! Enough pain, enough tears, enough suffering, enough control, limitations, unjust justifications, terror, torture, excuses, bombings, sleepless nights, dead civilians, black memories, bleak future, heart aching present, disturbed politics, fanatic politicians, religious bullshit, enough incarceration!

WE SAY STOP! This is not the future we want!

We want three things; We want to be free. We want to be able to live a normal life and We want peace.

Is that too much to ask?

We are a peace movement consistent of young people in Gaza and supporters elsewhere that will not rest until the truth about Gaza is known by everybody in this whole world and in such a degree that no more silent consent or loud indifference will be accepted.

This is the Gazan youth’s manifesto for change!

We will start by destroying the occupation that surrounds ourselves, we will break free from this mental incarceration and regain our dignity and self respect.

We will carry our heads high even though we will face resistance. We will work day and night in order to change these miserable conditions we are living under.
We will build dreams where we meet walls.

We only hope that you – yes, you reading this statement right now! – can support us. In order to find out how, please write on our wall or contact us directly: freegazayouth@hotmail.com

We want to be free, we want to live, we want peace.

FREE GAZA YOUTH!

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I m speechless this is what I want to hear.
Out with all the rules that bound you in your own mental prisons.
Liberation yes, I m 110 % agree with your Manifesto, free, freedom and liberation.

This Manifesto is for the whole apparatus of repression that engulf Gaza, Starting with Israel the Occupier,US the financier,UN the official Solicitor and Signatory of Wars,UNRWA the front of the UN that keeps Gaza under an inhumane welfare system,to Fatah that have forgotten that Gaza is Palestine, and to Hamas ultimately because keeps an invisible gag on the population under the guise of religion righteousness.

If There got to be Freedom in any society, Justice must be the base of the same. Human Rights is an inalienable right of every human being, being Gaza, US, Germany, Lebanon, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba(should not exist),Cuba, China, Iran, Mexico, Congo, Russia..or any place on Earth that humans co-habit under any authority of any type.

The right to disagree, the right to have a different opinion, or different feelings is a right that we all humans have a primordial born right, it calls dissent from the Status Quo, governments of the world dissenters are not criminals, they are free minders that choose their own path, and oppression only make them more aware of the situation that you want to force them to be.

This right is inalienable is part of the human rights that we all must enjoy as a citizen of this Earth.

I m speechless this is what I want to hear. Out with all the rules that bound you in your own mental prisons. Liberation yes, I m 110 % agree with your Manifesto, free, freedom and liberation.

I m sharing your courage. I m sharing your dreams, your hopes, your pains, your deaths, your ideals, your free and open mind.

I wanted to hear the youth speaking, I do no k,ow if will make a difference now, but certainly your message will spread in the world, in the mind of the old and tired souls, tired of their struggles.

It will infuse energy to the resistance, to the old and decrepit bodies that have fought for more than 6 decades without seeing compassion from the world, that have not received justice from the international bodies than have appointed themselves as the saviors of the world, to the peace activists, the justice seekers that are fighting for your land.

I was almost giving up my fight for Gaza, I was getting stiff and tired of yelling, writing, posting, complaining. I thought no one was listening, but I was wrong.

This Manifesto full or courage. rage dissatisfaction and pain have given me hopes again.
I m awake again, your words have giving me the food for the soul that I was missing.
I love you Gaza, I m proud of you, I m with you, in your fight against indifference, against the oppression of your mind, in this fight for your land, for your human rights, for your motherless children, and your childless mothers, I m with you with your olive trees that with one last stand they resist to let go and still embracing the land, I m with you, with your flag, that not being mine, have awaken the fighter on me once more.

I m sharing this word in every wall, available, in the blogs. my channels, everywhere that there is space.
Thanks Gaza youth I love you all…Free Palestine.

December 29, 2010 Posted by | Akashma, Education and Religion, Gaza, Gaza Today, Hamas, Israel, Occupied Territory, Palestine, Personal Grow and Awareness, War and Peace | , , , | Leave a comment

Gaza Heart and Mind


By: Kamal Sobeh Posted by Marivel Guzman

How can a Gazan person present himself if his image had been distorted due to the negative thinking that made him sterile and destroyed his abilities for imagination and creativity?

How can he even see, if he is wearing black glasses as thick as windshield glass with layers of rust that had been accumulated in his mind and heart?

And how could he walk if his prosthesis is also truncated.
By hundreds in Gaza they ask themselves? is not the same for the others? as they do not dare to question the others, whom have the infallibility of their command and the key to life.

In Gaza nothing is going according to the requirements of a decent life, and happiness.

We are talking about people that have the ability to adapt rapidly, who, if given 500 dollars today have the ability to survive tomorrow.

The people have become aware that there is another basic requirement to live that goes beyond food and clothing, the incentive to live, which they are losing every moment.

He could not imagine himself on a trip with his sons because he simply does not have a permit to leave Gaza’s barbed wires.
Removing Barbe Wire withing the "buffer Zone"

He could not imagine his son, as a journalist struggling with his pen to write against the corruption that prevents such things as justice, purity and freedom, because the advocates of justice and freedom in and around Gaza have their own law, which prevents others from speaking the truth.

This is the bleak picture cameras can pick up if approached from Gaza borders, and the question arises, what is needed from the Palestinian Gazans to do in order to live their life with dignity, freedom, justice and security?.

Gimpse from outside Gaza

For more than 60 years since 1948, the Palestinians didn’t exclude anything; they tried Expulsion, Loss, Displacement, War and finally Peace.

At the end, the Palestinians succeeded in making peace with the world, but a small question remained: Is it not better to make peace amongst them selves?

The Palestinians in Gaza didn’t understand that their case rests on three pillars namely: National domestic alignment, Arab alignment, and International alignment, and the relationship between these alignment, is sequential in the sense that the second axis does not arise only if the first axis is based, and so on.

Another small question: Where do the Palestinian pillars rest on his case?
He destroyed the first axis by internal conflict, exhausted all the ingredients,
therefore the Arab axis became unable to take up the cause torn.

He awaits the opportunity to escape from his duties because it is tied up at the same time for his own interests and thus become the international situation is less supportive of the Palestinian cause.

So Palestinians in Gaza are important for teeth of internal conflict and the loss of they case which was lost with the hope of freedom, justice and peace.

Therefore the Palestinians must bring peace to themselves before attempting to achieve a comprehensive peace with others. Furthermore, the world must bequeath dignity, respect, freedom and security to the Palestinians, and contribute to halt the conflict and put an end to the violation of the daily humane rights abuses.

The world will find that the Palestinian is just a person that dreams of raising his children and dreams to show them the future sky free of the dust of war, to show them the green land without the contamination of blood stains and dreams of flowers before they trampled under the tanks.

However, most importantly, the Palestinians in Gaza have to be free from all negative and wrong ideas.-

October 12, 2010 Posted by | Gaza, Gaza Today, Hamas, History, Israel, israel criminal actions, Occupied Territory, Opinion Maker, victims, War and Peace | , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Shadi Nassar:The Dreams of the youth of Gaza


By Marivel Guzman
Article Featured on Opinion Maker

Student of the Month

Before his profile was deleted from Facebook, he was another resident of the besieged Gaza Strip, with dreams to travel the world, and like any other young person with university degree with plans for his future.

He worked arduously for 2 years fighting the injustice of an oppressive regimen that sees the 1.5 millions residents of Gaza as enemies of war, but in reality they are regular, ordinary citizens like you and me.

Gaza is been under an inhumane siege for more than 3 years, Israel have destroyed their schools, public buildings, and thousands of homes.

The Occupations Forces had murdered thousands of unarmed civilians, dozens of non-violent protesters. Just in her last incursion what Israel equivocally called war, she killed more than 1400 civilians, including more than 400 children.

The world have been trying to help Gaza to brake the siege, and have organized land convoys and Sea Voyages, the whole world was in outrage during the piracy act of Israel that in International waters, assaulted and killed 9 peace activists, that only “crime” was to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza, and with this, brake the siege, that the UN with it silence has stamped with official indifference.

Live in Gaza is less than pleasurable, the youth has no other entertainment but few left enjoyments not robbed yet by Israel. The beach is meters safe only, before it become a target practice for the Israel Occupier Forces that shoot live ammunition to the beach goers and fishermen as well.

Facebook have offered the escape window to the world for residents of the besieged Gaza, I meet my dear friend Shadi Nassar almost a year ago, his story was appealing for me, he told me his dreams. The dreams of a young person, that wanted to go study abroad. Really for most of the developed world, this is just a step in their education, but not for the youth of Gaza.

They suffer the problematic of countless troubles, simple documents that in a regular free country will take few minutes, for Gaza students that want to travel out of Gaza, is an huge waste of time and energy, documents signing takes months to get. Even the Palestinians Authority as in complicity with Israel make the procedures eternal and sometimes impossible to achieve.

Shadi, lost already an opportunity last year during the Gaza Massacre, where life become unbearable for the residents. He was ready to leave, when the assault started and all his dreams were killed with “Operation lead”.

But you can’t kill the dreams as easy as you kill a Palestinian, his resolved proved stronger than Operation lead, and he continued with his efforts to work again for another opportunity until finally “HE MADE IT OUT OF GAZA”.

We can say, that he broke the Siege in its own merit. His case is one to tell, because not all the youth, have the opportunity to fulfill his dreams, I can tell you that if we offer our support to help them in the outside world more students can achieve their dreams.

Scholarships are hard to get for Palestinians in the occupied territories, advocate in Universities to offer support for Palestinians. There are thousands of foundations that offer grants and facilities for students, but not for Palestinians, if you are part of this foundations, work hand and hand with the administrators to offer more grants for this students, that need more than anybody in the world. There are few foundations that I have found in the internet:

USA: For Palestinians
Resident – 2011 – 2012 Fulbright Science and Technology Scholarship PhD Student Program, “They help you to apply for the Travel Visa
Plane ticket
Money to spend for 36 months,Telephone to call: Gaza Residents: Tel: 08-2864-623”
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Scholarships PALESTINE Master International Business Palestinian students
http://scholarships.reingex.com/ps.asp
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FURTHER EDUCATION PROGRAMME
Regional Scholarships

Palestinian Refugee Scheme
http://www.saidfoundation.org/whatwedo/regional.shtml

Support one student, you do not need to be rich, even hosting a student in your own home, or supporting their studies can make a wealth of different.

There are thousands of graduates from the University in Gaza, that need an opportunity to go study abroad, we are billions of compassionate being that can make a different for one Gaza student.

Lend your hand to them, show your humanity. Sponsor a student from Gaza.

My dear friend Made it out of Gaza, I wish I can write the story of hundreds of Shadis, this time he made the journey to freedom, he is free to decide if he needs the light on or off in his nights.

POWER OFF is no more an obstacle in his nights, Israel can’t manage his movements any longer, he is owner of his life for first time in his life, he decide if he wants a peaceful night, free from the memories of the aircraft bombing “invisible targets” in Gaza.

For first time he knows that his life is not IN VAIN, he has a purpose and a live to live.

Congratulations to Shadi Nassar, you broke the siege Dear.. But even in strange lands he took his home land in his heart, and he will keep fighting to free Palestine. Because the sons of the Land never forget their roots. The Beloved Land we know as Palestine is his most dear dream. To See her free of Occupation. Free once and for All.

September 2, 2010 Posted by | Economics of the Poor, Education, Gaza, Israel, israel criminal actions, Marivel Guzman, News, Occupied Territory, Personal Grow and Awareness, victims | , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

To Members of US Congress


This Missive is in response of your letter, signed by 300 of you and given to Hillary Clinton, where you are expressing your support for Israel.

The concerned citizens of the free world, need an explanation for your lack of accountability,
in the issue of Israel intentions of construct 1600 units in Occupied Jerusalem. In Contravention of the Geneva Conventions Statutes that prohibit the transfer of residents to an occupied land.

The International Community and Member of Official Institutions are in completely disagreement with your position.
We do not have anything in common with Israel, they DO NOT HAVE equally laws for Jews and Arabs and Christian and they are not a democratic State, they are a Radical, Human Right Violator, They have completely violated every single International Law in every aspect.

They have ignored more that 300 United Nations Resolutions.

They have ignore the most minimum rules of engagement of war, killing indiscriminately grand numbers of Palestine residents, including children, women and elderly.

They have destroy the infrastructure of Gaza, and that of villages in West bank, with the sole intention of colonizing the land.

We have no bonds with the State of Israel others that the military and economic aid that your signatures provide every year.

We the Citizens demand that you retire your political support and stop the economical aid to Israel Immediately.

You are mocking our intellect with your infantile attitude, we are adults, so you are, you can not bend the rules of law, because Benjamin Natayahu comes to AIPAC in US, and tell a bunch of lies, and you believe the promises. Besides AIPAC should be barred from operating in United States territory, they are working in behalf of Israel, a foreign state. If they are dual citizens they should have their allegiance with United States, but they don’t, their allegiance is with Israel.

April 17, 2010 Posted by | Aipac, Hamas, Israel, Occupied Territory, Palestine, Settlers | Leave a comment