Same old Game

In May 15, I left my office and headed to Qalandia checkpoint, where Palestinian where commemorating the Nakba in a march to Qalandia, as soon as I got there -after being stuck in the traffic for about 20 minutes-, and as i walked down the streets, I was welcomed with a huge cloud of tear gas.

I spent the next 5 hours taking photos running  between the soldiers, whom where either having a fun day, or use Palestinian protesters as practice targets for their rubber bullets.

2 hours after I arrived the Mosta'rebeen(soldiers dressed in Civilian clothes) unit showed up, and in less than 2 minutes they succeeded to arrest 6 protesters. It was the usual dame thing. throwing stone from one side faced with teargas, rubber bullet and sometimes actual one, from the other one.

their where we have a problem. NOTHING changed, the same old game since the 70's, it worked out very well back then, and for the first Intefada, but since the second Intefada started in 2000, we had to change the game, or at least how we play our part, after all the Israeli side has changed, became more brutal, and aggressive. while we still in square one.

This is not a call to pick up guns and start a real life "call of duty" match, or pick up flowers and start another Jhon Lenon style protest, we have people to play call of duty, and they are doing it well-not really, but they are ok, if we considered the cercumestances they work under- and we have our own Jhon Lenons, mostly elitist  adopting the oppressor proposed myth of Peaceful resistance. they think getting drunks in bars, or making more money is resistance... in other word capitalist pigs.

Then we come to what I want, Popular resistance"not talking about the popular resistance committee, it sucks" am talking about the people in the street, standing against the machine. this what we had at qalandia, but we still stucks in the same old scenario. we still fail to use the situation, we still fail to make a proper response to the Israeli oppressing machine.

If we didn't start playing the game right, we will always have, soldiers at one side, Palestinian on another exchanging gift, with a lot of  Christmas spirit.

In the end, I hope next time we march to Qalandia, we will have a plan, to response to the IOF, to force a different reality on him, our reality, our roles.

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