Palestinian-Israeli conflict from the point of view of a Palestinian

Leia a carta de um palestino residente no Brasil sobre o conflito palestino-israelense. É bastante interessante o que ele diz.
Esta carta foi publicada em um site evangélico dias atrás. Ocultei o nome de quem a escreveu para evitar qualquer tipo de problema.
Você pode lê-la em inglês e em seguida em português.

Read the following letter about the recent Palestinian-Israeli conflict written by a Palestinian living in Brazil.
This letter was posted in an evangelical site some days ago.
I took out the name of the writer to avoid problems.
You can read the letter in English and following in Portuguese.





Friends,

My name is … , I’m a Palestinian and I have been living in Brazil.

Since the re-escalating of violence in the Middle East, we’ve not heard of anything else than this unfortunate war that has made casualties from both sides.

I was born in Palestine, a country that officially is not a country yet, and when the situation became unbearable for my family, we received a happy and sacred invitation of a friend of my parents to come to Brazil, and since 5 years of age I’ve been living in this beautiful and welcoming country.

When I say that the situation in Palestine became unbearable, I’m not talking about the uncountable conflicts with the Israeli army or with religious Jews that had their big houses in the Palestinian territory, houses that today are in the hands of terrorists because they took them by force, but I’m talking about an unbearable situation developed by the very Palestinian “authorities” along these years.

Who is living in Brazil or in anywhere else in the world, secure within their homes and in their vicinity, won’t ever be able to imagine which is to live in Gaza. I feel deeply sorry and tears want to come out when I just remember the few days of my childhood lived in some towns there. Nobody, who is comfortably in their homes, receiving lots of information, pictures and news of the present conflict, can also imagine what is to feel betrayed by those who call themselves Palestinian leaders.

Palestinian leaders have never wanted a State. I can say this loudly and clearly, because it’s true. If they wanted it, they’d have created it before 1948, when the state of Israel yet didn’t exist. If they wanted it, they could be established it in 1948 when UNO decided to create the two States, but our great leaders preferred to incite our people to violence and to fight the local Jews, and to lobby for a different Palestinian State.

The Palestinian leaders didn’t also want to create a Palestinian State more recently when the territories, the so called “occupied by Israel” in their great majority came to be under our control. What to say about the escalation of violence when the second Intifada took place, which was caused by the great leader Arafat, who in 2000 rejected the best peace agreement of all, proposed by the Israeli premier Ehud Barak. He once again incited the Palestinian people to violence and brutality, using bomb men, while Arafat’s family was living in a privileged way, with all sorts of benefits and riches in Paris, all based on donations coming from abroad that have never reached the suffering people of Palestine.

Instead of buying food, water, medicine and giving a better life to the Palestinians, our leaders preferred to walk on the path of violence, brutality and stupidity, promoting hate and discrimination against the Jews who surely are not angels, but aren’t demons either like our leaders proclaim.


The same children that today are dying innocently in their moms’ arms are the same children being grown up and being militarily trained from the first years of their lives to hate Israel and the Jews. They learn how to shoot heavy guns even before 5 years of age and are brainwashed to become martyrs exploding themselves to increase the figures of victims in the other side of the border.

Palestinian leaders are deprived of any humanitarian sensibility, wished for a tired and suffering population. If they had this feeling they wouldn’t send their relatives and their children to suicide in Israel, while those cowards, assassins, hide themselves abroad, and even use human shield right there within the civil population, as we’ve seen today in Gaza Strip.

The Hamas group that for a long time has been promoting barbaric acts within and outside Gaza (a group that had only a unique intelligent doing in its history which was to transform itself in a political party aiming to legitimate its daily terrorism practice in Gaza streets) has killed, persecuted, tortured and decimated all “enemies” from the Fatah, the moderate party being represented today by the unsuccessful Mahmoud Abbas.

My dears, how can a terrorist group that claims to be the leader of the Palestinian people kill our brothers? How can we understand that they haven’t defended our people, but defended their own interests which don’t reflect the opinion of this my people of Palestine? Killing Palestinians just because they haven’t agreed with their doings and ideas is old-fashioned and, above all, is terrorism. The West Bank is what has left for Fatah, and if Fatah doesn’t watch out, that land will be used for more Hamas’ terrorist acts.

You can argue that Hamas terrorists do social work and practice solidarity, but don’t believe everything you see in the media and much less in everything you hear. In order you can better understand it, I want to make an analogy with drug dealers in Rio de Janeiro, is it legal what they have done, seducing innocent children to deal drugs for them, putting guns in their hands? I believe that it is not, even that the drug dealers promote social implementations and have been showing solidarity to the inhabitants of the hills where they have been living. The terrorists of Hamas today, like the drug dealers, have disrespected a right of children to grow up well-educated, being apart from war.

My Brazilian friends whom I respect very much and to whom I wish the best, I ask you as I a Palestinian, as a Muslim, but above all, as a human being who can’t stand anymore to see the ignorance and lack of knowledge of many people of this beautiful Brazil about the matter in discussion:

Stop criticizing Israel, stop criticizing the Jews and also stop thinking that the Palestinian people are made up of terrorists only. There are lots of good people, innocent people there who don’t want conflicts with Israelis anymore, who don’t hate Israelis as well as don’t hate Americans.

Many people living there, including my family, are tired of so much pain, suffering and we know that we must have a peaceful mind towards Israel, because it is from Israel that our water, food, jobs, and our money come from.


In addition, Israel has been offering military support to us. Did you know this? During Arafat’s government, when an agreement was signed with the Palestinian Authority, Israeli police trained several of our men who didn’t want any involvement in the conflict so that these men could maintain the order in our cities. Israel also offered training for its supposed enemies, including, providing arms so that we could have our own security force.

The terrorists who tried but weren’t able to blow themselves up within Israel cities, were medicated in Israeli hospitals!! Also several schools in Israel promote egalitarian education between Palestinians and Jews, who get side by side in perfect harmony receiving a healthy education of respect to their neighbors.

If our leaders were not so dumb and stupid, our suffering people wouldn’t have what to complain about anymore, because the best opportunities for a Palestinian living in Gaza or West Bank are in Israel; one having the slightest flash of intelligence would know that one is never going to be able to wipe Israel off the map or exterminate all Jews, as some maniac leaders from our side proclaim.

How much wouldn’t we gain if we were in the side of Israel and the Jews? And why was the acquaintance between both Israelis and Palestinians here in Brazil always a motive of pride? Because when we live in society we always gain.

My uncle got a visa to work in Israel. He used to get up early everyday and go to work in Israel and come back home in the evening to Gaza. When Hamas took power by force and started attacking Israeli cities everyday, my uncle lost his job and the border was closed. Is it Israel’s fault? Is it my uncle’s fault, someone who never hated the Jews? No. It’s Hamas’ fault. My uncle goes on not hating the Israelis and the Jews; he is living in Syria now, where the situation is not so good either, but there there aren’t terrorist groups like Hamas or Hezbollah whose aim is only to destroy the lives of citizens of good will.

The Palestinian people was expelled from several countries called “friends of Palestinians”, including Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and Libya. Egypt has closed its borders because it doesn’t want us there; and in the peace agreement writings with Israel, when Israel gave back the Sinai to Egypt, Israel proposed to give back Gaza too, but the Egyptians didn’t want it because they had that land as a land without law and the worst place in the world to live.

Why strong countries, some with large territories like Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Iran and others not so large, but very rich, like Kuwait, U. A. Emirates or Qatar don’t receive us in their lands with open arms? They prefer to financially support terrorist attacks and send their money to terrorist Palestinian leaders who don’t think about welfare for the population, but only of becoming rich and spreading hate and intolerance.

On account of this, my friends, I’ve written this message. I know that this letter will not make the two sides stop the present conflict and change their leaders’ mind, those who today determine the direction of my Palestinian people. But if this letter helps Brazilians to think about and understand that we don’t need to live the same kind of conflict here, (because) it’s good for nothing; if it also helps all of you to understand who are the main responsible for the deaths in these days in Gaza, I will be happy.

The fault is not of Israel. It is defending itself from the irresponsible Palestinian terrorist leaders that day after day attack another neighbor with their supposed homemade rockets who after attacking, hide themselves behind women and children and blame Israel. These terrorists, unfortunately, are also Palestinians that cowardly hide themselves within populated areas to cause as much deaths as possible to have sensationalist pictures printed in newspapers around the world.

The fault is not of the Palestinian people too. The Palestinian people, saving those terrorists who are not the majority there, want peace, want to live in peace with Israel and the Jews. They want to live an honored life in their territory, calling it home without needing to flee to any other wonderful country like Brazil as I had to do, because Palestine is the best place where a Palestinian could live.

Think about this before choosing in which side of the conflict you want to be, but above all, choose to be in the side of peace, of tolerance, of respect for every single person.

Thank you.