Young Gazans Rage at Hamas and Israel

By ROBERT MACKEY

One of 12 short films on human rights issues made by students in Gaza last year.

Weeks after Hamas shut down an internationally-financed youth group in Gaza, eight Palestinian students, fed up with “living a nightmare inside a nightmare” in the isolated territory have posted a manifesto on Facebook expressing their rage and frustration.
The document, called Gaza Youth’s Manifesto for Change, begins with a string of profane denunciations — of both major Palestinian factions, Hamas and Fatah, as well as Israel, the United Nations and the the United States — that would seem at home in a punk rock anthem. The young authors then explain:

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; scream with all the power in our souls in order to release this immense frustration that consumes us….
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 agree on; we are sick and tired of… being kept in jail by Israel, beaten up by Hamas and completely ignored by the rest of the world.

After meeting with the students who wrote the manifesto in Gaza, Ana Carbajosa reported for the Guardian:

Eight people – three women and five men – wrote the text. They are normal students, from the more secular elements of Gazan society. All declare themselves to be non-political and disgusted with the tensions and rivalries that divide Palestinians between Hamas, the rulers of Gaza, and Fatah, the more secular party which governs the Palestinian Authority, based in the West Bank. “Politics is bollocks, it is screwing our lives up,” said one member of the group. “Politicians only care about money and about their supporters. The Israelis are the only ones benefiting from the division.”

According to the statement, the young authors’ frustration boiled over on Nov. 30, “when Hamas’ officers came to Sharek Youth Forum, a leading youth organization (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.”
The Palestinian Maan news agency reported last month that more than a dozen young people were detained in Gaza City for “protesting Hamas authorities’ closure of the Sharek Youth Forum.” Maan added:

The Gaza government shut down Sharek last Tuesday citing an ongoing criminal investigation into the group’s activities and members. Sharek officials say the shutdown is a nakedly political attempt to crack down a liberal-minded institution.

As Edward Teller pointed out in a post on the blog Firedoglake, the Sharek Youth Forum’s Web site includes a detailed chronology of the pressure applied to the organization by Hamas, which began nearly a year ago with a letter from the local government objecting to a Sharek report “Promise or Peril: the Status of the Youth in Palestine.”
Despite those problems, an online report on Sharek’s summer 2010 programs explains that the organization continued its activities.

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Among the programs described on Sharek’s Web site that could have caused Hamas some unease was one called “Youth Journalists for Human Rights,” in which nearly 200 students were trained to use video to monitor and report on human rights issues. The students produced 12 short videos on human rights, which were posted on Sharek’s YouTube channel last May.
Near the end of their Facebook manifesto, the authors explain that they hope to raise awareness of their plight and turn their organization into a peace movement:

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. 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.