“I developed PalTel, the ‘Microsoft of Palestine’ and the PA took over all these huge computers without any knowledge as to what to do with them.
“Telecommunications has always been a security tool. The Israelis required we work with them; only those who did not resist the occupation or accommodated them with eyes and ears [were allowed to be hired.] There was a backlog of 120,000 Palestinians who had requested phone lines and it took us only a year to close that backlog and from ’67-93, Palestinians were only allowed to put up phone lines.
“I left Paltel and became a Project Manager for the Plaza Shopping Center not far from Ramallah. The second intifada started just as we broke ground and today it is like any other retail, supermarket and children’s play center in the U.S.A.
“We can’t do anything 100% here because we don’t have control of water and borders, we also don’t have control of the telecommunications frequencies.
“Everything being done to us today is an accumulation of external factors going on for decades…When Bush announced the $191 million assistance, nobody here got excited as this was already money allocated; it was not new money.
“The US State Department and the World Bank have been documenting for years how the Palestinians are being battered. Those reports should be used!
“After the 2006 Palestinian elections the U.S.A. and Israel boycotted the Palestinian people to comply with [the self-appointed] Quartet’s demands.
“Gaza is mostly refugees who fled in ’48 and they are being made out to be a mini-super power led by Iran to rule the world! We had democratic elections, but our growth is defined by Donor funds led by America.
“I don’t have a Palestinian ID; I have an Israeli issued ID card. This is the first occupation in the world that defines who the occupied are! My father was born five minutes from here and in ’67 he was in the United States and the Occupation took place. The Israelis did a house to house census and everyone here at the time became an official Palestinian.
“I am here on a tourist visa and have to leave the country every 3 months. Why are Israeli’s allowed to discriminate?”
My answer is the world is under a holocaust hangover and has allowed the Jewish state to become an Apartheid regime because of the unrepented worldwide guilt that has been allowed to fester because good people did nothing for too very long and millions of innocent people were gassed and fried.
We live in a world where the once oppressed, victimized and traumatized have now become the oppressors, victimizers and traumatizes of another generation of innocent Palestinian children; because good people have done nothing for too very long.
The talk on the streets of the West Bank is that the Quartet's fall peace conference won't change anything, but I am hopeful Tony Blair is seeking redemption from Iraq and if he will open up and listen to both sides, things that seem impossible to change; could actually happen.
Only through a political and spiritual evolution can we begin the world again, and bring into reality Tom Paine's vision:
"Soon after I had published the pamphlet "Common Sense" [on Feb. 14, 1776] in America, I saw the exceeding probability that a revolution in the system of government would be followed by a revolution in the system of religion... The world is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion."-Tom Paine
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