The Victim is Required to Guarantee the Security of his Oppressor
By Mike Odetalla
11/16/05 "ICH "
Dear Hillary,
My name is Mike Odetalla. I am a Palestinian/American and a father of three, who was born in 1960 in my ancestral village
of Beit Hanina, which is a suburb of Jerusalem, and according to internationally recognized laws, conventions, and
resolutions, is considered part of the occupied Palestinian Territories that were invaded and captured by Israel in the 1967
war. I was a child of war, having lived through the 1967 war, whereby my mother, my siblings, and I were forced to flee our
home and seek refuge in the scorpion infested caves that populate the hills that surrounded our village.
During the first night of the war, our family and the other 20 odd women, children, and the elderly, which included my 6 days
old nephew, barely escaped getting blown to bits by an Israeli fighter jet that circled over head, its metallic body glistening
under the full moon lit sky, which then proceeded to fire a missile into the mouth of the cave a mere few moments after my
mother grabbed us, imploring the others in the cave to follow, as we scampered into a nearby olive grove, clinging to each
other for comfort as the flash and deafening thunder of the blast rang in our years.
We spent the next 20 odd days moving from cave to cave as my mother and the other women tried to sneak back into the
abandoned houses in our village, managing at times only gather flour and precious water for their children. Jews celebrate
Passover by eating unleavened bread, which signifies their hurried Exodus out of Egypt whereby they took and baked the
dough before it had time to rise. My mother baked our bread in the same fashion since we also did not have the luxury of
waiting for the bread, as we were on the move, trying to stay one step ahead of the Israelis.
In 2002, when my American born children were old enough to fully understand and comprehend, I took them back to the
hills of Beit Hanina and the to the very same caves that I huddled in with my family 35 years prior. We retraced our steps as
we fled our homes in that June moonlit night, stopping in front of the cave whose mouth was destroyed by the Israeli fired
missile. It was important for me to show my children and tell them of my experiences as well as the experiences of their
grandparents on their mother’s side who were ethnically cleansed from their homes and lands by the Zionist founders of
Israel in 1948, forcing them and more than 750,000 other Palestinians to become homeless refugees, living in squalid
conditions in refugee camps. Their grandparent’s home in the village of Lifta still stands today, even though their
grandparents are not allowed to move back, contrary to UN Resolution 194, and other internationally recognized Laws, and
conventions that deal with the refugees Right of Return to their homes.
I know that these details might not be of importance to you, but they are very important to me and to the millions of other
Palestinians, especially in light of your recent trip to the Holy Land, whereby you reiterated your support for the Apartheid
wall that Israel has been building to imprison my people into discombobulated walled off ghettos and in the process, steal
their precious lands.
You stood with your back to the concrete wall and had the audacity to say to the Palestinians people, "This wall is not
against the Palestinians. This is against the terrorists. The Palestinian people have to help to prevent terrorism. They have to
change the attitudes about terrorism." Your words proved yet again that neither you nor anyone else in our government has
any grasp of reality of what is actually happening in the ground in Palestine. The victim is once gain placed in the unenviable
position of having to guarantee the security of his oppressor, while being denied his own basic human rights and security or
for that matter, the freedom to of movement in his or her own town or village.
Did you really believe the words that were coming out of your mouth? Did you actually give thought to those words before
uttering them or were you just going through the motions of being a politician, saying and doing anything to get elected with
out the burden of a conscience or sense of justice?
My family, as well as the residents of the village of my birth, Beit Hanina, are some of those Palestinians that you claimed the
wall was not being built against. Beit Hanina, like many other Palestinian villages and cities, will be turned into a walled off
ghetto, whereby families will be cut off from one another as well as their fields and orchards. The villagers of Beit Hanina,
which include members of my family, will lose access to their ancestral lands which will then be confiscated by the Israelis.
Did you not find it odd the way the wall snakes in and around the Palestinian built up areas, swallowing the most desirable
pieces of land, while at the same time, excluding their rightful owners?
You also saw it fit to visit the Israeli settlement of Gilo, which is built on the stolen lands of the Palestinian village of Beit Jala,
whereby the colonizer of the illegal settlement cheered and showered you with their affection. You reciprocated that
affection by pledging your fealty to the state of Israel and her policies, no matter what the consequences of those policies
were to the brutalized and maligned Palestinian people, the very same people who graciously and warmly hosted you and
your husband Bill. You even accepted a hand embroidered Palestinian folk dress, which you wore with a smile on your face,
glowing in the world class hospitality of the Palestinian people, the very same people that you now turn your back on, joining
the right wing chorus as you demonize them and their society.
Could you not find it in your heart to actually visit with some of the Palestinian people or were you afraid of photographs
showing you with a Palestinian child might mysteriously crop up during your future campaigns for higher office?
As the first lady of the United States, you once wrote a book with the title of "It Takes a Village" in reference to the old
African proverb that it takes a village to raise a child. As you toured the Palestinian areas, did you ever once think about the
children who were being trapped behind the 30 foot high concrete wall, cutting them off from their family, friends, and
access to their schools? What kind of a childhood and life will these children have as the "village" that is supposed to be their
home and center of their universe is reduced to nothing more than an open air prison.
Yes it does indeed take a village, a global village minus the physical and mental walls which believes in the universal
principles of compassion, mercy, and most of all, justice to raise a child who will grow up to realize his or her full potential as
a human being...
Mike Odetalla..."A seed in the eternal fruit of Palestine"
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