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April 1998 return to index |
ONE AMERICAN FAMILY ADOPTS A PALESTINIAN "SON" MER - Washington - 4/25: But once and awhile an interesting and telling article comes along from those not so expert, not so deeply emersed. Such is the case with Bob Cork, a man who in fact has never been to the Middle East. But he is a man who knows what injustice is, who understand what integrity is all about, and who appreciates the universal quest for freedom, for dignity, for independence. And that's what this column below is all about; and in the end it is also what MER is all about.
PALESTINIAN OPPRESSION IS UNTOLD STORY Bob Cork A young man from that family was able, with the help of many people, to visit America last summer, and to live with us during a week when one of our sons had a bachelor party and another was married. Our "extra son" speaks English fluently. We laughed with him often during the week, and one night he said, "In our country we laugh in our teeth, but here you laugh from your hearts." The day he arrived we took him to a festival celebrating 175 years for the town of Orange. What impressed him most was that there were no soldiers at checkpoints to restrict our movement. At the wedding reception he enjoyed watching us dance, but he chose, as a matter of principle, to not participate. He was affectionate in word and expression, but modestly would not allow my wife to hug him when he left. When the laughter of our celebrations subsided we had serious discussions about common roots and current differences of Islam and Christianity, about cultures, about freedom. His grandfather was a farmer, but since 1948 his family has lived in a refugee camp. His father has no pension, and works beside Israelis who earn six times his salary, for the same work. We could not answer some of his questions. He asked why America gives money to Israel that we could spend on problems of poverty and health here at home. He asked why Washington treats Israel like a 51st state. We came to love a young man of honor who is committed to his family and to the principles of Islam, a young man who earnestly seeks to understand others, who dares to dream of a free Palestine. We have been able to keep in touch through someone who lives outside the refugee camp. Our extra son called us Christmas morning, when my son was home from college, because he knew it was an important day for us. After his own son was born, he sent a letter about a family party after the baby's circumcision, and then he shared a universal truth. "My wife, she's very busy now. She said, 'I have two kids now - you and your son."' Last month, he sent a disturbing letter. "We were frightened when Israeli soldiers came in the middle of the night. They cut off electricity to the entire camp. The soldiers broke into our house. They went into the kitchen and mixed the flour and oil and other things together and made a mess. They did the same thing to most of the houses in the camp. They ordered all the people in the camp to go out into the street. The soldiers said that if the people broke the curfew there would be punishments. They arrested 40 men from the camp. It was a very tight curfew, 24 hours a day." This story will not appear in Newsweek or the Washington Post, but it is one of the stories of oppression in Palestine that will continue to trickle out because a few more people are willing to tell the world the truth. Many more stories, like those of cactus plants growing from the graves of 450 destroyed Palestinian villages, are available just by typing "Palestine" into a search engine on the Internet and following where it takes you. Last summer I gave our extra son this quote from a December 1987 Parade magazine article by holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel. "Does there exist a nobler inspiration than the desire to be free? It is by his freedom that a man knows himself, by his sovereignty over his own life that a man measures himself. To violate that freedom, to flout that sovereignty, is to deny man the right to live his life, to take responsibility for himself with dignity." Our extra son could not understand how freedom could be a good thing in 1948 for Jews and not be an equally good thing now for Palestinians. I could not answer his question, because I don't understand it either. [From the NEW HAVEN REGISTER, 4/15/98] |
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