15th May 09 - 61 yrs passed

Abu Syasyah Village in Palestine was attacked by Israel terrorists. The villagers’ heads were axed and some were shot dead. 50 people died.

On the very same day, British ended their “colonisation” over Palestine and a new state was declared on the Palestinian land. The next day, US President recognised the state. The state is known as “Israel”, and the day was 15^th May 1948 (some of the sources mentioned 15th May 1948). However, Al-Nakbah is always on 15th May every year.

Since then, there were a lot of massacres done by the Israeli Army towards the Palestinian people. Palestinian lands were taken from the rightful owner. Palestinians were chased out of their own houses and they need to go to refugee camps. Those who did not flee, died protecting their houses.

And now, after 61 years the Palestinians were still suffering and the Zionists were still terrorising but, they didn’t call themselves terrorists. They call themselves “Israeli Defence Force”. The Palestinians, who fought for their land and rights, who rather die fighting than watch their wives and sisters being humiliated, who rather live in poverty rather than surrendering, who prefer their heads being exploded by the bully than to turn from the jihad call, were called “Muslim Terrorists” instead. I’m pretty sure even a 5 year old child will know how to differentiate between the bully and the one being bullied.

Last year, sometime between 20^th-25^th December, my best friend, a non-Muslim asked me if I hate the Jews. She asked because my housemate placed an “AL-Nakba” poster on our hostel wall. The poster stated that US is the country that funded Israel the most to enable Israel to occupy more and more of Palestinian land. My answer was, “can say hate, can say not hate. I don’t really know. Perhaps not”. I answered that because 1) I didn’t know what did the Jews do. So why should I hate them? 2) I didn’t want this friend to think that I am a racist. Because Islam does not teach racism. Everybody is equal. Only the level of taqwa that differentiate a human from another.

Few days later, Israel started its “Cast Lead” operation. 60 fighter jets known as F16 was sent to destroy Gaza Strip and its people. That was on 27^th Dec. I didn’t know it that time. Being somebody who didn’t read newspaper, I wasn’t aware of the attack.

The next day, I went to Genting Highland for a holiday with my family despite me having my A Levels exam in 10days time (at that time). When I got back to KL, I was told about the attack. At first, I took it lightly. Because I thought Palestine had always been attacked. So why is this one different? I had heard about the conflict about years thus, this one did not trigger me at all. Then, I went back to my hostel. I met my friends, and they started talking about the attack. And only then, I realised that this attack is exceptionally different. This attack is the cruelest attack of the century. Civilians were killed blindly, not only the army. I began to understand why people talked about this attack so much, why this specific massacre was given wide coverage.

And I started to take action. I told the friend (whom I told I do not actually hate Jews) that I hate the Israelis so much now. I hated them to the bottom of my heart because they killed Palestinians simply because they are Palestinians. My housemates and I painted a banner to encourage people to boycott American and Israeli products. We put the banner outside a window.

We were fortunate that our hostel block is exactly at the roadside. Thus, our windows were really the interesting "spots" of girls' hostel. So we were actually using that opportunity to raise a little bit of awareness. =)

Up till now, the issue of occupation of Palestine by the Zionists has always got a special place in my heart. But I am not a Jew-hater anymore. Cos I came to know that not all Jews are evil. Hence, I should not call myself anti-Jew, anti-Zionist might be a better word.

Unfortunately, the issue didn’t and won’t stop now. And had been on for 61 years and it will still continue, until a time Allah decide.

p/s: Approximately 2 weeks after the first banner, we made a second one. After 2 days, a warden came to my room and told us to take both the banners down. The excuse was, “to not let the outsiders see”.