The Forgotten Refugees

The Forgotten Refugees

Imagine for a minute a different hometown. The grocery store is gone. You beg aid workers to throw a bag of flour your way from the truck. If you misbehave, nothing will come, except bombs, but they come anyways. A couple miles away a friend is hosting a dinner. It doesn't start until this evening, but you leave at 9 am to give yourself time to negotiate the military checkpoints. After enduring hours of harassment by soldiers you finally make it to the meal. Want to get some fresh air outside after dinner? Don't bother, it's past curfew, any breath out there may be your last. Certainly don't go outside to smoke, snipers use the glow at the end of the cigarette to locate your head. That night you wake up to the sound of the neighbors door being smashed. The father and sons you ate with the night before have been taken to prison for an indefinite amount of time on unspecified charges. The wife and daughters can still be heard crying in the morning. Another day of travel through the ancient militarized landscape and eventually you arrive at your pockmarked concrete shelter.
You open your door and find a letter from a prestigious European university. It's an acceptance letter for the program you applied to, you've even received a full scholarship! Studying abroad is going to be a life altering experience. Finally you'll be able to escape this existence, a way of life no human being should have to endure. The next day you apply for a student visa. You're told you can't leave because you pose a security threat. "But I'm just a student, desperate for a secondary education" you argue, "I wouldn't ever dream of harming anyone." Your protests fall on deaf ears. "Try again next year" the consulate officer tells you, "Next please." "My parents have been festering in this refugee camp for 60 years" you tell them as they shoo you away, "for the love of god please let me out." You're dragged out by two security officers and told to never come back.
Sweltering heat and the sound of distant gunshots wake you up the next morning. You eat a small meal and grab you lesson plan before heading off to the elementary school where you tutor. As you walk along the security fence, a large concrete barrier lined with concertina wire, you think about what life might be like outside. As you look past the sewage running through the streets and glimpse through the separation barrier you can see state of the art cities, glistening with technology, and human dignity. Kids on the other side of the barrier spend their afternoons swimming in pristine pools and playing normal kid games. The only children you know walk around destitute , looking for stones to throw at the tanks that drive dangerously close to them. Sometimes the tanks reciprocate. Instead of going to time-out, kids are ripped apart by tank shells or .50 caliber machine gun bullets. The tanks don't stop, they don't even open the hatch to hear the child's blood curdling screams. The kids stay behind, holding their friend. "I'll never throw another rock" the child promises. Soon the child will be dead, the family will mourn, no one will be held accountable.
Welcome to life as a Palestinian refugee. There are 4,618,141 of them. They live in some of the worst conditions on the planet. Most families have spent the last sixty years unable to leave their small, overcrowded, extremely impoverished camps. Their lives are defined by despair, anger, and hopelessness. If one fights back, they are all crushed. If they hold elections, they are divided and conquered. If they stand aside and watch their homes, family, and society be destroyed, they are not spared. The bill is picked up by our collective tax dollars.

What can you do?
Write your senators and congressmen/women and tell them no more illegal Israeli settlements.
Tell them you want the annual 3 billion dollar gift to the Israelis cut off until an equitable solution is agreed upon.
Urge your representatives to pressure the Israelis into letting out 689 students who have currently been accepted to university programs but whom are unable to leave.
Educate yourself about the Israeli occupation, because the press has apologetically abrogated their responsibility on this issue.