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2000-2001 www.arttoday.com
"Since the independence of Israel, I have no motherland
anymore. Look at me! I am in exile! I go from country to country
without finding a place to stay. I even lost my nationality! I am not
Palestinian; I am not Israelite; who am I? What is left to us is to
mourn our children your soldiers kill from their tanks.
Who is the man and who is the kid?
I wonder!"
Amina took the woman by the arm and jerked her around towards
the bird's nest where the mother, previously disturbed, agitatedly
flapped her wings in the air.
Then she declared, quivering with anger:
"If what you say is what you feel, then know the truth of your
blind folded extremism. You have treated my people as you have
treated this bird!
There is a Haadith in Islam that tells the true story of a bird. Some
men had stolen the eggs from a bird's nest. Our prophet (peace be
upon him) saw them and ordered them to put the eggs back into the
nest so that the mother bird would not feel the wound of the
separation with her youngs.
You Jews have the same story, but the finality is different. You say
that it is specifically commanded in your deen to send away a
mother bird when taking the eggs, because of the psychological
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distress she might feel. Your Torah says that a person who sends
away the mother bird will be awarded with long life.
Do you think that the mother will not suffer just because she does
not see her eggs taken away from her? Is it not more logical to see
that the family stays together as Islam teaches us?
And this attitude is so common among you people.
Up to you, King David would have chosen the city of Hebron to be
the first capital of your Jewish State. Expelling the Muslims has been
your unique attitude, so you could ravish their possessions. Of
course, with one third of the world's Jewish population living now in
Israel, around five millions if I am correct, how could you think of
living in peace with your neighbors?"
The woman's nostrils flared as she uttered harshly:
"And what would you have offered to MY people? In your
Islamic law, we would be considered dhimmis, which means no
more no less than "protected subjects". Our status would have been
the one of people under Muslim domination! We would not have
lived as a Nation. What kind of freedom would that be?"
Amina glared at her, showing her the dome of the rock.
"The freedom of Peace! Don't you call in you language,
Ye-ru-sha-la-im, the "City of peace"? You could have chosen
peace. On the contrary, you have chosen war."
"What choice did we have? People hate us. How is a lifetime of
hatred? We are through hate."
Amina exclaimed in surprise:
"Why should we hate you? We hate Zionists, not the Jews!
There is no place in Islam for hatred, except for those who are our
enemies and attack us. Why should I hate you as long as you
conduct yourself decently? Didn't Muslim countries sheltered Jews
in peace and this for many generation since the times of our prophet
(peace be upon him)?
Hatred is not the work of two people; it is the work of a whole
nation. How do you educate your children? In the idea that
everybody hate them? If you stop considering yourself as a victim,
maybe, yes maybe you could start to feel love for your human
fellows as your scriptures order it."
In a valiant assault, the woman declared, offended:
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