It was 1987, and the first intifada was underway in Palestine. Perhaps, you have seen it before, either on TV, newspapers, or from a documentary a teacher used to play in your history class: the image of Palestinian teens throwing rocks at heavily armed Israeli tanks. To you, it might be unthinkable. Why would they agitate the situation like that? Couldn’t they just live peacefully with the Israelis?

Peace Please: Either the answer to the Palestinian question is one state or two, "If we're going to live in peace, I don't mind."

For Amjad Al-Asmar, it wasn’t just a clip on some news channel. It was reality he had been living with for 21 years – under Israeli occupation. And when he went to a flea market one morning, he saw Palestinians throwing rocks at an Israeli military bus. What he thought was going to be a regular fruit-buying trip turned into a bloody confrontation. Israeli armies started shooting at unarmed Palestinian civilians; not only at those who threw rocks, but at everyone in the area. Al-Asmar dug for cover. His grip tightened around the fruit bags.

And he was pulled up – by Israeli soldiers.

They threw him into the bus and started kicking, stomping on him until Al-Asmar passed out. He woke up again in jail with both hands tied behind his back, being interrogated.

“Who threw the stones?” a soldier asked.
“I don’t know,” Al-Asmar said.

A punch in the face.

And it went on. And on. And on. They broke his teeth. Around 15 Israeli soldiers hit Al-Asmar, who hadn’t eaten anything in 16 hours. He was weak. His body was taken from jail and dropped in the middle of the highway around 1 a.m. At that point, there seemed to be no chance for survival, but he was lucky. A firefighter saw him laying helplessly on the road and brought him home.

Similar to other Palestinians, Al-Asmar longs for his right – the “right to be a human being”, which he has never experienced in the West Bank. There needs to be an intervention, he says. The U.S., for him, is a father of all nations.

And he adds that if your father can provide security for your family, then the U.S. could do the same for Palestinians and Israelis who have been longing for peace all their lives.

(Amjad Al-Asmar works for Sharek Youth Forum, a leading Palestinian organization run by youth for youth. Its mission is to enhance Palestinian society through youth empowerment. Want to help? The Palestine Center for Conflict Resolution and Reconciliation operates in Bethlehem, Palestine to help the Palestinian community. ANERA also works to improve lives of refugees in the Middle East)

Popularity: 25% [?]