A short Homage to a Palestinian Woman...
I've been watching one of my favorite programs called "Ziyara Khassa" - A Private/Special Visit, by Sami Klayb on Al-Jazeera.
Today's guest was a Palestinian woman, born in 1951, an ex-PLO member. Her name is Aida Saad. She now lives in Dubai, originally from Gaza.
Aida Saad though in her late 50's, has this amazing young spirit that shines through...
I could still see the 17 year old girl in her, who protested the Israelis and threw a grenade on a soldiers convoy, wounding four. She said she could no longer tolerate seeing their homes being demolished by Israeli bulldozers. She wanted to do something.
She was sentenced to 20 years of prison. She describes her years in Israeli jails.
She was subjected to what she called "very brutal interrogation techniques", she was also was badly tortured, physically/sexually abused and insulted...
The Israeli criminals did not content themselves with that, they also brought in her brother and tortured him in front of her. She said she could take it, but the day they brought her own mother in, to witness the torture of her children - that day Aida broke down. She could not see her mother suffer that way.
She describes the Jail. She describes the long corridors, with small rooms, each room specifically designated for a torture method. She says"one was for water, the other for electricity, the other with a small bench, one with hooks..."
One day she was called from her prison cell to identify a member of the PLO, her elder, by the name of Abu Nabil. She said she could not recognize him, "his face had lost all expression due to torture" and confirms "I frankly did not recognize him."
So they tortured Abu Nabil even more and in front of her. They stripped him naked, and had a thick stick, already covered with blood and another soldier was holding a piece of bread. So they asked her again,"Do you recognize this man?" and she replied "I swear, I don't."
So they asked Abu Nabil to go on all four, shoved the stick in his rectum and made him crawl like a dog and fetch the piece of bread held by the soldier. She still could not recognize him. So they tore her shirt revealing her nudity in front of him, but she still could not recognize him. He was "totally changed" she said.
She then recalls her years in prison, the complicity and the courage she derived from being with her female inmates. She said that the prison years developed in her a sense of fortitude, of defiance, she would have never acquired otherwise.
After 10 years and with outside help she was released along with a dozen others.
They were kept blindfolded for several days before their release and were taken to a special plane and were told they will never return back to Palestine.
Before boarding the plane, the Israeli criminals gave each some "water to drink" and forced each detainee to drink it. Aida took a sip and felt something gluey stick to her tongue. She pretended she was drinking this "water". Her other mates drank it all.
She later recalls that when they landed, all of them had "white lips" because they all drank the "water." She also adds that all of them later died of cancer except her. She did develop a brain tumor but received prompt medical treatment for it.
She is sure it was due to this "water" they forced them to drink.
She ended up in Libya and from Libya went to Syria where she was granted the Syrian nationality. Then from there she headed to Lebanon. But inter-rivalry inside the PLO earned her a few enemies. She decided to leave everything behind when one PLO leader told her " All your struggles and we can finish you off with two bullets only..." This is when she left and finally landed in Dubai.
She married, bore a girl which she called Palestine, and shortly after divorced, raising her only daughter alone. Her daughter is now married with one girl called Aida and lives in Canada.
Aida Saad was given "money and gold" by Sheikh Zayed of Abu-Dhabi and by other associations who would run events for Palestine, but she always refused the money and the gold and gave it all back to the cause - the Palestinian cause and its people.
Today, Aida Saad lives in a tiny appartment. She says that no one can get over the nightmares of torture, that she has no means to visit her only daughter, that her best friend, the Palestinian-Therese Halzon, who was also with her in prison and who also resisted the occupation, now lives in exactly the same circumstances - no money and forgotten...
Three years ago, Aida Saad remarried. She met an Iraqi artist who said he "fell in love with her strength and devotion to the Palestinian cause."He too, is in exile...
She concludes this Special Visit by saying : "I regret nothing, everything I did, I did out of Love for my people and for Palestine".
Painting: Iraqi artist, R.Al-Khafaji
Today's guest was a Palestinian woman, born in 1951, an ex-PLO member. Her name is Aida Saad. She now lives in Dubai, originally from Gaza.
Aida Saad though in her late 50's, has this amazing young spirit that shines through...
I could still see the 17 year old girl in her, who protested the Israelis and threw a grenade on a soldiers convoy, wounding four. She said she could no longer tolerate seeing their homes being demolished by Israeli bulldozers. She wanted to do something.
She was sentenced to 20 years of prison. She describes her years in Israeli jails.
She was subjected to what she called "very brutal interrogation techniques", she was also was badly tortured, physically/sexually abused and insulted...
The Israeli criminals did not content themselves with that, they also brought in her brother and tortured him in front of her. She said she could take it, but the day they brought her own mother in, to witness the torture of her children - that day Aida broke down. She could not see her mother suffer that way.
She describes the Jail. She describes the long corridors, with small rooms, each room specifically designated for a torture method. She says"one was for water, the other for electricity, the other with a small bench, one with hooks..."
One day she was called from her prison cell to identify a member of the PLO, her elder, by the name of Abu Nabil. She said she could not recognize him, "his face had lost all expression due to torture" and confirms "I frankly did not recognize him."
So they tortured Abu Nabil even more and in front of her. They stripped him naked, and had a thick stick, already covered with blood and another soldier was holding a piece of bread. So they asked her again,"Do you recognize this man?" and she replied "I swear, I don't."
So they asked Abu Nabil to go on all four, shoved the stick in his rectum and made him crawl like a dog and fetch the piece of bread held by the soldier. She still could not recognize him. So they tore her shirt revealing her nudity in front of him, but she still could not recognize him. He was "totally changed" she said.
She then recalls her years in prison, the complicity and the courage she derived from being with her female inmates. She said that the prison years developed in her a sense of fortitude, of defiance, she would have never acquired otherwise.
After 10 years and with outside help she was released along with a dozen others.
They were kept blindfolded for several days before their release and were taken to a special plane and were told they will never return back to Palestine.
Before boarding the plane, the Israeli criminals gave each some "water to drink" and forced each detainee to drink it. Aida took a sip and felt something gluey stick to her tongue. She pretended she was drinking this "water". Her other mates drank it all.
She later recalls that when they landed, all of them had "white lips" because they all drank the "water." She also adds that all of them later died of cancer except her. She did develop a brain tumor but received prompt medical treatment for it.
She is sure it was due to this "water" they forced them to drink.
She ended up in Libya and from Libya went to Syria where she was granted the Syrian nationality. Then from there she headed to Lebanon. But inter-rivalry inside the PLO earned her a few enemies. She decided to leave everything behind when one PLO leader told her " All your struggles and we can finish you off with two bullets only..." This is when she left and finally landed in Dubai.
She married, bore a girl which she called Palestine, and shortly after divorced, raising her only daughter alone. Her daughter is now married with one girl called Aida and lives in Canada.
Aida Saad was given "money and gold" by Sheikh Zayed of Abu-Dhabi and by other associations who would run events for Palestine, but she always refused the money and the gold and gave it all back to the cause - the Palestinian cause and its people.
Today, Aida Saad lives in a tiny appartment. She says that no one can get over the nightmares of torture, that she has no means to visit her only daughter, that her best friend, the Palestinian-Therese Halzon, who was also with her in prison and who also resisted the occupation, now lives in exactly the same circumstances - no money and forgotten...
Three years ago, Aida Saad remarried. She met an Iraqi artist who said he "fell in love with her strength and devotion to the Palestinian cause."He too, is in exile...
She concludes this Special Visit by saying : "I regret nothing, everything I did, I did out of Love for my people and for Palestine".
Painting: Iraqi artist, R.Al-Khafaji
Comments
Zionists are low-level people.
That's a shocking story. Aida went through hell.
It doesn't matter how many times I hear and read this stuff, I will never understand how one human being can do this to another.
My deep heartfelt wishes for you all Layla from Jocelyn
Hello and thank for your comments.
I work with ordinary Iraqi women in exile, and trust me they have seen even worse. But they are the silent voices that no one hears....
I cannot tell you how many times I found myself talking with some Israeli (always about 22 years old) who would shamelessly talk about the atrocities they committed, never even trying to hide their blatant racism.
Had I not encountered it time and time again personally I would not despise them as I do. Reading your blog is not surprising, but it still makes my heart ache every time I hear yet another tragic story.
Thank you Layla for telling the truth. I talk about you and your blog often.
Take care.
Hey, Number One Fuckheads of the Known Universe (commonly called Americans, excluding of course, the Native ones), check this out: The US Senate (that'd be your semen-slurping senate), has voted $165 billion to fund (Boy Wonder) Bush’s wars of aggression against Afghanistan and Iraq through next spring. (That'd be next spring, as in the one in 2009 – a year from now.)
As the US is broke and deep in debt, every one of those $165 billion dollars will have to be borrowed. American consumers are broke and deep in debt, so their zero saving rate means every one of the $165 billion dollars will have to be borrowed from foreigners. (That'd be Chinks, Hajjis, Rag-heads, Spics, Krauts, Frogs and who knows, maybe even a few flush Niggers or Russkies rolling in rubles.)
The “world’s only superpower” is so broke it can’t even finance its own wars. (Or perhaps, better put, the world's only stupidpower has crapped-out, repeatedly, but just can't drag its sorry, sagging ass away from the table. 'Hand me them there dice again, Slick. I know I can make it on the next roll'.)
But don’t take my word for it; the above tidbit (except for the parts in the brackets), is from the pen of Paul Craig Roberts, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration, who was also Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of The National Review. So although math and fiscal management have never been my personal strong points, one could assume they are very much so for Mr Roberts…, I mean, she-it Bubba, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration? Ya don't land a job like that without knowing how to balance the books, eh? More than can be said for the Boy Wonder or any of them there sycophant senators who can even be bothered to show up to vote.
So, the Little Smirking Chimp and his cocksucker cadre in the senate are not spending your money (you after all don't have any), he ain't even spending your children's money: he's spending your grandchildren's money, and probably their children's children's money as well. Being as how the swine shitting on the temple steps are not about to ignore your debt anymore than you are about to acknowledge the unfathomably irrational actions of your wing-nut el Presidente, y'all are fucked, and fucked good. But while you're considering the source of your burning sphincters, consider this: y'all are doin a real fine job of kayaking down the River of Denial, ain't cha? Well keep right on paddling motherfuckers, after all, y'all are so deep in the shit (and I ain't referring to morally here, I'm referring to the fiscal toilet. The moral aspect is really quite beyond your conceptual parameters at this point in time, is it not?), what's another inch or two of putrid pooter-squirt at this juncture in the American Experience, huh? I mean, this is the American Experience we're referring to here… the one that every other aspiring dumb fuck on this planet aspires to, cause they actually believe the horse-pucky you present to yourselves and the world… though no one other than those aspiring dumb fucks (and y'all) believes it for even a Microsoft-microsecond….
God Bless America… no other spiritual product of mass-delusion would even consider doing so.