His name was Nadim Nuwara
He was a premature baby when his mother was in the seventh
month of pregnancy. When he was finally released from the hospital he
still suffered from jaundice. In second grade, a passing car hit him
after he played at the neighbors’ house. He was thrown in the air by the
force of the blow from the car, and after two days in the hospital he
was released. He loved to play on his Playstation and learned how to
type quickly, and sometimes even typed in the dark. At 16 he began to
feel grown up and rebel against his mother’s wishes. He loved her very
much.
A
month ago, when his father heard he was in the hospital, his legs
collapsed. On the way to the hospital he said time after time: “O God,
have mercy on us.”
I
have hope that these days, when so many people’s hearts are filled with
worry, love and identification with the fate of the three youths they
never knew, in these days when our hearts go out to the suffering
families, that these days will be a time of aspiration and not of
hatred. A time of hope for the fate of the families and the young men we
never knew; for families, some of whose loved ones no longer even have a
tiny bit of hope.
The
premature baby who was born to a Palestinian family in Ramallah, who
knew how to type in the dark, who was shy and innocent, who would kiss
his parents every time he returned home, who God did not have mercy on
his parents, was Nadim Nuwara of blessed memory. He was 17 years old
when a member of the Israeli security forces shot him at the Nakba Day
demonstration in Beitunia. An hour later another youth was shot,
Mohammad Salameh, at the very same place.
No
Facebook campaign will return the youths Nadim and Mohammad to their
parents, the Palestinians do not have an army to conduct house to house
searches, and according to the Oslo Accords they don’t even have
investigative authority.
These
days Jews in Israel and in the territories are very attentive, in the
great spirit of mutual responsibility, to the horrible suffering of
three families hanging between despair and hope, and if only that hope
could win. But what responsibility is this, what hope is this, and what
humanity is this if it is so completely blind to the Palestinian
suffering?
A
great majority of the time, for most of the Jews here, the Palestinian
suffering is completely denied. When it is not documented on video it
interests almost no one, and when it is documented it is repressed as a
conspiracy. What significance is there to the display of mutual
responsibility of these days if when they see the Palestinian baby who
survived a premature birth and a car accident, but did not survive a
live bullet fired at his upper body, in light of the documentation of
his death we do not become angry and give our hearts out to him and his
family; and instead we ask with estranged cynicism and in arrogant
contempt: “Why don’t they show us what happened earlier?”
What
happened before is that Nadim Nawara was born a premature baby, and
survived a premature birth and an automobile accident, but did not
survive the occupation. What happened before is tens, hundreds and
thousands of Palestinians that Israel has killed. It is the theft of
property and the stealing of land. It is roadblocks and control and
permits and searches and orders, and an entire mechanism that under the
cover of the big lie of temporariness built an entire system in which
the members of one people have determined for almost 50 years the fate
of another people: They arrest them, steal from them, question them,
judge them and sometimes kill them.
His
name was Nadim Nawara and he grew up and had his own political opinion
and went out to demonstrate and died in Beitunia in the Nakba Day
protest on May 15, 2014. He survived a premature birth and a car
accident, but did not survive the occupation.
Hagai El-Ad is the executive director of B’TselemB’Tselem:: il mio nome era Nadim Nawara
His name was Nadim Nuwara - Opinion
www.haaretz.com
When
it is not documented on video, Palestinian suffering interests almost
no one in Israel. And when it is documented, it is repressed as a
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