Amir..

Amir was nearly a man, a bright youth of Palestine. The oldest, Amir was deeply sensitive and responsible. He was protective of his sister and brothers. He honored both parents and was respectful to his mother. She is from a village that was brutal massacred by the Israeli army in 1956. Amir's heart was full of questions: about the universe, the life and about Palestine. One early morning he deeply looked to the doves in his maternal grandmother yard and asked his aunt what the dove thinks. Maybe he saw the dove as the advancement and as the freedom denied to Palestinian youth.

On June 28, 2000, Amir was 14 years old and just graduated from Tera Santa school, one of the best schools in occupied Palestine. Amir brought home his graduation certificate commending him as a top scholar of his class. His parents work very hard to prepare a good future for their children. For example, they bought Amir since many years a personal computer and they connect their home to the Internet since many years which was not obvious for Arab families in occupied Palestine even these days. Amir was an active user of the web. He used it to perpare for his class and to send emails and to chat across the world, also with other Palestinian and Arab children and youth. In his last email to his aunt he wrote: "i am very happy for you that you will marry.. we are very exited to see your fiancee. Don't foget to send me his email. we really miss u... we love u ... keep on touch.. and come home soon." This was Amir: a flourishing flower of his huge greater family, yes of Palestine! One of his graduation gifts was a shaving kit which was his family hope for his manhood. He used it once. Later that night of his graduation day he sat in the open air with family members watching a football game on television.

Suddenly that evening Amir was shot and died in his mother's arm. WHY?

Amir's family lives in the city of Al-Lid, just south of Yafa. Al-Lid is an Arab City. It used to be a beautiful city. In 1948, heavily armed Zionists emptied the city of its inhabitants at the point of the gun house by house. The defenseless residents were forced to march through the wilderness after they were stripped of all possessions and even of food and water. It was one of the most brutal events of ethnic-cleansing applied to Palestinian towns and villages. Jewish settlers occupied then most of the emptied homes.

Zionists continue trying to force all remaining Palestinian Arabs to flee. Yet Palestinian Arabs have a different agenda. Stubbornly, the Palestinian Arabs of Al-Lid grow and blossom. Amir was one of the most beautiful of those blossoms. In reaction to this silent resistance, the Zionists legislate Arab poverty and create ghettos where they actively encourage violence. Even while it is prohibited for Arabs to have weapons, some few are selected to be allowed to own them. Even missiles and rockets are available to those who succumb to this social scourge. Drugs and organized crime rule the streets. Streets where mothers pray their children would be safe and often are not.

In Israel there is a double standard. If someone kills an Arab then there is rarely any action and any punishment. But if an Arab so much as hits a Jew in Israel, then there is severe punishment and imprisonment without limitation. Police terror is often imposed on Palestinian Arab families for the smallest suspicion of offense against Jews. It is part of the continuing process of ethnic-cleansing.

On that night of June, street fighting spilled into Amir's garden. People say, the finger which pulled the trigger which killed Amir was an Arab finger. But this remains unknown. No police investigations no captives!. But even if the finger was an Arab finger the bullet and the gun was manufactured and motivated by Zionists and Israeli government. The pressure which erupted into a fight was legislated by Israel. WHO KILLED AMIR? Amir is an innocent victim of a war of oppression. Amir is a martyr. We honor him as SHAHEED (witness through death) of the Palestinian struggle to live.

Our dreams of Palestine, of freedom to live our way in our land continue. Amir's death makes it even more precious and more a duty to continue the honorable struggle in his name and in the name of all of our martyrs. The Zionists want to "clean" all of Al-Lid and Palestine. They want to have a pure Israel. So they destroy our youth - our flowers. But they will not destroy our dreams.

Amir's tragic death occurred just before the planned marriage of his aunt. The traditional Henna was ready for the joyful ceremonies. The timing was painful beyond words. The greater family decision was that the marriage must defiantly and bravely go on. A ray of hope appeared. Amir's mother is expecting a child. His maternal aunt married. Palestinian family life will go on even through pain. New dreams and new flowers will grow. Amir resists even when he is dead. His body lays now in a very old Arabic cemetery which was mauled and closed by Zionists and recently hardly struggled and freed, cleaned and rebuild by Palestinians. Amir joined the old Palestinians, as old as Palestine is. This is his way of continuous struggling as if he wanted to resist even when he is dead. Amir will not be forgotten. He is not lost. He will be reborn again and again until all his white doves take flight in a free sky in Palestine.