{"id":5628,"date":"2011-01-02T10:42:20","date_gmt":"2011-01-02T14:42:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/?p=5628"},"modified":"2011-01-02T10:43:28","modified_gmt":"2011-01-02T14:43:28","slug":"gaza-youth-manifesto","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/gaza-youth-manifesto\/","title":{"rendered":"Gaza Youth Manifesto"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/GazaYouthBO.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-5630 lazyload\" title=\"GazaYouthBO\" data-src=\"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/GazaYouthBO.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"229\" height=\"172\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB3aWR0aD0iMSIgaGVpZ2h0PSIxIiB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciPjwvc3ZnPg==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 229px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 229\/172;\" \/><\/a>A group of youths \u2014 students, in the main \u2014 from the Gaza strip have published the following <span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong>Manifesto<\/strong><\/span>, picked up by the Guardian in the UK from which I reprint it. You can also follow them on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/pages\/Gaza-Youth-Breaks-Out-GYBO\/118914244840679\">facebook<\/a>. Writes the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/world\/2011\/jan\/02\/free-gaza-youth-manifesto-palestinian\/print\"><strong>Guardian<\/strong><\/a>:&#8221;On Facebook, the group calls itself <em>Gaza Youth Breaks Out<\/em>. When the  cyber-activists wrote the manifesto three weeks ago, they gave  themselves a year to gather enough support before thinking about further  steps. But their text has traveled around the world at an unexpected  speed and has harvested thousands of supporters, many of them human  rights activists, who say they are ready to help&#8230; Now, the authors are dealing with the impact of a document that could be  a turning point in the life of the Strip. &#8220;We did not expect this to be  so big,&#8221; one of them admits. Eight people \u2013 three women and five men \u2013  wrote the text. They are normal students, from the more secular elements  of Gazan society. All declare themselves to be non-political and  disgusted with the tensions and rivalries that divide Palestinians  between Hamas, the rulers of Gaza, and Fatah, the more secular party  which governs the Palestinian Authority, based in the West Bank.  &#8220;Politics is bollocks, it is screwing our lives up,&#8221; said one member of  the group. &#8216;Politicians only care about money and about their  supporters. The Israelis are the only ones benefiting from the  division.'&#8221;<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: justify;\">The Manifesto<\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&#8220;Fuck Hamas. Fuck Israel. Fuck Fatah. Fuck UN. Fuck UNWRA. Fuck  USA! We, the youth in Gaza, are so fed up with Israel, Hamas, the  occupation, the violations of human rights and the indifference of the  international community!<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&#8220;We want to scream and break this wall of  silence, injustice and indifference like the Israeli F16s breaking the  wall of sound; scream with all the power in our souls in order to  release this immense frustration that consumes us because of this  fucking situation we live in&#8230;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&#8220;We are sick of being caught in  this political struggle; sick of coal-dark nights with airplanes  circling above our homes; sick of innocent farmers getting shot in the  buffer zone because they are taking care of their lands; sick of bearded  guys walking around with their guns abusing their power, beating up or  incarcerating young people demonstrating for what they believe in; sick  of the wall of shame that separates us from the rest of our country and  keeps us imprisoned in a stamp-sized piece of land; sick of being  portrayed as terrorists, home-made fanatics with explosives in our  pockets and evil in our eyes; sick of the indifference we meet from the  international community, the so-called experts in expressing concerns  and drafting resolutions but cowards in enforcing anything they agree  on; we are sick and tired of living a shitty life, being kept in jail by  Israel, beaten up by Hamas and completely ignored by the rest of the  world.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&#8220;There is a revolution growing inside of us, an immense  dissatisfaction and frustration that will destroy us unless we find a  way of canalising this energy into something that can challenge the  status quo and give us some kind of hope.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&#8220;We barely survived the  Operation Cast Lead, where Israel very effectively bombed the shit out  of us, destroying thousands of homes and even more lives and dreams.  During the war we got the unmistakable feeling that Israel wanted to  erase us from the face of the Earth. During the last years, Hamas has  been doing all they can to control our thoughts, behaviour and  aspirations. Here in Gaza we are scared of being incarcerated,  interrogated, hit, tortured, bombed, killed. We cannot move as we want,  say what we want, do what we want.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&#8220;ENOUGH! Enough pain, enough  tears, enough suffering, enough control, limitations, unjust  justifications, terror, torture, excuses, bombings, sleepless nights,  dead civilians, black memories, bleak future, heart-aching present,  disturbed politics, fanatic politicians, religious bullshit, enough  incarceration! WE SAY STOP! This is not the future we want!  We want to  be free. We want to be able to live a normal life. We want peace. Is  that too much to ask?&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A group of youths \u2014 students, in the main \u2014 from the Gaza strip have published the following Manifesto, picked up by the Guardian in the UK from which I reprint it. You can&#46;&#46;&#46;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,52,59,79],"tags":[915],"class_list":["post-5628","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gaza-strip","category-human-rights","category-israel","category-palestine","tag-gaza-youth-breaks-out"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5628","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5628"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5628\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5633,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5628\/revisions\/5633"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}