I love the way this poem emphasises on independance. How a young teenager feels he ALONE is enough to protect his land. However, at the same time he seems to imply that he has no choice; "i remain hopeless without a helping hand". I pray Allah gives us all the strength to pull together as a force united on the basis of unconditional love for islam, so that very soon we can become the hand our opressed brtohers and sisters around the world can reach out for. Ameen

Nadia. H

Infidel!!! Unclean!

An eye opener, This occupation is gone on for far to long, Abdelnasser Rashid is letting the the world know what is really happening, letting the world know what time it is, straight from the heart straight from the streets.He will succeed.

The Anwar Sadat above sounds like a racist.

A common misperception is that the Jews were forced into the diaspora by the Romans after the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem in the year 70 A.D. and then, 1,800 years later, suddenly returned to Palestine demanding their country back. In reality, the Jewish people have maintained ties to their historic homeland for more than 3,700 years. A national language and a distinct civilization have been maintained.

The Jewish people base their claim to the land of Israel on at least four premises: 1) God promised the land to the patriarch Abraham; 2) the Jewish people settled and developed the land; 3) the international community granted political sovereignty in Palestine to the Jewish people and 4) the territory was captured in defensive wars.

The term "Palestine" is believed to be derived from the Philistines, an Aegean people who, in the 12th Century B.C., settled along the Mediterranean coastal plain of what is now Israel and the Gaza Strip. In the second century A.D., after crushing the last Jewish revolt, the Romans first applied the name Palaestina to Judea (the southern portion of what is now called the West Bank) in an attempt to minimize Jewish identification with the land of Israel. The Arabic word "Filastin" is derived from this Latin name.

The Twelve Tribes of Israel formed the first constitutional monarchy in Palestine about 1000 B.C. The second king, David, first made Jerusalem the nation's capital. Although eventually Palestine was split into two separate kingdoms, Jewish independence there lasted for 212 years. This is almost as long as Americans have enjoyed independence in what has become known as the United States.

Even after the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem and the beginning of the exile, Jewish life in Palestine continued and often flourished. Large communities were reestablished in Jerusalem and Tiberias by the ninth century. In the 11th century, Jewish communities grew in Rafah, Gaza, Ashkelon, Jaffa and Caesarea.

Many Jews were massacred by the Crusaders during the 12th century, but the community rebounded in the next two centuries as large numbers of rabbis and Jewish pilgrims immigrated to Jerusalem and the Galilee. Prominent rabbis established communities in Safed, Jerusalem and elsewhere during the next 300 years. By the early 19th century-years before the birth of the modern Zionist movement-more than 10,000 Jews lived throughout what is today Israel.

When Jews began to immigrate to Palestine in large numbers in 1882, fewer than 250,000 Arabs lived there, and the majority of them had arrived in recent decades. Palestine was never an exclusively Arab country, although Arabic gradually became the language of most the population after the Muslim invasions of the seventh century. No independent Arab or Palestinian state ever existed in Palestine. When the distinguished Arab-American historian, Princeton University Prof. Philip Hitti, testified against partition before the Anglo-American Committee in 1946, he said: "There is no such thing as 'Palestine' in history, absolutely not." In fact, Palestine is never explicitly mentioned in the Koran, rather it is called "the holy land" (al-Arad al-Muqaddash).

Prior to partition, Palestinian Arabs did not view themselves as having a separate identity. When the First Congress of Muslim-Christian Associations met in Jerusalem in February 1919 to choose Palestinian representatives for the Paris Peace Conference, the following resolution was adopted:

We consider Palestine as part of Arab Syria, as it has never been separated from it at any time. We are connected with it by national, religious, linguistic, natural, economic and geographical bonds.

In 1937, a local Arab leader, Auni Bey Abdul-Hadi, told the Peel Commission, which ultimately suggested the partition of Palestine: "There is no such country [as Palestine]! 'Palestine' is a term the Zionists invented! There is no Palestine in the Bible. Our country was for centuries part of Syria."

The representative of the Arab Higher Committee to the United Nations submitted a statement to the General Assembly in May 1947 that said "Palestine was part of the Province of Syria" and that, "politically, the Arabs of Palestine were not independent in the sense of forming a separate political entity." A few years later, Ahmed Shuqeiri, later the chairman of the PLO, told the Security Council: "It is common knowledge that Palestine is nothing but southern Syria."

Palestinian Arab nationalism is largely a post-World War I phenomenon that did not become a significant political movement until after the 1967 Six-Day War and Israel's capture of the West Bank.

Israel's international "birth certificate" was validated by the promise of the Bible; uninterrupted Jewish settlement from the time of Joshua onward; the Balfour Declaration of 1917; the League of Nations Mandate, which incorporated the Balfour Declaration; the United Nations partition resolution of 1947; Israel's admission to the UN in 1949; the recognition of Israel by most other states; and, most of all, the society created by Israel's people in decades of thriving, dynamic national existence.

Ya Allah!
Please keep Filastine safe from the Zionists!
Please keep the Filastine people safe!
Ya Allah! Protect the children, the wives, the mothers, the sons the fathers...the family!
Ya Allah...Accept our duas!
Ya Allah comfort those in need and help those who need help; for you are the only one to help!
Ya Allah..I ask You for You are the one who can answer!
Ya Allah:Please accept this dua.

This is a reply to SONIA who seems to take the approach of "forget about the killing of innocent palestinians, the destruction of their homes, schools, hospitals, and lives. As long as the long gone jews get their long left land back, it doesn't matter".

I wish you had read the poem from the perspective of the child and given your view on the poem itself rather than attacking it by implying the child author has no home because the land on which his home was built belonged to the jews 3000 years ago.

So does that mean all the people who live in the UK who originally belong to different countries and aren't of english ethnicity should give up (if asked) their homes and businesses to people who had ancestors who lived here more than a 1000 years ago? And if we don't agree to do so then it's perfectly fine to be forced to leave with the use of tanks to demolish our homes and weapons to harm us.

You say Jews have the right to stay in israel and occupy palestine because God promised the land to patriarch Abraham. I understand what you mean because Abraham was the father of Isaac who is the father of the people of Israel. However, perhaps you do not know that Abraham was also the father of Ishmael who is the father of the people of Arab "...And Abram called his son's name, which Hagar bare, Ishmael.' (Genesis 16:15). It's not just Jews and Christians who have belief in Abraham, for us Muslims he is one of our beloved prophet who is mentioned in the Quran.

So what i'm trying to say is that, Arabs and Jews are semites, they are bretheren. However, Sharon is not a semite, his family are converts to Judaism, so WHY ON EARTH was he ruling this state of israel. Infact, majority of the people living in present israel are zionists, they are far from practising the true religion of judaism and many of them are likely not to have any ancestors who belonged to Israel from the time history you're talking of.

Another one of the claims on why you beleive 'zionists' have the right to occupy palestine is because 'the international community granted political sovereignty in palestine to jewish people'. This justification doesn't seem to make sense to me, because wasn't it the international community of the Europeans who massacred and forced the jews to leave in the first place? I know for certain it was not the arabs or muslims, yet they are being punished for it.


You also say palestine is not mentioned in the bible or "in history" but israel is, well nor is america mentioned in the bible, yet it's israel's best pal.

Finally i'd like to say how i find it strange why everything else, but the bible's prophecy of the coming of Prophet Muhammad is not given any relevance: "I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren." (Holy Bible, Deuteronomy 18:18). Do you have any explanation for this?

I hope i have not offended you in any way and am hoping you will reply as this is a chance for us all to gain knowledge.

Nadia. H

Asalamu Alaikum,
I want to post the poem that I wrote originally - the one above has some changes. The edited version seems to be circulating. Whoever edited it did not receive permission to do so. One change that is in the 'edited' version is the (merely) after farmers. It was not included originally.

Here is the original poem:
______________________________________
Occupied, terrorized, genocide – while the whole world is hypnotized,

Sixty years, incessant tears – no day passes by without countless fears,

For our lives, our wives, our children’s cries – yet the world turns away, and our spirits die,

For my land, I do stand – but I remain hopeless without a helping hand,
Oppression, suppression, depression – every aspect of my life, you’ve taken possession,

Our weapons are stones, to protect our homes – but your bulldozers win and terror roams,

Yours are tanks, helicopters, and military jeeps – to kill the young man, as his mother weeps,

You control our electricity, you control our seas – you control our streets, and uproot our trees,

You close our schools, our children can’t learn – you deny the refugees their right to return,

Suffering orphans, under your persecution – when they rise up, they face execution,

Families are separated, and farmers recall – the land they lost, by your Apartheid Wall,
Through your ‘diplomacy’, and your foreign relations – you attempt to justify and give credence to your occupation,

Palestine is my land, and I won’t let you take it – and while you put the world to sleep, I try to wake it.

Abdelnasser Rashid.
April 15, 2006.
11th Grade
______________________________________

In response to Sonia: Justifying the occupation by claiming that Palestine is a God-given land would be imposing your religion on those who do not accept your religion. But let us remember that this is not a religious crises; you fail to recognize the focus of the poem, which is the inhumane occupation. Instead, you focus on the one line in which I say "my land". Whether you'd like to accept the fact that it is my land, you cannot reject the other issues the poem presents - you cannot simply overlook the inhumane treatment of Palestinians by a Zionist occupation.

Abdelnasser - you speak for millions of Palestinian adults and children. Don't ever let anyone TRY to deny you your experience and your freedom of expression. Those that work to deny aim at hiding their role for and support in genocide.

Your proud sister in occupied Jerusalem.

Siham