[Mats Svensson, a former Swedish diplomat working on the staff of SIDA, the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, is presently following the ongoing occupation of Palestine. He can be reached at isbjorn2001@hotmail.com.]
If American diplomats are watching these demolitions, let us hear from them!
A portion of his article is below; whole thing is at http://www.counterpunch.org/svensson12162008.html
In the periphery stands a lonely American diplomat. He registers and takes notes. I am glad and impressed by his presence. When a house is demolished, he is there; when a family is thrown out on the street, he is present. And I begin to believe that something is happening. Someone far away will tonight read what has been written, pass it through the system, rework it, make lists and compilations. Destroyed house after house is put into columns, today there were four houses, so far this year there have been 86 houses destroyed. Someone is listing the number of women, the number of men, the number of children, elderly, sick, the ones who have lost, and by the end of January 2009 the compilation for 2008 will be complete.
I want to believe that this document will be there when President Bush leaves the Oval Office, when President Obama for the first time gets a moment of privacy. I want to believe that Obama has a moment of calm to read the report from East Jerusalem and that he then within himself again will think and perhaps say to himself, Yes we can, Yes we can change. Those words that have been exclaimed thousands of times and in which we all today want to believe.
Then the silence is broken. The house is emptied. Everything has been brought out and placed in a large pile. Toys, toothpaste, the sofa bed, the yellow teddy bear, plastic flowers, tables, carpets, refrigerators with photos of happy children. The men are forced away, the soldiers’ attentiveness is sharpened. Everyone’s gaze is sharpened. Everyone is looking at the yellow machine, the machine with the large axe, which reminds us of a dentist’s drill. But here there is no one drilling. Here it is not about being careful, here something is to be axed, struck, broken.
Everyone watches when the man in the machine from hell approaches the house, lifts the large thorn and begins to axe through the roof. The ground trembles. The man who earlier tried to cry raises his hands towards the soldiers who prevented him from approaching the house and then he aims his hands towards the sky, to the Almighty.
Hell is suddenly in front of me, clearly manifested. I stand beside the family that has lost everything. In front of us we see the machine that breaks into pieces, killing all hope. The young soldier who in a democratic society should protect the weak was not allowed to do so. I see spectators from near and far. Fellow beings, journalists, diplomats and activists. Children who are scared of what they see and who wonder whose house will be demolished tomorrow. I look around and see all the young, all the boys. Boys standing on the roofs, on the balconies, who stand in groups and who begin to talk, begin to point towards the house which is soon a pile of rubble and towards the soldiers. I see young boys who clench their fists in their pockets and who maybe think “Yes we can.”
The young boys stood beside me. They saw a family removing all of their belongings. They saw the family watching their house become crushed. I can guess what images they will carry within themselves for the rest of their lives.
I saw that too. Together we saw it on BBC and CNN. It is happening in the middle of Jerusalem, a few hundred meters from Via Dolorosa. In the middle of the hopelessness I begin to tell myself that this must be stopped, that together we can stop the madness. We have to stop saying that it is meaningless, stop all forms of the cynicism that has become part of reality amongst foreigners among diplomats in Jerusalem. There must at the end be some kind of damn law and order in this place.
Those of you who decide over your country’s foreign policy in relation to Palestine are really quite few. Few but powerful when you hold many thousands of families’ homes in your hands. Power must be managed well when your decisions affect the young peoples’ views on democracy and arouse and extinguish dreams.
My mobile phone vibrates. The UN through OCHA writes that three more houses are being demolished today, more people are about to become homeless.
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