13 Settembre 2018
Twenty-five years after the Oslo Agreements between Israel and the Organization for the Liberation of Palestine, a Palestinian youth born during what was supposed to be the “era of peace” tells how life has dramatically deteriorated and how the “Oslo generation”, elsewhere called “Millennials”, has been raised knowing only despair, occupation, conflict and disillusionment.
“Before Oslo it was never like this habibi [Arabic for ‘my love’]. I used to be able to leave work in Jerusalem, pick your older brother up from daycare in Ramallah and go to the beach for a picnic. There wasn’t a wall. There weren’t checkpoints. We could breathe.”
My mother who gave birth to me in the West Bank in 1992 uses this anecdote to remind me how things have changed for the worse since the signing of the Oslo I Accord. As usual, she is right.
Today marks the 25th anniversary of the Oslo I Accord, the first agreement between the Israeli government and the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), famously signed on the lawn of the White House.
I am also 25, a Palestinian refugee and an American, a curious mix for this dispiriting anniversary. The Oslo I Accord, once a symbol of hope and of imminent justice, is today just a metric—a stretch of time to compare the unbearable present with the unbearable past “before Oslo.”
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By MAEN HAMMAD per Time Magazine
[Continua a leggere su Time Magazine ]
