Palestine: Condolences to Dr. Mona El Farra and Many Others · Global Voices
Jillian C. York

The best blog posts in the Palestinian blogosphere are not always the happiest. While many around the world are celebrating the victory of the AKP in Turkey and the release of the final Harry Potter book, others are suffering.  We'll go first to the blog of Dr. Mona El Farra, of From Gaza With Love.  Dr. El Farra is the Vice President of the Red Crescent in Gaza and had recently finished a speaking tour in the United States when she learned that her mother was extremely ill; Dr. El Farra was not permitted to cross the border in time to see her mother before she passed away on Sunday.  She issued a plea on her blog last week:
I was always there for my patients and many people, to help and try to alleviate their suffering. In her last hours I cannot be there, my hands are tied. I am helpless, I can do nothing, I just have to wait and wait and wait. My throat is dry, my eyes are full of tears.
This is unjust, inhuman. It is the occupation. How can it come to be just and fair, when it is mainly based on injustice, aggression and cruelty?
Can somebody help me to go home? I badly need to be at home next to my mother in her last moments.
Good bye mum, I hope you rest in peace, a peace we do not enjoy in Gaza.
I'd like to express my condolences to Dr. Mona El Farra.  Karin of Munich and a Little Bit of Everything sent her condolences to Dr. El Farra as well and made her own plea:
IN MY NAME AND THE NAME OF COUNTLESS OTHERS I AM APPEALING TO EVERYONE, TO ALL GOVERNMENTS IN A POSITION TO HELP:
Facititate the OPENING of the border!!
Help to STOP the suffering of more than 6000 innocent people who are trapped and forced to live under inhumane conditions to at the Egyptian side of the RAFAH boarder since close to TWO FULL MONTHS, being injustly deprived of even the very basics!
Peace for Palestine, a blog aptly named, remembers those who have suffered and died for their country:
In Palestine, tens of thousands of people were murdered by the occupation over the past century. Each and every one of them is a story of suffering injustice and struggling for freedom. Most of them were exceptional people for facing up to ruthless circumstances and living their lives and dreams. Although they were passing through its darkest corners, they held on to their dream and saw freedom at the end of the tunnel.
Dr. Aref Assaf, writing for Arabisto, writes an open letter to Abby Leichman, an American Jew making aliyah to Israel:
While Abby will automatically receive Israeli citizenship, I will be denied that privilege and, if not thrown back onto the next departing plane, I may be issued a temporary tourist visa to my homeland. What a tragedy that so painfully encapsulates but never honestly conveys the very essence of the Palestinian people’s plight.
Dr. Assaf shares more concerns with Ms. Leichman:
Abby, the Palestinians will not share your worry about who will cut their hair or whether milk will be sold in bottles or plastics bags. Their worries are more basic than that: they worry about their next meal; they worry if they will survive another 1000 lbs. bomb thrown at their apartment. They worry about such things as being able to pass a checkpoint to make it in time to deliver a baby or receive a blood transfusion or to farm their fields. I am sure all these matters were left out from your glossy sales brochure as they somehow metaphysically never existed and if they do, they should not matter to you.
In our last post, I share with you an article from Palestinian Pundit, who writes that it is time for a new Palestinian Liberation movement:
An important task of this new movement is to encompass and give voice to the millions of Palestinians in the Diaspora. The fragmentation and the sense of hopelessness and loss which most of these Palestinians have felt since the formation of the PA has to end. The PA was intended for the Palestinians under occupation, but the Palestinians need something bigger and more encompassing. The plot is to end the right of return and make the Palestinian question a question of settling “the refugees.” We need a structure to represent all Palestinians and to carry on with the fight for the right of return.
Creative Commons-licensed photo of the Palestinian-Egyptian border at Rafah by Tierecke