Discovering MENA and other thoughts

Mi nombre es Zeinab, tengo 14 años y vengo de un lugar del que hoy por hoy muchos estaréis cansados de oír hablar: la franja de Gaza. Mis abuelos, sin embargo, no nacieron aquí, sino en una ciudad, Beersheba, en el centro de lo que hoy el mundo entero se empeña en denominar Israel, pero que en mis recuerdos se llama aún Palestina. Desde que somos pequeños, mi madre se esfuerza en leernos todas las noches los cuadernos en los que mi abuelo Maher relata cómo era su vida allí, cómo le gustaba relajarse en su huerto de olivares, comer sandía con avidez cerca del zoco y romper el ayuno del Ramadán al anochecer con sus vecinos musulmanes y cristianos. También cuenta cómo las primeras comunidades de judíos en la ciudad se mostraban enormemente amables con ellos. Venían huyendo de la muerte que en Europa aguardaba a sus familiares y vecinos. Pero un día, el mundo entero decidió ponerse en contra de los habitantes de la antigua Palestina, y crear un estado para aquellos judíos, allí donde ell...

Last year, I wrote about how French prosecutors had ordered the reopening of the case on Yasser Arafat's 2004 death. Today, and according to Al-Jazeera  (the channel whose investigations triggered the Palestinian leader's exhumation), scientists at the University Centre of Legal Medicine in Lausanne have found at least 18 times the normal levels of radioactive polonium in his remains, thus concluding that it was very likely the figure was poisoned.  The report has only examined the question of what killed Arafat, without addressing the question of whether he was deliberately poisoned or how. Moreover,  Suha Arafat has said that "we can’t point a finger at anyone". Rumours have already been unleashed, though. The bulk stress the main suspects are either the Israelis (even though they have always denied they had anything to do with his sickness or death and to date no evidence has emerged that implicates them) or Arafat’s Palestinian rivals, aware of the man...

I am aware this article may spur some heated mixed reactions, but sometimes this is what a blog is for. I dedicate it to my good friend Maher, who (from the very beginning!) has shown me the true meaning of feeling Palestinian. This week  French prosecutors opened a murder enquiry into Yasser Arafat’s 2004 death, apparently after Arafat’s family (notably his widow Suha) launched legal action in the country over claims the veteran Palestinian leader died of polonium (a famous poison, especially after having been allegedly used to murder Russian opposition leader Alexander Litvinenko). The eventual rabbit's pulling out of the hat comes after a popular Al-Jazeera's investigation in which experts said they found high levels of polonium on his personal effects (particularly on his beloved keffiyeh), a theory apparently confirmed by a Swiss laboratory. Other hypotheses have been proposed (like this one in  Le Monde ) in the meantime. Fo...