I never thought I would be so happy to come back home.   I am still disoriented and traumatized, and though I had taken pain killers, and coffee after coffee, I just can't bring myself to sleep. Early this morning while walking in Ramallah, I took a road that brought awful memories into my head.   Last year, I witnessed one of the Israeli forces' raids in Ramallah.   Though it was from a distance, it was a chilling experience to be totally surrounded by bullets and blood. I have just come back from Ramallah where together with my sister I was locked inside a building at Al Manara, Ramallah's city center, for four hours.   While we were shopping this afternoon, people started running, stores began closing up, and the Palestinian policemen fled from Al Manara.   Everyone was pointing somewhere upwards and there were two Israeli helicopters flying in Ramallah's skies. I cannot recall how I ended up in this building, but that was not the most rational choice I have made in my life since it is in the heart of Al Manara.   We have been living in an area of armed conflict before I was even born, with its bullets, sound and/or gas bombs, in addition to helicopters, but today it felt like a factual battlefield except that the battle was waged by a powerful side against civilians. Shots, gas, noises of the Israeli jeeps, bulldozers, two helicopters, nonstop bullets everywhere, screams and cries, inhaling gas, constant fear, not knowing what's going outside, and not being able to have a peek outside lest catching a bullet is rather insane. At some point, I felt that this was it.   And I will never get back home.   I could not stand the raining bullets and bombs; I could hardly tolerate the numbness in my ears.   The noise was getting much and much louder and closer while the locked building was getting darker.   I sat on the stairs and had my head against the wall. I was totally petrified not for my life, but for feeling what the other Palestinians have been through.   Those who have been attacked on daily basis in Gaza, and the kids whose only crime is being Palestinians have to live that without knowing what the next seconds hold.   I, on the other hand, was reassured by the young men who were locked in the same building.   They may have noticed my watery eyes, and said, "It's alright, sister, this happens all the time.   Now they will leave." Half an hour later, the shooting and noises of military vehicles was getting more intense, and I could have sworn that one of the bombs was thrown inside the building.   The ten guys who were by the window jumped away, and I almost fell, so I found myself hugging some guy. Eventually, everyone was let out after hours.   It was getting dark.   People were surrounding me from everywhere, kids were screaming, cars were crushed, streets filled with rocks, broken glass, and smoke, and hundreds of young men were carrying either dead or injured people.   The noises of shooting and bullets faded while the noise of ambulances dominated. I would never wish this to happen to anyone because it is much worse than death.   I am still unable to put things together at the moment, but I am so glad that I got back home.   The only irony is that once I got here, Al Jazeera was covering the Olmert-Mubarak press conference.   While they were sucking up, we were under attack. They were discussing peace (I guess), and they made sure it is being perfectly applied this afternoon in Ramallah.

She had to pause me.   After a sort of nervous beginning, it was hard to make me stop speaking on and on about this issue.   It is really hilarious that she asked me this particular question in the Oral Test — only few days ago I was tackling this matter with a friend.   “Why do you think people, from your country, immigrate abroad?”   The interviewer from the British Council asked me. I calmed down.   I knew that I can discuss this topic for one reason and one reason only.   For the last three weeks I have been hearing nothing but young and desperate students and graduates wanting out as soon as possible. The first thing that crossed my confused head as I heard the question was Abdul Qader; a smart colleague from the university.   With a scratched nose and pale face, he showed up at my door just a week ago.   Instead of welcoming him, I insensitively asked who scratched his nose, it was still bleeding.   ‘Life,’ he answered. The hardships of the real life after graduation and the endless responsibilities thrust upon our shoulders are haunting us, he tried to explain. I got really overwhelmed by his fragmented thoughts, and worst of all his incohesive phrases and sarcastic tone.   I knew the old talkative and active student with aspiring political and journalistic ambitions and passions; the guy who kept the sociology class argumentative and alive; the person in whom we saw a prospect leadership. I need to leave the country, he told me desperately.   I need to get to the States, I have to make some money and have a real life.   “Here, I am burying myself alive.” Still trying to digest his new aspirations for the future, I enquired more and more about his former plans of pursuing a Master program in the International Studies here at Birzeit University.   But then I heard the typical answer:    “No Money, No Jobs, No life!”   I saw this answer coming, but for some reason I fancied a different reason. Eyad is another intelligent person to whom life did not smile.   After two years, I finally saw him again.   With a black hat on his thick curly hair and covering his tiny face, he came for a visit to rejuvenate his feelings of worthiness at the university. “You are lucky to have found a job,” then looked around and added “my honor grades add more salt on my wounds,” he explained while nodding his head back and forth.   Eyad, just another Palestinian youth who graduated from Birzeit — although a nationally renowned university, has been striving really hard for a job for years. Now that nothing is working out with him the way he more or less wants, he is seriously considering the one and only alternative that young Palestinians have; the American Dream. Apart from the sexist impressions, it even gets funnier that not only young males, but also females have now set their agendas towards the Western Dream of getting a decent job and education.   I may have encountered six female cases in the last months aspiring for a better alternative, especially in the States. Husein and Suhaib, former colleagues in the English Department, have set their future financial hopes on Dubai.   They are leaving in the coming weeks.   Everyone is leaving.   Money, education, and the inseparable political situations are pushing those who could benefit their community out.   It is such a pity, but I am in no position to judge nor to blame them. Abdel Qader told me that almost forty young men from his village have wedded Palestinian females with American passports so they can immigrate easily.   This, unfortunately, is one of the common trends not only in his village but almost all the Palestinian territories. “Yet, I have a family to take care of first.   That’s why I haven’t fought for one of those American-citizenship-holders,” he sarcastically said. In such cases, I usually recall what one of my teachers once said.   He actually asked the class if we Palestinians were actually giving ‘the other’ the reasons to succeed in their agenda.   He, yet, chose another specific term for the ‘other.’   In this case however, I cannot specify it, not when those who can make a difference in their community may be giving in.

I have just found out that I studied in Jordan.   I swear I did not know that.   Well, that is not the only discovery about myself in fact.   Recently I have been learning new things about me as a Palestinian individual, all by coincidence.   For instance, few minutes ago I learnt that I took my BA degree from Jordan.   No, I am not losing my mind.   Or maybe I am. It is funny how when we Palestinians are striving to prove and maintain our Palestinian identity, others still perceive us as aliens.   It is as if the concept of ‘Palestine’ only exists in our heads.   Well, that was actually a comment by an American-Jew comedian years ago.   I can never forget that show. It made me feel as an invisible entity although I was still in elementary school.   But since then, lots of struggles to try to make our voices heard have been materialized.   Nevertheless, our attempts to make the world recognize us as Palestinians seem to be all in vain. Two weeks ago, a colleague from work asked me for some help with a visa application.   The place of origin was filled with the word “Jordan” knowing that he is purely Palestinian, and have never left Palestine.   Apparently he noticed my astonished facial expressions, but before I uttered anything, he said “all the travel agencies consider us Jordanians.”   I did not spend much time thinking it through nor arguing it.   I just chose to put it aside, at least until now! Yes, back to my anonymous nationality.   For the past month or so, I have been filling some schools’ applications.   Most of them are for American institutions.   It gets easier by time to repeat what you first have had trouble in articulating and then jotting down. All follow the same pattern, yet not when it comes to the nationality part.   Of course, there is never “Palestine” provided as an option.   It so crushes one’s feelings to find out that you are not really what you believe you are.   It is like being hallucinating while the whole world mocks you. For some schools, for instance, I have to fill ‘Israel,’ for others ‘the Palestinian Authority,’ or ‘the Palestinian Territory.’   Note that it is singular; territory rather than territories. Anyhow, we have got used to those variations.   And finding that the notion ‘Palestinian’ whether authority, territory, or any other affix is provided lightens us up. It still somehow reveals part of our identity, as long as it is declared.   It entails that we are visible, and we Palestinians are accepted and respected as well.   It brings back the feeling of being an internationally acknowledged national. But what really hits me the most is this last joke; we are Jordanians.   Obviously, according to this last application in hand, Birzeit University (my school) is in Jordan, and my BA degree is awarded, for that matter, from Jordan.   For someone who has never been outside the West Bank, it makes me really wonder how did I get my degree from abroad? Nameless and identitiless have once sounded surreal to me when I was drowning in the world literature and novels.   One never thinks that they may be actually applicable to human beings. It is like the classic English literature during Queen Elizabeth reign when women were nameless, or the African-American literature where human beings are alienated.   I heard that history repeats itself, but didn’t realize that literature will be humanized.

Early we arrived at Atara Checkpoint, waited in a row for half an hour, and then headed to Birzeit University.   Quite a déjà vu! Right before the entrance of BZU campus, tires were on fire, and grey clouds of smoke covered the premature winter’s clouds. Once we got on campus, a loud recitation of Koran was the only echoing resonance to be heard.   We just knew that today’s classes and tests would be suspended, and we immediately related it with Beit Hanoun inhumane massacre. Striking has become a ‘normal’ phenomenon here in the Palestinian territories; every once in a while we are obviously striking.   Schools, colleges, universities, and stores are getting shut more than open, and streets become suddenly deserted. There has always to be a reason though.   Once, it might be the murder of some Palestinian activist, the genocide of Palestinian victims, the incursion of the Israeli forces in some Palestinian city, the arresting operations of Palestinian figures, on top of that, we are still facing the Palestinian-Palestinian general strike exercised by thousands of PA employees who have not received a salary for the last seven months. All in all, we are a people of ongoing mourning! Hence, we can’t help but strike! They call it the “Autumn Clouds” operation, and it has been four days now.   Tens of civilians’ have been slain, most of whom are women.   During a peaceful demonstration in which they participated, dozens of women paid the price.   It was all through the news. A woman’s brain was completely blown — and not only the body.   A peaceful brain has been torn into pieces.   Unknown bodies were scattered here and there by the Israeli warplanes. When the region was finally recovering from the Northern Rain phase, the Southern Clouds operation is ‘gradually’ materialized.   One has now to worry about what may be hidden for both Spring and Summer! Women are all in black.   The horrific scenes are still haunting me.   How could a sane person commit such a dreadful crime against humanity?   The pathetic part is that at this instant I am literally chained to my desk.   I can hardly do anything after watching the horrible burst human skulls; I am merely checking the latest news on Gaza. I came across Ma’an, and it is actually funny that the story is concluded by “The Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip, especially in the areas of Beit Hanoun and Jabalia, continues.” For a moment, I subconsciously thought I was watching a scary movie, but cannot determine which part it is especially there is more to come, or need I say to ‘continue.’ In his response to this “operation,” a high ranking Israeli officer said "we want to show them [Gazans] the kind of price they are going to pay… [W]e want to deliver a message to the Palestinians that there is no where that the Israeli troops can't reach." The Israeli government is very ‘practical.’   Their messages are implemented in action.   Unlike our Arab brothers, so said the driver of the taxi we took this afternoon.   The driver is a dreamy person.   He nodded his head when the breaking news interrupted the music to which he was listening. He made some noises of disapproval whenever a new number is added to the total death toll in Gaza.   “Women!     They are attacking women now!” he yelled.   He believes, apparently, that one day someone will have sympathy with Palestinians.   Yet, all what I recognized was reproachful tones. I could not tell the exact words.   The music was loud.   A variety of Gulf and Egyptian music was playing in between the breaking news. Numbers!   The Palestinians are merely numbers.   They are made nameless, identity-less, and skull-less.   Does anyone in the world care about the Palestinian plight? That was a rhetorical question.   When the world is either biased or silent, the Israeli army will keep delivering shell-messages, literally, to our brains.