Friday, August 24, 2001

Mom, the Palestinians are looking at me funny!

Israel continues with its policy of assassinating suspected Palestinian terrorists. 'Anticipatory self-defense,' they call it. Doesn't self-defense imply that you are under some sort of actual threat, not that you might, at some point, perhaps, fear for your well-being? If I decide the guy who's walking up the street might in the future decide to rob or rape me, I can't just fire a gun in his general direction, no matter what kind of funny looks he might be giving me. If I did and used this sort of defense I'd probably get laughed at. Yet the Israeli attacks seem to elicit nothing more than a disapproving frown and a shake of the head from the U.S—not even when these attacks also take the lives of bystanders. Israel continues to expand its settlements and bulldoze the homes of
Palestinians (who are, make no mistake, a people under harsh colonization and occupation—you’d be angry too under those circumstances), even in areas that are supposed to be under Palestinian control. And when they ask for neutral observers to be sent in, Israel calls it 'one-sided,' and the U.S. wields its veto power in the U.N. about and refuses to go along with it. We ought to be ashamed of ourselves.

(Please note that I am not saying that it's acceptable to blow yourself up in a restaurant full of people, but the idea of 'anticipatory self-defense' is absolutely ludicrous to me.)

Wednesday, August 08, 2001

A girl who IRCs on one of the channels I'm on these days is getting kicked out of the country by the INS. She's originally from New Zealand and married a US citizen. She has to stay in NZ until her visa goes through here in the US. That's at least several months. They've been married just over a year.

Jed has been a lot more paranoid about the whole INS deal than me. He's the one that has wanted to make doubly sure that everything is as it should be. Me, I figured we have a lawyer, we have our papers in, we asked our questions, now we just wait. Now I wonder, could this be me?

Unlikely, not for the same reasons anyway. But I suppose there is always the possibility that someone somewhere along the line will screw something up and not leave us with enough time to remedy it. And what would I do then? I can't imagine having to leave for several months, maybe years. There is nothing for me in Chile--there hasn't been for a long while, and some time ago I promised myself I would not go back. I know that a couple of entries back I said that I would have a nice if somewhat discombobulated life should I have to go back, but it's not true. I don't want it to sound like a threat, so I don't like saying it at all, but I know that at this point there is no going back for me.

Could this be me? My heart wrings itself into a knot thinking of it. For her. For myself a bit, because just imagining it feels like someone is cutting a chunk out of my chest. But for her, for her, because she's the one that will be at the airport in two days.