One of my first students when I came to the Middle East was a young Palestinian boy. He had earned a scholarship to attend the university. Remarkably, this young man had grown up in a refugee camp. His mother and father plus 11 brothers and sisters all lived in a tent. They had been victims of the Nakba (or “the catastrophe” in English).

Despite the difficulties this family encountered, my young student managed to study, earn good grades and win a scholarship to attend university. Now, 63 years since the Palestinian catastrophe, there are more than seven million refugees whose forbearers were driven out of their homes and villages by terrorist gangs like the Haganah, the Irgun Zvai Leumi and the Stern Gang.

The terrorist gangs, later called Israelis, destroyed and depopulated 418 Palestinian villages to be stolen and occupied by Jewish settlers.

Palestinians still living and working in Palestine and referred to as Israeli Arabs experience their own frustrations and hardships by submitting to the apartheid state of Israel. Writer/musician/ex-Israeli Gilad Atzmon discovered a moving poem, by an unknown author, that beautifully expresses the frustration and despair felt by Palestinians under the occupation.

I’m sick of The Wall
I’m sick of the checkpoints between Palestinian cities
I’m sick of illegal Israeli settlers and settlements
I’m sick of having the Hebrew language on my ID card
I’m sick of people not knowing anything about our history but knowing so much about Jewish history
I’m sick of people ignoring the Palestinian Right of Return and accepting the Jewish Law of Return

Can anyone hear me?
I’m sick of the Oslo Agreement which no one here wanted in the first place
I’m sick of the Palestinian Authority having zero authority
I’m sick of watching my father being humiliated at checkpoints by people my age and younger
I’m sick of my international friends having to lie about coming to visit; being interrogated, strip searched and sometimes deported in the process
I’m sick of people not understanding what “occupation” is

Can anyone hear me?
I’m sick of being scared all the time
I’m sick of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder being a normal state of being here in Palestine
I’m sick of how ineffective the UN has become
I’m sick of international humanitarian law not applying to the State of Israel
I’m sick of how fighting for basic human rights for Palestinians or being critical of Israeli policy is so often labelled “anti-Semitic”

Can anyone hear me?
I’m sick of the fact that everybody forgets I’m a Semite
I’m sick of hearing Israelis complain about discrimination when the State of Israel was founded on a principle of ethnic purity
I’m sick of living in a time when racial profiling has become acceptable
I’m sick of constantly being treated as a suspect
I’m sick of how mainstream media portrays us and our situation

Can anyone hear me?
I’m sick of the whole world caring about Gilad Shalit when there are more than 7,000 Palestinians inside Israeli prisons
I’m sick of trying to defend myself, friends or countrymen and being labelled a terrorist
I’m sick of the fact that everywhere I go I can see The Wall, a settlement or Israeli soldier

Can anyone hear me?
I’m sick of 63 yrs of Israeli occupation!

Whether in refugee camps, living in the West Bank or as Israeli Arabs, Palestinians have all suffered 63 years of being sick of Israeli occupation.