Submitted by Linah Alsaafin on Wed, 04/04/2012 - 08:55
Mo’men
Shtayeh probably owns a John Cena shirt, the WWE wrestler who the
Palestinian kids hero worship, their shrill voices echoing in
neighborhood streets of Cena’s catchphrase, “You can’t see me!”
accompanied with waving a hand in front of their faces.
Mo’men Shtayeh has seen and knows too much. There is a chance — nay, a
probability — that due to witnessing the Israeli army’s brutality and
severe oppression in his village of Kufr Qaddoum, Mo’men might have
grown up to be a warmongering Islamist (or perversely, a Tea Partier).
Mo’men Shtayeh represents a threat to the security of the Israeli
racist occupying state. Apparently, it is well known that due to his
savvy nature, Mo’men has been involved in drawing up specialized
blueprints to attack enemy bases.
So it all makes perfect sense that the most moral army in the world,
the Israeli Defense Forces, the fourth strongest army, the upholders of
the beacon of democracy and godly light, tried to arrest Mo’men on
Monday, April 2nd.
The thing is, Mo’men is two-and-a-half years old.
Murad Shtayeh, the coordinator of the popular resistance committeee
in Kufr Qaddoum and the father of little Mo’men, told The Electronic
Intifada that heavily armed Israeli soldiers raided his house on Monday
at 5:30pm. Two soldiers remained outside, two others went in the house,
shouting they were going to arrest Mo’men.
“Mo’men was
going inside the house,” Murad said, “when the soldiers suddenly took
off from where they had been standing. They came running to the house
like they were in a marathon, very fast and urgent, like a bunch of
crazies.”
The soldiers claimed that Mo’men had not a nuclear warhead, or a submachine gun, but the most dangerous item in the world — a slingshot.
“Of course
Mo’men didn’t have a slingshot in his hands!” scoffed Murad. “And even
if he did, so what? He’s a kid.” For crying out loud.
The soldiers were adamant that Mo’men hand over his slingshot (which
he doesn’t own) because he was using it to aim at the soldiers. What’s
more, they wanted Mo’men to hand himself over to them too.
Bashar Shtayeh, Murad’s cousin, was also present at the scene. “The
soldiers in the house drew their weapons and pointed them at the
family,” he said, “threatening them that they would not leave unless
Mo’men was handed over to them.”
An loud angry arugment persisted for half an hour between Murad,
other villagers who had come to see what the commotion was all about,
and the soldiers. The soldiers then left, having cemented yet another
moral meltdown in the occupation’s history. Not that they had morals in
the first place.
But what of the toddler? Needless to say, Mo’men was terrified by what was going on around him.
“What can I say, of course he’s affected by this,” Murad said. “He was very scared. He’s doing slightly better now.”
Kufr Qaddoum began its weekly popular resistance protests in June
2011, against the encroaching illegal settlement of Qedumim that is
built on the village’s land and to open the main village road that leads
directly to Nablus.
The Israeli oppression against Kufr Qaddoum doesn’t just happen on Fridays. It occures on a daily basis.
“Obviously, they
thought this stunt — whether carried through or not — would serve as a
punishment for us, but the truth is that it will not deter us from our
protests,” Murad declared.
“Every day and
night we have five to seven soldiers in the village harrassing us.
Sometimes they come in with their dogs and fetch cars and houses.
Yesterday [Tuesday] at 9:30pm the soldiers set up a checkpoint on one of
the inner streets of the village.”
Mo’men Shtayeh, your little two-and-a-half-year-old self highlighted
the absurdity, the idiocy, the shameful nature of the Israeli occupying
army. May the force of John Cena be with you.
