Stuck in Egypt

Was on my way back to Gaza to work after a brief hiatus to the US to see Yassine, when wouldn't you have it the Israelis closed the Rafah border crossing-the only route into Gaza-after a giagntic explosion killed 5 of their troops there. Well that means Yousuf and I have been stuck here for over 2 weeks now and counting.

Some comments on our status: an Egyptian friend of my mother's, who trying to be good-natured and seeing if I needed anything, made the comment that "its not a big deal, you must be used to this by now", meaning of course the constant border closures.

How can one EVER get used to the uncertainty of Palestinian existence? To being prevented from entering one's own homeland arbitrarily, spontaneously? To being in absolute lack of control of one's life-that is, to have another be in absolute control of your every movement? You cannot. And as Palestinians we do not. We live, for the most part, in a state of constant temporality, and this, more than anything else, has come to define us.