Resumed Bombing of Gaza Will Be Crushing to Palestinian Students Shot in U.S., Says Victim's Mother

this news is funded by viewers like you please support our work at democracynow.org we turn now to Vermont where family members of Three Palestinian college students shot in Burlington Saturday night are arriving to care for their sons who they say were targeted simply for being palestin in in a minute we'll speak with the mother of Hashem aratani he was shot in the spine when he took a walk with his friends Kenan abdulhamid and tassan Ali Ahmed after they visited relatives while staying in hasham Grim's mother's house uh for Thanksgiving break all three have been friends since the first grade at the rala friend School in the West Bank two of them were wearing cfas the symbol of Palestinian Pride when they were shot their alleged attacker Jason Eaton has pleaded not guilty to three counts of attempted murder authorities have not yet added a hate crime enhancement to his charges the Associated Press reports Eaton had a history of domestic disputes that led police to confiscate a shotgun a decade ago NBC News reported Tuesday that another ex-girlfriend told police in 2019 Eaton had continued calling and texting her and driving by her house after she'd made it clear she didn't want to communicate with him and she' considered filing restraining order so often Mass Shooters um have abused women in their past at a vigil Monday on the campus of Brown University where Hisham aani is a student Professor Bashar dumani the Mahmud Darwish professor of Palestinian studies read a statement from Hisham I would like to start out by saying that I greatly appreciate all the love and prayers being sent my way who knew knew that all I had to do to become famous was to get shot and as much as I appreciate and love every single one of you here today I am but one casualty in this much wider conflict had I been shot in the West Bank where I grew up the medical services which saved my life here would likely have been withheld by by the Israeli [Applause] [Music] [Applause] Army the soldier who would have shot me would go home and never be [Applause] convicted I understand that the pain is so much more real and immediate because many of you know me but any attack like this is horrific be it here or in Palestine this is why when you send your wishes and light your candles for me today your mind should not just be focused on me as an individual but rather as a proud member of a people being oppressed that statement from Hashem aani was read at a vigil Monday night at Brown University's campus where he's a student hashem's Mother Elizabeth price joins us now from Burlington after traveling from her home in rala in the occupied West Bank to be with her son in the hospital welcome to democracy Now Elizabeth I'm so sorry you're here under these circumstances can you talk about how Hashem is doing and his friends the two other Palestinian students shot on Saturday night Hasam makes me so proud I mean he was lying in his bed um paralyzed from the chest down uh in great pain from um broken bones and in shock and traumatized and he typed out that statement to be read out to a vigil and I was so impressed with his ability to focus on others um during that in in this in this time of of of his life being devastated um he is in stable condition um he is going to be transferred to a um Rehabilitation Center so that he can live to learn learn to live with his injuries and then also hopefully um and definitely return uh on a path towards full Mobility we hope um his other friends um are also stable one has been discharged from the hospital um but is is Ser severely traumatized you know he spent 45 minutes thinking that his his friends had been shot dead um and then a third the third child or the third young man because they are children to me since they grew up in my house um is is stable and working towards discharged but they are all traumatized um and they are all feeling grateful to be alive and feeling the bitterness of the fact that they are receiving such attention and such support and such incredible medical services from the Burlington Community and the Burlington medical facility while at the same time people are dying under the bombs of the Israeli bombardment I mean the fact that the Israelis have started bombarding again uh the Gaza Strip is something that will crush them more than their injuries have crushed them my son said that when he went through the list of those who had died under the Israeli bombardment a few weeks ago he found that there were 30 that had his name Hashem and he has said in another statement uh to a brown newspaper he says to remember like he said in the vigil I am the Hashem you know and I think that um he just really wants people to be thinking about the Palestinians who were dying by the tens of thousands right now and and not to be focusing on him and I think this is something that he and and and is this is a sentiment that is shared by his friends as well I'm wondering if you can tell us although he wants to talk about himself as as he said a member of an oppressed Community think of all the people who don't get help when they're shot right now um in Gaza and the West Bank but if you could tell us about Hashem um I he's Palestinian Irish American is that right 20 years old a junior at Brown yes yes so um mam was born in America and is a a devoted Giants fan um he grew up in Palestine he's an Irish citizen because I was born in Ireland um and he's Palestinian because his father is Palestinian and um he's a you know grew up in Palestine he's a born mathematician he has mathematics in his family he once said to me that this numbers make him happy um and he is the type of person who he's a he's a polymath he's a polyglot you know he speaks Arabic English he speak Arabic and English fluently he has uh he's studying he's very good at Persian right now he's been taking Persian he took uh Kana Foreman college so he you know can write in an extinct language he has studied Hebrew and German and French in high school and he is currently studying uh Spanish and Italian at Brown um and he uh is doing a BC in pure mathematics at College he went in as math students and then when he took a um when he took a course in archaeology he was just hit by a bug for archaeology bitten by the bug of archaeology now he's doing a BC in math and a ba in archaeology not really quite sure how those two things go together but ham has the ability to just suck in information create this incredible database of knowledge that he can make quite rapidly um um connections with and then come out with a conclusion that he shares with people I mean he's he's a he's he's a computer and his brain um and yet at the same time he's very Soulful and and very philosophical and I think in the last few days I mean this hasn't even been a week since this happened to him in the last few days I've really understood how husham has the ability to have his soul and his heart Encompass his people and for him to be able to contextualize the suffering that he's had within what is is something that he sees as the valid uh the Dignity of his people so I think that is giving him great comfort there's an Arabic word uh suud which means resilience it's about the concept of of of existence being resistance staying on your land no matter what and Isham for me signifies and symbolizes um that concept he is like an olive tree that he can get cut down but he will regrow and and and that is where he gets the strength to be thinking about other people and about his people even while he lies in a bed unable to move well I think we can also see where he gets his Spirit from you Elizabeth um um and I'm lucky to be his mother I am blessed to be his mother I'm so privileged to have have gotten to know him in my life so can you talk about them growing up in the rala friend school we spoke with the head of the school who's now head of the whole American friend service Committee in the United States Joyce aone um talk about his experience growing up and uh ra where you live and going to this Quaker School well I mean life in in rala and life in Palestine is a is a beautiful thing um obviously we live under military occupation and so you know people are killed every day and and often they are children um and um children are arrested um and people are arrested and often the school is goes on strike because in solidarity with the news of someone being killed by the Israeli Army so it's a life that where you know when the school goes and strike that someone's lost their life and and the walls of the streets around uh the school are filled with pictures of people who have been killed um in and in in memory of them um but rala and Palestine is a place of family and Community it's a place where everyone knows each other and you feel safe my daughter who's 17 can walk home late at night in safety because everyone respects the other and sees the other as a member of a larger society or Community or family and so you're never alone and you're always everyone acts to take care of each other so these boys grew up together they did Model United Nations they they they talked and they did math club and they did chess club and they would come to my house on a Saturday afternoon um like giraffes you know as they grew up over the years and they would duck into my threshold and sprawl over on my couches and I would make them food and then they would cram themselves into his show tiny room and they would just talk about philosophy and politics and language and then just talk about you know just joke with each other and and then when they were receiving their college uh results um for those who had Adit applied to American colleges you get the results of like three in the morning in Palestine so they would stay out together and they would be on the phone to each other and and they would be there for each other so if as they one person up open their email and if it was good news they would celebrate if it was bad news they would would commiserate and so that helped them survive so much and uh the three boys um um who you mentioned hasham and his two friends are like brothers and I think that that has been so important for them after they were shot they were kept in the same ICU room for a number of days by the hospital because the hospital recognized that this the proximity meant that they could be with each other and give each other strength uh Canan who has been released is was the least hurt but was was deeply deeply traumatized IED by the experience that he went through when he thought that his friends had been killed and so by keeping him even though he could be released with the boys they uh the hospital was able to give them that comfort of being with each other and having that camaraderie and that Brotherhood sustain them in the time where they were just trying to come to grips with the hatred that had been shown to them the devastation of their lives and and and and and the crippling of of my son I'm looking at a report from NBC um at one event at Brown 20 students were arrested by University Police and charg with trespassing after they refused to leave a sit in outside Brown president Christina Paxton's office a friend of hashem's Daniel narden said that Hashem had attended a Shabbat dinner with some of the Jewish students who'd been arrested during the sit in and that they got together each Friday afterward and they talked about the alliance between uh between Jews and Palestinians uh who they saw increasingly anxious after October 7th Eliz yes um Hashem did uh up did notify um Brown that he felt am I'm safe on campus I hadn't realize that hem often wouldn't tell me things he was so busy with his life doing five courses and 20 hours of of work but he he did feel anxious he was active um and I have to tell you that when we heard about that Sittin um by the Jewish students we were we were moved um there's been such an incredible outpouring of support by Jewish activists in America um the concept of the Grand Central St Grand Central Station Sittin was something that reverberated around Palestine and and really um lifted our hearts and then when hasham sent me a picture of him at Shabbat dinner with these young people I just felt like he was in the right Community I mean the the when this type of thing happens when Palestinians are are so traumatized um and so abused by the International Community and and the ignoring of their rights my children um learned over over this last seven weeks what it is to be on the wrong side of of justice and I think for definitely my daughter um and Neely Hashem it opened their eyes up to what it is to be um a part of an oppressed community and and the opportunity for solidarity across that uh Jewish people have have been targeted for for Centuries by anti-Semitism um the other minorities in America the Native Americans have have been in solidarity with the Palestinians uh Black Americans so many different minorities have have reached out and and and been in stood in solidarity with the Palestinians and I think that that's the life that I want my children to experience to live in a community where they know and fight for the injust about against the Injustice the others suffer and that they know that the others are suff standing with them in the Injustice against the Injustice that the Palestinians suffer so that Shabbat dinner gave me great joy when I heard about it um people can go to democracy now and see we were there at the Grand Central protest hundreds of Jews arrested as they shut down Grand Central Station on a Sabbath night on a Friday night um if you can say what the doctors are saying right now Elizabeth uh uh Hashem has a bullet lodged in his spine he also uh his thumb uh what else is uh so hasham um from what I understand he must have had his hand up when he was shot and so the the bullet went through his thumb um into his clavicle and then I think it may have ricocheted against his his um scapula it broke a I think it touched a rib and then it went into the t2 of his spine so from what I understand that trajectory and that passage meant that the the bone uh the the bone slowed the bone slowed down the bullet which is very lucky because I think the bullet would have um severed his spine So currently the bullet is lodged there and there's a concussive impact which is meant that um that Hashem has lost um the sensation of of pain in temperature but he can feel pressure um from his mid torso downwards so hisem has to go through a long process of physical therapy to be able to regain um the control of his muscles down there um in the short term I believe that he will be able to learn how to live with that um he'll be given the um he'll be taught how to live with his disability and our long-term plan is to support him to be able to regain motion functional Motion in all of his body but my son has um an incredible mind and an incredible soul and he is already the doctors say that it's hard sometimes to get people to engage with their new situation and the Sham has been asking questions and inquiring and just taking control of it all with his with his with his curiosity and and taking the information so he can process it so he's tired and and it's a long it's it's the next step is is is is the next phase is going to be a very long process but he's very determined and he's a brilliant and curious and um I think I know that he'll be a successful no matter what he does he was shot in Vermont there's a three member Vermont Congressional Delegation you've got Becca ballant the first Jewish American Congress member to call for a ceasefire Peter wels just joined her the Vermont Senator and Vermont Senator uh Bernie Sanders while he has not called for a ceasefire he has called for Aid to Israel to be conditioned on what's happening in the West Bank on what's happening in Gaza your final thoughts on what you're calling for now Elizabeth as your son lies in the a as in the ICU thank you um I think one of the things that I really want to emphasiz is that there should be it would be irresponsible for there to be any discussion of the mental health status of of the perpetrator perpetrator there are millions of people suffering with mental health issues and it is a disrespectful to them um to imply that mental health is something that is leads to to gun violence there are millions of people in America with mental health can not pick up a gun and shoot and it is it is irresponsible to victimize the shooter in this in this case so any discussion of of of what his mental state was or his emotional state was is irresponsible it's also a double standard it is often applied to White perpetrators of shooting crimes but not to those uh who are non-white or of of of different backgrounds and particularly of minority backgrounds and so I I consider that to be unacceptable and recent statements by the media that have highlighted that have um they broke me last night and I I I I find that incredibly offensive that people would would victimize the shooter I would also say that it is time to call for ceasefire the fact that the bomb started falling on Gaza again today crushed me um I I celebrated Becca balent stance and I I applaud and I'm so grateful for Peter Welch's statement of an unconditional ceasefire the Palestinian people in Gaza have been brutalized by not just the bombardment by the fact that they haven't had they didn't have food water or fuel for weeks they just sat there and died um and I I I just I was in deep depression and mourning for seven weeks even before this happened to my son and my son would be I think redeemed in his suffering if he knew that in any way in any small way attention brought to the Palestinian people through his plight helped to make the decision makers in the American government recognize that Palestinians are humans and Palestinians deserve to live and if one more Palestinian child dies or is injured in the way that my son was injured it is a travesty that the SCH should not have to live with my son is receiving attention and the best medical care in in America if he was in Gaza or if he was in the West Bank he would have been dead in prison or just thrown somewhere in a in a in a medical facility without the support he would need to be able to uh recover from this so I am incredibly privileged and as is my son that he has been hurt here amongst this community who have supported us and provided us with the medical care where he is seen as a violent human being and I think in my son's name I call for all the decision makers and policy makers in the American government to recognize the Palestinian children in Gaza and the West Bank and in Jerusalem are also human and deserve the dignity and the support that that my husband my my my son is being provided with democracy Now is funded by viewers like you please give today at democracynow.org

Channel: Democracy Now!

Views: 288,778

Keywords: Democracy Now, Amy Goodman, News, Politics, democracynow, Independent Media, Breaking News, World News

Id: QlEUfJWMaRI

Length: 20min 38sec (1238 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 01 2023