“What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.”-Oscar Wilde

Lately I discovered that the world is overflowing with cynics. Take for example, how the international community is disturbed about the Taleban’s destruction of the towering statues of Buddha. The UN General Assembly urged the Taleban of Afghanistan to honor their previous commitments to protect the cultural heritage of their country. A resolution approved by consensus of more than 100 countries beseeched the Taleban to take immediate action to prevent further destruction of what they call the irreplaceable relics, monuments and artifacts.

I discovered that if I were an ancient inanimate relic, the world would come rallying forth to preserve me and pronounce me irreplaceable. If I were considered an endangered species, there would be volunteers from every country who would diligently work to preserve what remains of my fellow cohabitants and me.

But I am a Palestinian from Ramallah. Though I am not inanimate, I am an endangered species. Yet, no one has rushed to my defense. No General Assembly has urgently called for my protection, there are not over 100 countries to beg the Israelis to save me and there are no volunteers from all over the world to worry about my extinction.

Because the Israelis have built trenches to isolate me from the rest of the world and because of the Israeli siege, blockades, closures, curfews and collective punishment, my very existence is at stake. I have been denied access to proper health care, to making a livelihood, from going to the market, from peaceful demonstrations, from attending classes at Beirzeit University and from visiting the sick who live across the barriers that have been set up to liquidate me. Every aspect of my life is being destroyed as I helplessly watch and while the cynics worry about the giant statues of Buddha half a world away.

Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon sheds his crocodile tears as he tells the world that he is willing to talk peace only when the Palestinians stop the violence. I know that the Israeli leaders are masters of deception but come on now, in all honesty and in all fairness, I ask you, just who is being violent?

I realize that ancient artifacts, relics, and mammoth statues of Buddha are valued more than Palestinians. I realize that my life is of no worth to anyone but me, though I myself believe in the sanctity of all life. My tears have turned to blood because of how much I have cried for the dead that are carried away in what has become not the rare but the norm. Palestinian graveyards are full of the newly fallen and every day, Israeli sharpshooters aim to permanently maim or kill.

Foreign Minister Shimon Peres said that Israel’s new government would take swift steps to ease Palestinian economic hardships and pave the way for a resumption of peace talks. But as his forked tongue wags, trenches are dug deeper, houses are shelled in the middle of the night, the IDF bursts into the homes of the innocent and arrests parents of terrified children, farms are destroyed, tress uprooted, and homes bulldozed. Yet I do not hear the outrage of the international community. I hear no one demanding an end to these daily war crimes that are being waged against the Palestinians.

Were I your inanimate historical icon, you would do your best to preserve and safeguard me. Remember, the world is full of cynics who know the price of everything but the value of nothing. My blood in on your hands and until you do something to stop the liquidation of my people and me, you will not be able to wash it away.