The Price of A People

THE TRUE STORY
HESHAM GALAM
THE TRUE STORY
When I was a child, they left me alone; when I was a teenager, they intimidated me - treat me as an underdog, and when I was an adult, they destroyed me like a dog. I have endured the hardest training, unimaginable to many ordinary people. Now, as a man, they have opened my eyes forever.
HESHAM GALAM
Contents
Words of the author Part One: The Rebel / Israel 1966-1989 1. My birthplace: Acre, Israel 2. Street education in A cre: The early years 3. The Honey trap: Leaving Acre Part Two: The Fighter / Australia 1989-1992 4. Robinvale, Victoria: A town called Malice 5. Kill or be killed Part Three: The Pawn / Australia 1992-2000 6. Shape-shifters 7. Humiliated and insulted 8. Behind bars 9. Walking on water Part Four: The Wise Man / Israel and Australia 2000-2011 10. Homecoming 11. Retreat and suffering 12. Clean money; dirty tricks 13. Deliverance
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Words of the author
www.thepriceofapeople.com
My Australian citizenship allows me to speak publicly about my painful life story as an Arab Israeli exiled in Australia. I am illiterate and that is why my story has been kept in silence until now. With the help of the Australian Writers Centre, I have been able to compile my narrative and share it with the world finally, to achieve redemption and clear my name. I live in South Australia, where I have recently heard that people want to know more about the Palestinian clans of millionaires, Shahin family, living in Adelaide, South Australia. Shahin family had origins in Palestine but they immigrated due to the Israeli domination in the region. All of them impress with their wealth and their official domination of the market in fuels, tobacco, fast food, real estate, groceries, and investment funds in South Australia and across Australia. These uber-rich families provide job opportunities for Australians and for the Muslim minority, the possibility to pray to Allah in Khalil Mosque built by one of the family member, Fred Shahin. He and the older generation have still got connections with the Palestinian government, Fatah, in the West Bank. You can notice only good things about them because they have power and influence. However, this testimony means to explain how their behavior forced me to open up and speak out about the secret corruption we had been involved in together - against Jews. I am not a critic, a logistics officer, a financial expert, a sociologist, or an investigator. I am Palestinian man who was born in Israel and lives in South Australia - just like them. My ordinary life has been intertwined with these peoples corrupt operations, and my so-called friends have become richer, thanks to a piece of land in the West Bank in Palestine negotiated from the Jews in exchange of me. I did not have a piece from it, because I ended up on the Australian street hunting for bread. My Palestinian friends in Adelaide pocketed my share of the bribe, called the police on me, thereby becoming my greatest enemies. Many thanks to all of you who are about to read my true autobiographic story. Many thanks to all of you who can help me exact the balance and claim what is rightfully mine.
Faithfully, Hesham Galam
Part One The Rebel Israel 1966-1989
Chapter 1 My birthplace: Acre, Israel

My birthplace should begin my narrative because it means a lot to my life story. Not only because I love my birthplace, although I am an Australian living in Adelaide, South Australia. It is also a land of diversity, such as the juxtaposed beauty of antique history and modern infrastructure, many languages, opinions, backgrounds, - and religious supremacy. Add to that, political manipulation, oppression, military ghetto, war within pain and hatred in the hearts of the people of Israel and Palestine. Yes, I was born over there, in Israel; that controversial country with many followers but also many enemies. Those diversities of my birthplace forced me to be an Australian and see different places in the world despite loving my country was and being born into a Palestinian family. There are about one and a half million Palestinians living in Israel because they did not want to leave their country in 1948, 1967 or during the other oppressions in the 60 years of the existence of the state of Israel. Palestinians in Israel have had much harder lives than Jews. They have to be bilingual; the Palestinian dialect of Arabic is their native tongue while Modern Hebrew, which is used officially everywhere, is their second native language. Jews know English quite well because Jews in Israel love the United State of America but not many Jews in Israel speak Arabic because they generally hate Arabs. Palestinians do the three languages. We are the anomaly; the only Arabs in the world who live with Israelis and have Israeli citizenship and Israeli passport. The rest of the Arabs proclaim Israel as an enemy, or at least they act that they do not like what the Israeli government is doing on internationally and with domestic political affairs, yet nobody really knows the reality inside Israel because they are not allowed to visit us. As a result of permanent hatred, there is no possibility for travel exchange between Arabic nationals and Israeli passport holders. Palestinians in Israel should serve the army, but many Palestinians do not go to the army because they do not want to fight Israelis enemies - the Arabs. It is really awful to aim the gun and shoot people who speak the same language, eat same food and pray to the same God. Yet ultimately, even although it is very hard to make money and survive as a Palestinian in Israel, at least you know where you stand. You are born Arab in a Jewish country, politically indoctrinated into a Zionist state who does not like to see any other religion in Israel. You are born into your enemys lap, but you have a greater chance to be their friend - than their enemy. You can choose to somehow flow with the waves and survive day by day, or rebel against the system and end up in jail, psychiatric sanatorium,
addicted to drugs or dead. There are so many stories of men like that and I am the one of them. Still, I think that Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza have harder conditions of living than we have in Israel since they face different challenges. First of all, they have been exiled and the pain of diaspora is still there. Secondly, they are becalmed by Palestinian government in the West Bank called Fatah, who made them blind and hungry, they do not let the public know what is really happening between West Bank and Israel or how they work together for the mutual financial, territorial, and security benefit of each other. The West Bank is much more politically supervised by Israeli power than Gaza, and Fatah leaders are business people who do not really care much about Palestinian people in the West Bank, their needs, their daily lives, and struggles. They are interested in private profits, money laundering, and leaving ordinary people hunting bread. Life there is like a prison with violence, political games daily surveillance. As a result, personal lives are changed absolutely. There are about 600 or more check points run by Israeli army in the West bank. Between Israel and Palestinian territory of West Bank is a large concrete wall like in Berlin which fences in all of the West Bank. The wall has increasingly attracted international media attention, largely due to the immense scale of the project. Israels barrier, still under construction, is expected to reach at least 650 kilometers. People from the West Bank cannot come to Israel easily to visit their family and friends, work in Israel or pray in Jerusalem. They are stuck behind that intimidating wall and have to go thought checking points where they have their cars searched, are forced to turn out their pockets, and even undress. Usually, they are not allowed to go into Israel for any unexpected reason. Many Palestinians in the West Bank do not want anymore to go through this constant humiliation anymore. The Israelis claim that this security brings peace of mind because they can control terrorist attacks coming from West Bank much more easily. It may be very easy to do it but what about Jewish settlers occupying the West Bank and demolishing houses over there? I am not-satisfied that Jewish settlers siding with the Israeli army living behind that big protective wall in the West Bank could ever bring calm into the region. They should leave and pronounce West Bank and Gaza as a Palestinian state once and forever. Or the borders should be reopened and repopulate the Holy land with different political faces.
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Similar borders are around Gaza, governed by Hamas. The Hamas government cooperates with Iran, Syria, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and perhaps even with Russia and China through stronger allies. Hamas and Hezbollah, as well as Syria and Iran, are against bribery and business deals at the expense of the Palestinian people. They are against Fatah because they do business with Israel. The Jewish authorities hate these groups because the Jews do not know how to control them and take over the region. The current war in Syria is one of the next biggest briberies on the planet, all because the Syrian president supports Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran. This is an example of what political ideology can do with the lives of the public. I feel ashamed of all of us. That is why I do not like to follow any politics because listening to somebody with power make us weak, scared and half the planet deprived. We do not care that there is war or hunger in other countries because each of us follows the system given to us. I know it sounds so pathetic and we cannot do anything much about it because we are ordinary people who do not have the power to address the media and change the world. (Especially when six Jewish companies own 96 % of the worlds media.) There are millions of disempowered Jews and Arabs, suffering and living together, yet fighting each other like a robots of political manipulation. If we took off the masks of, religion and money and put everybody in together without any status indicators, we would be able to identify who is who? What would happened? Would people listen to each other again? Would they be back in love, discovering the others without roles or masks, fake faiths or jingoisms? I do not like the political separation of Israel and Palestine, with constant business negotiations and wars. I would like to revive the area as a Holy Land; Israel and Palestine together, but I know that it is impossible to achieve something better with current political ideologists on the both sides. I am very upset that the Holy Land is not about love and altruism spreading to the whole world, rather than hatred, killing, money-laundering, corruption, businesses and political ambitions of Russian and French emigrates who never even try to understand the Palestinian culture of respect and honor. I understand the political situation of the region much more deeply than ordinary people of that region who are manipulated to follow some ideas of others and even worse, to believe in them. I never follow any of political powers and it makes my life harder than I could ever have imagined. My life has been intertwined with politics and higher ranking officers, changing my simple life forever. I am not the naive and happy man I used to be: I now live with the pain of wisdom. Let me show you briefly my life and the situations I have been going through in Israel and Australia, to understand my sorrow and hunger for an
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apology and justice. I was a naive boy; I was a married man, earning money in Australia and living with my wife and children despite the serious drama behind our daily routines. Then I was a wanderer kicked out into the street, called a pariah, prisoner, patient, and rebel. I have emerged a survivor, ending up in a role of a remarried family guy. There is no happiness, however: the pilgrim in me is a very tired man. After all, I am 46 years old now. Yet this is my story of survival.
I was born into a Palestinian family on May 18, 1966, in a small tin house in the heart of the old city of Acre in Israel. A large concrete hotel adorned with dozens of Israeli flags now stands on the site of my stolen birthplace. My beloved town Acre lies on the Mediterranean coast at the northernmost end of Haifa Bay in Western Galilee. In 2001, UNESCO named Acre a World Heritage Site, as the founding of the old city of Acre dates back more than 5000 years. Acre is the holiest city of the Bahai Faith, because one of the Holy founders was born and lived in Acre. His house in Acre and final resting place in Haifa welcome thousands of Bahai followers every year. Historically, thick defensive walls protected an old stone town against the raids of enemies. The towns past has known many foes, including the great
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army
of Napoleon that was vanquished there. Legend has it that Napoleon threw his hat over the ramparts and saluted the majestic town of Acre. Locals say that the old city of Acre has been rebuilt seven times. People live in a maze of narrow alleyways, criss-crossing up and down like a rabbit warren. I talk about the old city of Acre where townspeople all know and help one another. There are about 15 000 Arabs living inside the old city of Acre. In 1960s, many Jewish neighbourhoods were established at the northern and eastern parts of the city as it became a new city of Acre, designated to absorb numerous Jewish immigrants from all around world. The old city of Akko remained largely Arab Muslim with Arab Christians and Bahais. The old city of Acre was always Arabic, despite some sources claiming that before Christ, it was Jewish and a current Jezzar Pasha mosque was once a synagogue. There has always been bloodshed in the Holy Land; yet with the beginning of the British Mandate in 1920, the killing intensified and it has not stopped. The local civilian people got together and revolted against the British Army along with the civilian Jews - who came to settle in the Palestinian land. It took intense hatred of this colonial invader to muster Jew and Palestinian side-byside. However, this Arab-Jewish alliance did not last at all. Now, it is an historical anomaly in the story of the people of this region. Palestinian perhaps understood that the British mandate was to stake the land for the Jewish nation which lead to uprising and clashes between the three groups: British, Palestinians, and Jews. Clashes between Arabs and Jews were in Jews settlements and mostly in Jerusalem. The old city of Acre was not under pressure from Jews; rather than from the British. The conflict escalated in 1948, when the first serious massacre organized by the Jews killed a lot of people. During the British Mandate, the Israeli paramilitary group, Haganah, was established. They were under supervision of the British army, but the Jewish military strategically took over the region by siding with other organized armed gangs (Stern gang - Lei and Irun) which left the British behind. There were several Jewish attacks on the British army weapons
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stores, killing British soldiers and mass murders in the form of terrorist attacks on British enclaves. Over the years, Jewish military gangs absorbed Jewish volunteers to overthrow the rule of the British Mandate and open Palestine to all Jewish refugees from Europe which Britain would not accept. It became These Jewish terrorist organizations were more successful than a peaceful military at keeping the region calm. Jews were the first to bring terrorist attacks to the region. Mass murders and killing crowds masse had never been seen before in Palestine under the British Mandate. Jews taught Palestinians to blow stuff and run away. It is a strategy that came from their hunger and anger after the genocide of Hitlers regime. I can understand that Hitler drove them to the edge of their humanity and, as they proclaimed in the 1930s, there was no difference between Hitler and Dachau, Buchenwald or British power in Palestine. It was before, but why over 60 years of oppression of Palestinians Jews do not change a piece and never say sorry to any Palestinians. So why utilize the surprise of terrorist attacks from the Palestinian sides, who had achieved nothing, were left homeless and whose relatives has been killed? Revenge is in the air, and nobody say sorry to anybody. In 1948, the old city of Acre was surrounded by Israeli armed forces and many Palestinians were killed. People say that the Jews even shot the donkeys and horses which carried Palestinians and their meager belongings as they ran from the massacre. Jews left Palestinians without homes, or transport, just as Hitler had treated the Jews during their persecution in Europe. When the creation of the State of Israel was announced in 15 of May, 1948, the Palestinians began confronting the Jewish migrants so psychologically wounded from the trauma of Diaspora. Jews wanted to quickly recover on the Palestinian territories at the expense of the local Arabs and 1948 was a catastrophic year for the Palestinian people. Several million Palestinians fled to neighboring Arab countries, to the West Bank and the Gaza Strip after the ruthless exterminations from their quarters. Exiled Palestinians remember this day 15 of May 1948 as a day of the catastrophe. It is called an-Nambe in Arabic. Every year, there is a sad memorial of expulsion from their houses which were destroyed or depopulated. People locked the houses and left everything behind and never came back. As the memorial of Palestinians is held every year, the house keys are a symbol that one day they will come back. But every year it never happens the way they wish. Nonetheless, the spirit of the horrible event lives on.
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My beloved Acre remained Arabic because people hid or remaining family members from nearby villages quickly took over the abandoned houses to prevent the Jews from occupying them and staying there forever. Only about 20 percent of Palestinians have original roots in Acre. The rest came perpetuate the fight against the Zionist power. Acres inhabitants were not willing to sell houses to Jews even when they offered much more than Palestinians. The honor and respect to our past was much more powerful rather than the Jewish in-comers who took over the old city of Acre and won the conflict of our great-great generations of Palestinians. As a result, the old city of Acre has remained Arabic until now, trying to preserve the Palestinian traditions at all costs. The old city of Acre is akin to an Arab community that stands together, whatever happens. It collectively remonstrates about the state of Israel, but its rebellion is merely a secret protest as Palestinians know they can be imprisoned for almost anything. Still there is a bunch of strong, gutsy people who advocates the right to be Palestinian in a confiscated country. Nowadays, the Israeli government wants to clean up the old city of Acre and accommodate only the Jewish population. For two hundred years, the old city of Acre was leased to an old American-Jewish association which threatened to leave the old city of Acre and move out into the neighboring villages. The association wanted to maintain the old city like a Jewish museum and house only Orthodox and wealthy Jews there. The place is so beautiful that it lures tourists to fall in love with antique history and cultural heritage and it is very obvious that Jews want to own the magic of the old city of Acre. Well, after sixty years of occupation, it has begun to succeed apiece. It bought desirable houses in the old city for relatively acceptable sums of money from the local Arabs who, after sixty years of occupation, are skeptical and hungry. The promise of decent money overturns all values. People forget that those houses were built by their great-great-ancestors, and they prefer to move into an apartment in the new part of Acre or build their own house somewhere in the villages. Nevertheless, Acre is still ninety five percent Arabic, occupied by Muslims, Christians and Bahais who do not want to sell their homes and lose the last and most valuable Palestinian heritage in the world. To entice all those people away from their homes may take another two hundred years. I understand that the Jews have suffered severely. Ever since their exile from Egypt, dispersal to all corners of the world and Hitlers genocide, they have been
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universally persecuted. Now, they deserve to live in peace. I am not afraid to say: May all Jews live in holy peace on their territory, and in their hearts and minds. I convey best wishes to them. Yet those wielding Jewish power should be fearful. They do not see or hear God. They only see their money, buyoffs, murders, and secret operations. They only seek to harm others and make a major profit out of it. In short, the so-called superpower of the Israeli government is inherently a mafia which does not want to settle peace with the Arabs but, with the help of the United States, only wants to manipulate and control the population through violence. Israeli authorities are afraid to release the reins, with cold sweat from the previous generations still soiling their hands. They do not want to be on their knees ever again. So, they oppress the Arabs: edge them out, sell them drugs to kill each other, bribe them to do dirty work for the State of Israel and against their brothers, and mistake lies for truth. I wonder if all that oppression and deceit is the price that Arabs pay for the Jews to live in holy peace! If so, is holy peace worth it? Or it is more appropriate to call it holy war? Frankly, if Acre was cleansed of hard drugs and corrupt government mafia, then religion, the love of God, and the joy of life would prevail. So what about me - a man who would have been infinitely happy to life and die in his modest hometown? The shameful deceit of government mobsters in Ariel Sharons 1980s Likud party impacted my life and changed it forever. I was a marked man by one of the Likud members who settled in Acre and started dominating Palestinians and teaching us how to behave. I did not dance to his tune and that is why I ended up in Australia. I am Australian after all, so I am free to say what happened to me after I left Israel in 1989.
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Chapter 2 Street Education in Acre: the early years
When I was growing up at the end of the 1960s, Acre was quite different. People were more at ease: helped each other, invited each other into their homes, and bought and paid for their neighbors bread. There were still not so many Jews around who had the guts to dominate strong Palestinian people living in the old city of Acre or even live with them. At that time, I loved the world, my hometown and its people more than I loved myself, so there were never any nasty surprises for me. I was safe and secure and loved in return. People used to call me Salama: something like a man of peace. I liked to be alone, even though I had many friends whose memory I will keep in my heart until I die. We were a bunch of carefree boys then, who would play the whole afternoon. We would hide in the narrow alleyways of old Acre, jump from a twenty-meter cliff into the sea where, every year during the sardine season, we would drowned cats at the harbor by the dozen and do the naughtiest tricks that take the fancy of a typical 5 years old. Those boys and I were forever hungry. Every so often, we stole a twenty-pound sack of potatoes from the market and then rammed them into a big fire. In a few minutes, the smell of fire and roasted potatoes attracted thirty other hungry children. Those spuds were gone in a flash. We quickly learned to handle burning potatoes if you wanted to eat that day. One potato in the mouth and one for the way home! The guys from the different parts of town were our enemies. They controlled another territory and had no right to enter ours. Its true we used to fight, but it was merely an innocent childhood. Every Christmas, our favorite fun was burning tyres at the lighthouse, in honour of the Christians and Jesus Christ. The smell used to reach Haifa. It was a kids paradise: the best and most carefree period in my life: the shouts and laughter of all the children in Acre, the smell of fish, the alleyways, and the everyday stories of its inhabitants. I am not from a wealthy family. I did not grow up on milk and cornflakes, ham and chocolate. At school, my mother used to wrap me a loaf of flat bread
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the kind used for yiros - sprinkled with sugar in newspaper. This was my daily snack, and I truly hated it, especially when I saw that some of my classmates ate mortadella or a similar sort of salami. Those were the children of fatter, more educated or more pro-government parents than mine. A few times, I remember secretly swopping my snack for a better one and wolfing it down. Yet I did not want my innocent classmate to stay hungry, so I put my bread with sugar in his schoolbag. When the meal-break came, somebody would start screaming and crying because they found my snack in their bag. Salama ate my food and put pita bread with sugar in my bag, they would cry. A child would blubber in front of a teacher who then gave me a horrified look, even though I knew he understood me well. He knew I meant no harm. I did not blush at all. There were other children who had bread with sugar just like me, and silently envied the piece of mortadella in my belly. Yet it was I who had the stronger will to eat more than bread, and the teachers wrath was no deterrent to me then. I felt bored at home: no friends, no fun, no food, no space. Our home was only two rooms for the whole family. I was constantly hungry, and I was happier outside, looking for food and money for my family. I was the one who, along with my father, shouldered the responsibility to look money and food for my three brothers and three sisters. They were younger than me and I was the strongest. I had many opportunities and heaps of work, especially after I was kicked out of school. Or rather, I stopped going there because I disagreed with my Quranic teacher. Once, when I was in the third class, he told me: Read aloud, here, this paragraph from the Holy Quran. I replied that I could not read. He took a cane, ordered me to put my hands out and then started caning me like an animal. If I had been struck ten or fifteen times, I wouldnt have minded. But he did not even stop at twenty. Asshole! I was totally pissed off, so I took a heavy chair where I was sitting and I threw it at his head. I did not show up at school ever again. Those old fashioned rules of punishments in Islamic school made it easy for me to forget to learn, and as a result, I started working during my childhood. Consequently, I have been illiterate until now. When I was six, I was busy doing all kinds of jobs: washing dishes in a restaurant, helping in a vegetable market, being a fishermen, with nets full of fish at five in the morning; I carried driftwood from the sea to the bakery of Mr. Fakhri; I cleaned a local cinema with other guys, secretly watching movies and cracking sunflower seeds. Besides this, every month, I piled up heavy bags with
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cement, my shoulder burning since the cement was still hot, and in the blossom season, I harvested flowers to make Hawaiian wreaths and then sold them to tourists. I was certainly inventive and I wanted to work. I loved challenges, and I was never afraid of anything. Knowing that I was right, I had to go for it. Once, an owner of a restaurant did not want to pay me for washing the dishes. He told me: I will pay you when I see a donkey on a mosques minaret. It is an old Arab saying which basically means that nobody can ever see a donkey on a mosques minaret and he is not going to pay me. I said to myself that such a jackass had to see what I could do. I got a donkey and pushed it up all the way up the stairs to the top tower of the Jezzar Pasha Mosque. I am sure nobody ever thought of pushing a donkey for half an hour up a forty meter spiral staircase, only to get a few shekels for the work I had done. I tied the donkey to the railing and hurried down to claim my cash. The owner of the restaurant laughed and paid up in the end. I think he even gave me a bit more. I grabbed my money and bought a falafel. The rest of the pay went to my dad. The donkey had to be winched down on a tackle, but it was not my problem anymore; it was the problem for the adults. As a child, I was so busy working that I didnt even sleep at home. At night, I used to sleep between fishing nets in the port and wait for the fishermen to return from the sea. I helped them with fish vats now and again; I took one or two fish and then sold them in the morning market or took them back home. Sometimes, I waited on people from neighboring villages, who used to come to do shopping in our market, and then carry their full bags back to catch the bus. There was a bunch of guys who used to stand there, side by side with professionals equipped with special carts. So not to be outdone by the competition, I made a cart from a wooden orange box, drilled on some wheels, and rushed back to the market. There is not much green in the old city of Acre; only stone buildings surrounded by stone wall and sea. Acre used to be a fishermans paradise and a market trading place over many centuries. People from villages and from far away used to come to the old city of Acre for shopping in the markets. Acre was a Mecca for everything: for gold jewelry, furniture, wedding dresses, all clothes,
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food, meat, anything. People used to come with donkeys and horses to Acre, stop behind the gate and go shopping. Yet today, everything is different. With new technologies and faster trade, people in villages have their own shops and cars to travel to bigger shopping malls built by Jews. The trade has changed over the years of Israeli domination and impacted my town also. Still, the old city of Acre is visited by tourist daily, villagers every Friday for prayers, in holidays, festivals such as Ramadan, Christmas and Easter, and by Jews every Saturday. There are many synagogues newly built in the new city of Acre but only one very old in the old city. Jews found it and restored it, now visit this holy place. Once, when I was working for a Jewish man in the market, he sent me to his house with a box of vegetables. He was living in a high-rise apartment in the new city of Acre. I had seen his daughter downstairs being punched by Jewish boys; we were young kids, all about 10 years old. I helped her out, fighting them all, but one of the boys from the Babaany family glassed me and cut my cheek. I have a scar even now. I met the same boy again 8 years later. He was a soldier this time. I ran after him and cut his face; I had never forgotten him over the years. This revenge was one of several reasons that Eli Sadon and Babaany mafioso deported me out from Acre after a couple of years. My grandma (dads mum) was the best grandma in the world. She was a tough woman, just like my grandfather who was a pretty tough guy. Their generation experienced freedom, French and British occupation, and the creation of the State of Israel. My grandma was born in Lebanon, and grandfather brought her to Acre when he was unofficially smuggling cows from behind the borders. Under the British Mandate in Palestine, it was forbidden to eat more meat than the rules allowed, and I think 100 grams per week for one person was allowed. The British confiscated sheep and cows from private ownership - simply all available livestock was taken - and people had to survive on the rations supplied by the army. They probably wanted to cut the supply of nutrients so that the people would not have the strength to rebel. Therefore, my grand-father - along with a few other guys - smuggled in live cattle from Lebanon and sold them on the black market to a local butcher, who on-sold them secretly to the people. People were used to doing things on the quiet - when the British were calling the shots - and since then, it seems that trait in my people has not changed. After all, you must be little bit shifty and bold to survive as a Palestinian in Israel. So when grandma and me snuck around and checked the harvest during
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the olive season, nobody really said that we were thieves. At night, when everyone was asleep, we were picking olives. It was not much - only two bags - and grandma would pickle them. The kibbutz was full of trees, and it was part of our stolen farmstead. But when the British and the Jews came, they started to confiscate the fields of the Palestinian people, paying them nothing in return or only paltry sums. Grandma taught me to go to the kibbutz regularly: later, I made a lot of friends there - mostly Jewish and Christian tourists - who used to stay around Acre for holidays, work in the kibbutz or cultural heritage tours. It was there I met my first love when I was 17 years old. Leslie, a beautiful American-Jewish girl, was a model and a very good friend of mine, but I did not have time for her since I already had more than enough to deal with. For any man, she was a complete turn-on. When she swanned through the streets in old Acre, everybody stopped and stared how beautiful she was. The boys in Acre were green with envy that I had her attention. I had the privilege to be her man at least for a couple months. Our relationship ended pretty unhappily as I had nothing to offer her. Her aunt, who lived close to Tel Aviv, loathed me. She would remind to Leslie that I was an Arab and that a Jewish girl could not date a Palestinian. Most of the Israelis are like her: prejudice, paranoid and politically indoctrinated. I know many mixed couples who just clicked perfectly, so why provoke open conflict? We are all from the same dough Isaac and Ishmael - so what is this huge difference? I will never understand. Later, I had to hide from Leslie and other girls because I loved to be free. My duality of feeling confused me - I was a local Palestinian boy yet shunned by others in my own country. On the threshold of manhood, ethnic dejection and division was an emergent feeling at that time. Yet I never felt second class in my heart: I knew I was true and good and strong. So I liked to be alone on the cliffs at the sea. Standing and gazing out over the coast eased my mind and fed my soul. In the great expanse of ocean, I knew I was grounded in this place. The soil under my feet and the Mediterranean in my hair was my piece of paradise.
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Chapter 3 The Honey-trap: leaving Acre
In the 1980s, there was more and more tension in the air. Before 1982, most of the Palestinians in Israel joyfully celebrated the day of Israels Declaration of Independence. They somehow forgot the 1948 massacre and started merging with the state of Israel and the challenges that came within. The Arabs had flags in their windows, threw parties and picnics, and grilled meat like it was Christmas. However, after Ariel Sharon with the Lebanese army had destroyed the Palestinian camp, Sabra Shatila, in Lebanon in 1982, there was no Arab in Israel who would celebrate as they had done in the past. If you had an Israeli flag in the window, you risked being kicked in the ass by your neighbours; hatred for what had happened in the Lebanese camp was really significant. Since then, Palestinians in Israel have kept the memorial an-Nakba aside from the exiled Palestinians. In the Lebanese camp, Sabra Shatila, more than 3 000 Palestinian civilians were killed. In 2001, Sharon faced the court in Belgium for war crimes. It was stated there that the main commander of the Lebanese army in the Sabra Shatila massacre and the former MP Hobeika, would had been on trial against Sharon; however, , he was conveniently assassinated in 2002 when a car bomb detonated near his house in the Beirut. The trial against Sharon did not proceed. Everybody said that Israelis killed him to redeem Sharon from true justice and a fall from power through the court system. Sharons military power and experience was significant brainwashing for so many Jews who became his followers. Sharon was born in Palestine under the British Mandate in 1928. He became a soldier in Haganah, the mentioned armed organization. He was the one who clean up the Palestinian people in 1948. Maybe he was in the old city of Acre and shot a couple of innocent Palestinians. Later, he became a commander, intelligent officer, and politician. Sharon was one of the founding members of the political part, Likud, in 1970s
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along with Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir. It is the most aggressive party in Israel towards the Palestinians and Arabs, supporting Israeli settlements in the West Bank and advocating the entire region be given as land for Israel. The Likud party rejects a Palestinian state. Sharon has been in comma since 2006; God willing, a punishment for mass butchery. Since 2009, Benjamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister is the last well-known leader of Likud. In the 70s and 80s, Acre was under more pressure because that time brought new Jews immigrants who tried to keep people of Acre under supervision. Yet it was never successful enough. One day, Eli Sadon arrived from France; he started to systematically build up his stature in the city. I remember him when he settled in Acre; initially, he was pretty innocent but shifty with it. After a couple years, he became politically active - how else to be seen? - and became a member of the Likud party. All these proactive members knew each other and he became a friend of Ariel Sharon, Benjamin Netanyahu, made connections with Shabak (the Israeli police) and the drug mafia (Babaany family). Sadon developed a mortal hatred for all Arabs only because Likud despised the Arabs. Sadon was not so aggressive towards Arabs when he first arrived in Acre but perhaps the promise of a better post in the government made him greedy enough to change his colours in one day. Jews wanted to own Acre and any strong gutsy Palestinian from Acre who could lead the crowd against them must be knocked out of the ring. That way, Jews had easier control of the quiet crowd and could dictate accordingly. When I look back, I believe that Sadon wanted to show off his commitment to the state of Israel. His unquestionable power, which allowed him to decide who had the right to live in Acre, who had to be destroyed, or better yet, silently erased, so as not to undermined the morale of the community was a big surprise for me. I was the one who never really feared that much governmental supervision. I did not care about them and I did my daily routines, hanging up with friends and tourists, travelling in Israel and being the man of the Acre people. I was openly against the terror oppressing Acres Palestinian population because I love my people and I kept the tradition of fighting for our lives as generations did before with the first arrival of enemies who wanted to steal and dominate. Nothing much has changed. I was a naive boy, 18 years old without education, but traversing all sorts of forbidden places. I was growing up free, like a wild Mustang who instinctively
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knows how to slip through the knot. I had one pair of worn flipflops, ripped boxers held together with running repairs, and often no T-shirt. This dark square-built guy full of vigor and vitality always took from the rich and helped the poor. I had a character that meant I lived most happily when looking out for my people who couldnt support themselves. It was like a calling; something that satisfied me and I was good at. I was strong, brave, and always protecting ordinary Palestinian people against arrogant governments and authority, injustice and disputes between people. From a very young age, I had also known it was the right way to be. However, if you lead a free life in a confined country, all this virtue and pride is totally useless. You must be a rat to satisfy others rolled up sleeves and no sharp tongue. I have to admit I was pretty tough compared to others. After the Sabra Shatila massacre, this became more and more obvious in my community, and I became a target for new Jewish immigrants who wanted to test their dominance over a young Palestinian. Several times, I helped where it was necessary, but the authorities did not see it as altruism, rather as sabotage. Power is dangerous if it isnt being controlled; a threat! So the Israelis certainly wanted to play me like a fiddle. But dancing to their tune was not in my nature. That was where the problems began. I did not know it but over several crackdowns, I had been observed by that man I have already mentioned - Eli Sadon, whose public face was seen in an Audi and whose butt face was seen in tight-fitting thongs! He had perfectly mastered human psychology: he knew how to behave and how to act to make everything look innocent. If someone like me appeared on the scene - a maverick, an unclassifiable person loved by his community, an expendable asset Sadon believed he must be dealt with expediently before he grew into something even more dangerous in the eyes of the Israeli government. Worse of all, they knew there were more Palestinian guys like me who were strong and gutsy just because they were born into the Jewish lap. They had been taken out of the ring by government mafioso before they grew up. Years later, when I was already living in Australia, I recalled my very good friend, Ibrahim Amar. He was my age, a sporty fellow who conducted business, was the best diver ever, and a good mechanic. He was successful and such a happy guy since he was able to say
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what he really thought and people loved him for all these reasons. However, the Likud nobility (with Eli Sadon in essence, who keeps the Likud power in Acre) did not like him, so they set a honey-trap to ensnare him and make a junkie out of him. They sent him a beautiful French girl and they fell in love. Together, they went to the neighbouring town of Nahariya. They lived there in the bungalows, while that beautiful Frenchwoman was giving him heroin. She was a user too but only to increase the credibility of her story. Slowly, she made a total addict of him. When he was at rock bottom - no money and hooked on heroin - she took him to Eilat at the Red Sea, and this lovely Frenchwoman left him near the Egyptian border. She received a wad of money from Likud for another destroyed Palestinian life. The Israeli mafia bribes people from all around the world to destroy strong and upstanding Palestinians. The government mafia destroys Palestinian brains and makes empty shells out of vibrant young Palestinians if you do not barking when they whistle. I was so shocked to find out Ibrahims life story after so many years. He never recovered. His sadness absolutely ruined his life forever. I did not know that I was in similar position in Australia just as Ibrahim was back home. I believe there are many other Palestinian guys whose stories have never been told. This way of thinking was far beyond the realms of a twenty-year old guy like me. I was naive goodhearted, and my thoughts were far from being deceitful and vile. I was busy living my life amongst my beloved people. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that I could be one of those faceless victims of the government: an ordinary guy who, in a few years, would be secretly deported from his hometown to find himself in Australia, with nobody to take him under his wing and with all the odds stacked against him. He would look longingly for a way back home, as I did. Yet this fighter was not accustomed to being victimized, although I had no clue that I was a sitting duck for Sadon. He needed only to wait for an opportunity to get me into trouble, and then the game was on. Once, Sadon closed the beach in the old city of Acre to the public and started to collect entrance fees from the locals. It was only small beach, no more than 150 meters long which had been used over the years by inhabitants of the old city of Acre. Mothers and grandmothers would take kids to swim over there. It was much more for local Muslims who do not swim in bikinis rather than for strangers. Two kilometers away is a huge beach for everybody where you do not need to pay and you do not have the rules about what to wear. So when our little beach was also confiscated by Sadon, it made the community very angry. My dad had won the heart of Sadon (to be closer to me) and was doing ticket sales and beach keeping for him. I helped Sadon to clean up big stones from the
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beach and move an old boat wreck which had sat in the bay for over 40 years. Later, I took over my dads job because people were not used to paying and quarreled with my father. At that time, West Bank people could come over to Acre, but that situation changed a couple of years ago. Palestinians used to be able to work in Israel and many did because they were much better paid than in the West Bank. That was all shot down; barriers, fences and walls were erected and thousands of armed checkpoints were established. Two buses full of Palestinians from the West Bank arrived one day and as usual, and they all wanted to jump in the sea and cool down after their journey. These Palestinian tourists were sweaty and angry, and when my father said in Arabic that everyone had to pay, they began yelling to each other that they would not pay this traitor who worked for the Jews. They pitched into my dad, and he proudly fought with two busloads of Palestinians. At that time, I was working up in a dance club. It was a leisure club (staging shows) and I was the ticket guy. I also used to arrange chairs, wipe the floor, and take care of the guests. Suddenly, someone called me: Salama, your dad! Your dad is being beaten up on the beach. Hurry! The club stood right on the beach, and when I heard that my dad had got into trouble, I jumped onto the sand from twenty meters and ran to help him. I fought like a lion - for my dad anything: slammed and smashed chins, teeth, and noses, with hair flying all around. I was close to scalping them all when the police arrived and gave chase. I was shirtless; my body was slippery with sweat, and they had no chance of stopping me until they caught me by my long hair and dragged me aside. I was seething with anger; that bastard Sadon had contrived a situation which ended in Palestinian against Palestinian. It should never have happened; we were scraping between ourselves when the common enemy was Sadon. If someone had told me then that he was setting me up to forever abandon my happy life in Acre, I wouldve said they were crazy. As it was, I was just doing the right thing: defending my dad. The police let me go. Thanks goodness the buses were not full of Jews: it would have cost me five lives in prison! Sadon observed what had just happened. He knew I was the perfect type for his private business on the beach. Of course, I offered to take over from dad to take the heat off him and I ran it my way. I charged all the tourists, and the Jews. I let friends slip through without paying, and Sadon did not like that. He also didnt like when I rolled up my sleeves in front of those who believed they should not have to pay because they were particularly favored, like the Babaany family or Jewish soldiers who came and didnt want to pay. I asked them: Why should an old lady with her grandchildren pay and not you
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guys? I truly wanted an answer to that question because I didnt understand either. Eventually, I pitched into them, asking for the money, and we started fighting because of some crappy system which was not our idea in the first place. I rented out surfboards and canoes from a little beach shack, and I was a lifeguard too. Somehow, I managed to take care of all these things and truly enjoyed it, but Sadon would not leave me alone. He was pressurizing me; bating me to boil over since he knew I was hot-headed. One day it happened, and I hit him because the way he treated me pissed me off. If he wanted to humiliate me, hed better kill me instead, especially when I knew I was the one who was right, and Sadon had nothing to wield but political power. I preferred to be beaten by the police until I passed out than let the Jews break me down, make me cry and beg for mercy. Several times, my club was targeted and set on fire. Out of the blue, the Jewish authorities sent the police after me. At that stage, I didnt know they wanted to frustrate me and make me run away. I only deduced it a lot later in Australia. I hate pretentious people. We are all flesh and bone; we will all die without water! So why should Sadon give me crap about me being an Arab from a poor family, defending my surroundings, and him being a second generation, post-Hitler Jew from France, harassing me on the beach because he drove the Audi? In addition to my job on the beach, I also took over a lounge bar from an American and continued to run it with a friend. During the day, I was on the beach, and at night, I worked in the club. I also had a handful of other jobs and entertainment. I was happy: always a loner - working things out my way - yet with friends and acquaintances everywhere. A few cursory greetings, a short chat, and lets move on. No man had ever told me how to live my life, and I liked it that way. I was my own man - answering to no-one - with a wealth of business opportunities right there in Acre. Life was perfect. The bar I was running was a place for tourists more than locals, because I was selling alcohol that was normally forbidden in Acre. One evening, I was preparing ingredients for kebabs and arranging alcohol on the shelves when I saw a fairhaired girl coming into the bar: tall, with blue eyes full of determination. She was dressed in tight jeans and a white T-shirt. I had seen the girls come and go but this vision was altogether different. She demanded my attention; I felt like my eyes were on stalks. Who was this looker in my bar? This was Jenny. In the next breath, she was standing next to me. You have a nice bar. Your flyer says that you serve alcohol; intriguing! Thanks. What can I offer you? I tried to play it cool and reserved.
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Yeah, sure, may I have a beer? I handed her a bottle with a glass and watched her for a while. Jenny started drinking from the bottle and defiantly passed back the glass. Drinking from a bottle was not a style Id seen in any other woman. It said she was tough and resilient and defiant; this was really alluring. Bet youre wondering what Im doing here alone! She turned her blue eyes on me and met my gaze. I had this man friend once; we flew to England and when we went to a club, he disappeared. I did not know where he was, so I started looking for him and then went back to the hotel. Well, he was there with another woman. Can you imagine? I packed my stuff, apologized for having interrupted and left for Israel to find myself again. They say its a unique place and I love it here already. She took a sip, lowering her lids over those wondrous eyes like pools of blue lagoons. I devoured every word she was saying, yet I pretended to be nonchalant. I had pretty wide shoulders, and I was a strong man. It was easy for me to disguise my feelings. Then Jenny intensified her efforts and began to weep; that melted my icy pretence. I tried to save the situation by cracking local jokes about the Arabs, but it did not help much. Alcohol was making her feel more relaxed, but I did not want to get her drunk. She kept saying how beautiful I was. I told her the same, as I was getting carried away, too. Eventually, she came on to me and started rubbing herself against my body. I wasnt going to stop her. I am from Australia, and my family is very rich. One day, I will take you there if you want, she giggled. I did not know where this woman had come from. She was like a phantasm. A poor guy like me had provided for his family since a tender age and had turned all kinds of tricks to get by. All of a sudden, this chick had appeared; rich and falling right into my arms. I was spellbound. I did not know then that she was, in fact, a honey-trap. Heard of bees round a honey pot? That was the trick used by Sadon, who had been studying me in Acre for about four years. Perhaps it took the fathead that long to come up with a plan to get rid of me! He got in touch with some people in Israel and some Jews abroad. They simply agreed to sign the cheque and solve the problems I posed as a young, ambitious, and virile Palestinian in Acre: to expel me from Acre forever, using Jennys feminine wiles.
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We closed the bar, but Jenny did not want to go back to the hotel. I want to sleep with you. I like you. She caressed my body passionately and I hardened. She was dismantling me, piece by piece. Okay, I replied, when she started licking my neck. We got naked and began to make love. I am not sure whether the word love is the right one since we were pretty much fucking. Jenny started by licking and kissing my whole body. She gave me a blow job. I was totally excited. Then I fucked her hard. We were banging almost till dawn. Oh, Jenny! My ambrosial Jenny... This lasted about eight months. She was six years older than me and put on a good show of being besotted with me, but I wanted to take it slowly and gradually. So, every day, my Jenny came to the bar or the beach. Every day, she bought me two packs of cigarettes and gave me money; she helped me at the bar, and then we screwed. Jenny won the hearts of all of my relatives by buying them gold pendants and bracelets. My sisters loved her, probably for her money. She spent up like that for the whole family. Throughout the entire stay, she lived in a hostel. Only later did I find out that she never paid a cent because it had all been paid for by Sadon - accommodation and spending money. One day, she said to me: Come with me to Australia: you will make money, and send it back to your family. We will be happy. Marry me! I will convert to Islam if you want. Just marry me. She was sitting on the roof of my house where I built a hide as a child, and we were watching the sunset over the Mediterranean Sea. I did not know other corners of the world: only Acre and Israel. I loved Acre and my big family, and I never thought about leaving, no matter what. All I knew was how to earn money and help the local people. Eli Sadon and the police enjoyed beating me till I was bleeding, but the rest of Acre loved me. I did not want to leave Acre but she did not want to leave me either. If she had decided to go, I would have let her and then I would maybe have gone to visit her, but she was determinated to marry me. She was like glue and later I understand why she stuck like that. I had been in a daze since Jenny arrived lots of money, lots of great sex, and
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no time to think things through alone. It was too good to be real. Its true I was hooked on her, big time. I was young and impressionable; she played on that with her stories of riches and opportunity in Australia. So I agreed to marry Jenny. I thought that I would just have a short visit to Australia, earn some money, and then we would come back here. Yet that inner voice, telling me to question a hottie like her showing up in my life in little old Acre, was quashed by the high I felt when she flashed those big blue eyes. My family got hold of some chickens, meat and fish, and there was a great wedding feast. Our neighbour gave Jenny a wedding dress and we waited for the sheikh but he never came. I still have a DVD of that house party. When the feast came to an end, the family went their separate ways and in the morning, Jenny and I headed for the airport in Tel Aviv. A friend of mine gave us a lift; he was smiling and chatting about what lay ahead for me. I had a free ticket, so I was game to see what awaited me out there. For me, this was a big adventure; a way to see the world. However, I always knew my beloved Acre was the place for me. The friend who drove us became a millionaire, and today, he owns supermarkets. He knew about my unplanned exile, just like my partner from the club knew as well. There were several other people who knew as well but my family and I were blind.
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Part Two The Fighter Australia 1989 - 1992
Chapter 4 Robinvale, state Victoria: a town called Malice
From Tel Aviv, Jenny and I first flew to Greece and then from Greece to Australia. Jenny was all excited when we were finally sitting on the plane to Melbourne. I cannot believe you are here with me, she enthused. I thought she meant she was in love with me and that she was happy about us leaving together for Australia. I was excited about the adventure I was embarking on, and I really didnt analyze my situation at that time. In my mind, I was still young and free. Freedom was a state I would come to yearn for. Her sister was waiting for us at the airport. She did not look very ecstatic to see me, though. A son of the hostel owner in Acre (where Jenny stayed over those eight months in Israel) was also there. His name was Khaled and he was a taxi driver in Melbourne. Both of them knew about the false pretenses that brought me there, but neither said anything to me. I understand now that their silence was paid for, just as I understand Jennys wedding vows had a price tag too. Its not hard to forgive Khaled: we were brothers, cut from the same cloth. Khaled lived in Melbourne, had a beautiful Australian wife and five kids. The first night in Melbourne, I slept over at his house. We enjoyed staying out together in the nightclubs of Melbourne, and I loved the city. Khaled took me to a few pubs and clubs; we have some drinks, and I was excited to see him. That night, I felt exhilarated and happy. At that stage, he did not mention anything to me about my circumstances. I did not know that he had confidential information from his dad that he couldnt share with me or perhaps he did not believe it much. I came
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alone with an Australian girl just like he had done a couple of years earlier. His wife was a tourist in Acre and they got together like Jenny and I. A lot of boys from Acre migrated to Europe, America, Canada, or Australia. It was nothing really suspicious to come to Australia with a girl and start afresh. The next day, he took me to Robinvale, a small hamlet close to Mildura in Mallee country side, in the north-east of state Victoria. He drove for about seven hours. I was amazed at the vastness of Australia, and I was impatient to meet Jennys family. Khaled was very quiet during the trip and when we arrived in Robinvale, he just took a deep breath and said something like: Phew, where did they get you from, man? Robinvale was a small farming town, or rather a village with one street and some stores, a couple of houses, the Murray river, a bridge, vineyards all around and then just bush and no-mans-land. Nothing for 80 km on one side and 200 km on another; basically, a Hicksville backwater where the dingoes kiss goodnight. We pulled up to a small, wooden house 1 Morris Street; modest and a bit run down. Jenny had given the impression that her family was rolling in money. Perhaps this was the holiday bach. Jenny, her mother and younger brother shared the house and came out to welcome us. They were nice enough, but from that first moment, I felt they were scrutinizing me; studying me, like a specimen in a jar. Looking back, there was something dodgy about the situation. The family was too sweet and their affectation concealed something I had no clue about. To me, falsehood is like a pervading odour, and that family reeked. It was a poor family with no father: only the mother and seven children. Jennys mother kicked her father out when the kids were still small, and he lived in a small shelter on a farm behind Robinvale. I wanted to ask where the millions were that Jenny had boasted about back in Acre, but I kept my mouth shut so as not to spoil anything. I wanted to make a good impression; our new lives to get off to a good start. Well, we are going to live here! she announced, as she put my bag down on the floor of a small room in the wooden bach. I shot a grimaced smile at
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her, but that ramshackle room put the wind up me. Jennys yarn back in Acre was already showing holes. I decided to stay long enough to make some money, because I did not have for ticket and then shoot through back home. I could not ask her to give me money for a ticket, it is not in my make up to ask woman for money, so I breathed deeply and started chain smoking. I could not believe it. In Acre, I was the king: everybody loved me, knew me, every day people said hello to me a hundred times. Here, in the middle of nowhere with nobody to talk to and with nothing to do, I was a nobody and it sucked bad. The next day and as time went on, I couldnt stand being in that cramped house with three other people: I wasnt used to living like that, and I needed space and time to think, walk and talk. Robinvale was in the middle of the bush and grapes vineyards; and my beloved ocean was a million miles away; I missed it badly. No job, no money of my own, no friends or family, no language - I knew just some common phrases but when the real Aussie people started talking, I just replied: Yeah yeah because I could not understand a word! I would slip away very early, stroll around the village all day looking for friends, and return back home late at night. In bed, Jenny would lick me all over; we would fuck and she would scream like a banshee. The entire wooden house heard it. Her mother even secretly watched us several times. I am sure that English harpy played with her old, used pussy behind the key hole. However, I believed it was just a start and later everything would be right. Yet nothing was going to be right ever again. My new life had started in a pretty poor way. I didnt have a driving license, so Jenny started teaching me how to drive a car. She took me deeper and deeper into the bush, and I stood and watched her drive around. Suddenly, she sped towards me. If I had not jump aside, I would be dead now. What the fuck are you doing? Are you crazy or what? Get out of that car, right now. I am telling you, get out of the car! I started yelling at her. She looked at me with those blue eyes of a she-devil and laughed. It was just a joke. I wanted to see if you were afraid of me. Jenny replied. I just thought she was being dumb. Yet since she had played the rich hottie in Acre, the flames of my ardour had dampened, and I realised one day that I was not in love with her anymore. Her charms had disappeared with her lies, and we had become roosters at a cockfight.
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I let her drive on the way back home, telling her: Jenny, I want to meet your father, but her answer was resolute and clear. You know, I have not seen my dad for about 10 years, and I am not in a mood to see him now. She showed no sign of compassion or love but in the end, I managed to persuade her. Her dad was a poor man: not a sugar daddy like she had described in Acre. That man who was her father started crying when he saw Jenny. Yet her heart was as hard as a rock. I have always been impressed by strong women, I heedlessly cracked on the way home. Still, I forgave her. From that moment, I knew that Jenny was as tough as old boots. I gave her father courage to visit us in the house at Robinvale. His ex-wife (Jennys mother) did not communicate with him a lot: she preferred to talk to her little doggie. I actually saw her several times lying in bed, spraying her pussy with lubricant and making that little doggie lick her to orgasm. I wanted to puke. When she was preparing food, she served me the same hot-dog as the little pooch. Sure, the mother was a jade, but I found out that her daughter was much worse. She had sold her soul to the devil, and the price was my head on a platter. About a month after our arrival, Jenny told me one evening that we were getting married the next day. She showed me a suit lying on the bed. I panicked since I felt I was being left out of things that were going on around me. After all, I surely had an opinion, too. After spending some weeks with her and the family, I was beginning to doubt my decision to leave home and commit to her. Jenny enthused: Its all arranged; you only have to put on this suit and we will go to the park and then celebrate at a club. It will be amazing, you will see. I immediately called my family to tell them I was getting married the next day. My parents lamented, begging me to call the wedding off and come back home. I said that I did not want to return with empty pockets; that I wanted to
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bring money when I came back and I hung up. I didnt want to be a failure in the eyes of my family and, at that time, Jenny was my ticket. All my resources were with her; she held the key to my success or failure. I didnt know that was exactly the plan, and that success in Australia was never planned option for me. I returned to the room where Jenny was trying on her wedding dress. She was beautiful and she knew it. She began wooing me, saying that everything would be great, that we would buy a house and live alone, have kids and everything would be wonderful. I acquiesced and that night, I let Jenny fuck me, even though my thoughts were in Acre with my family and friends. D-day dawned, and two friends of mine from Acre (by now living in Australia) came to the wedding. We went to the park for the ceremony where her sisters, brothers with their families, a few friends, and her parents were already waiting. The ceremony passed quickly without a hitch. Sometimes, I did not understand what had been said, but I did not really care. I saw Jenny looking happy and at that very moment, she was the most beautiful thing that had ever warmed my heart. I cannot believe we have just got married, Jenny sighed, her voice choking as she kissed me. I was actually very happy too, and I did not know then that there was a double meaning to her words: she was just a few steps from her fulfilling her promise. We went to the Huston Club for dinner which was full of strangers: mostly men. This was the summer of December, 1989, and the weird eighties fashion was on display that night: the men were wearing denim vests and sporting tattoos. Jenny and I were dancing and having fun when all of a sudden, a man with long blond hair and covered in tattoos entered the room. He headed for Jenny and kissed her on the lips. His congratulatory gesture went too far for me. He almost gave her a Frenchie on the day of our wedding! I do not think you have to be an Arab to feel your blood boil in that situation. I rushed forth and punched him in the face. He slumped to the floor like a sack of potatoes. People were running and screaming, while Jenny was trying to save the situation. She started to explain that it was only her good old friend from school. What school? He looked like he had just broken out of jail. I scoffed at her: What kind of a beast dares to kiss you like that as if you were not even my wife? I went out to get some air and while I was smoking to calm my nerves, many people were leaving. Jenny looks scared: she probably did not expect that reaction. She thinks I am an easy touch; that she can ship me over from Acre to Australia and then do whatever she likes to me. However, I come from a culture where marriage is considered sacred. She doesnt understand that
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because she does not want to. This was the beginning of our end. Our marriage became more and more tense from that day forward, and in 1997, it fell apart completely. From the club, many people move to her sisters across the street where that strange family celebration continue. Only when I think back, I realise that they probably considered what to do with me next. One of the brothers, together with his family, is leaving the club, and offers me a lift. When we arrive at home-sweet-home, I get out of the car, say goodbye and go inside alone. Then her sister came by in a separate car, shouting: Now they will kill you! They will kill you! Why did you start that fight? Her sister looks totally beside herself. I do not know if she has a good heart and wants to warn me, or scare the hell out of me. None of that warped family understood that I am made of steel, and I am never be afraid to stand and fight. Thats why Im here to tell the tale this day. The problem was, at that time - I didnt recognize the enemy I was fighting. I felt defiant at that moment. You want to kill me? So come on! I could defend myself. I took a shovel and ran out of the house to wait for those tattooed punks at the fence. When they arrived, we eye-balled each other, then they turned and left. I sat alone on my wedding day in a little wooden shack instead of a hotel suite with a bottle of champagne. I had a heavy heart and a bad feeling about my future. How do you fight a shape-shifter?
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At that time in Australia, it was popular to be a member of any gang, have guns and bully others who did not belong to that gang. Here in Australia, they call them bikies and that tradition is still going strong. I never really like them, because they have power through connections to other people - nothing else. For me, they are groups of weak criminals who have to stand together because alone, they would fall off their bikes and start crying. Yet with others, they feel protected and powerful. There are many different group: Finks, Hells Angels, Rebels, Gypsy Joker and other weird names, one are Muslims, other Christians. Weak people follow them or are scared of them because they have money from drugs, give loans for criminal activities and then use bully tactics to pay back with interest. I did not know the chap with tattoos at my wedding was one of them, and I had no idea that Jenny belonged to them either. I changed out of my wedding suit and went to visit Angela. She was from an unpopular, local Greek family of heavyweights. Chunky Angela was unemployed, so both she and her skeletal husband Chris lived on national assistance with their two dumpy daughters and a son. They were just simple Greeks who loved the taste of burnt fat. I decided to seek refuge with them, because they were so simple and they could do me no harm. We sat on the porch and chatted easily about what had happened. Angela was thrilled to have a new drama, saying that I should have gleefully killed that tattooed thug if not only for his bad fashion sense. We laughed and it was quite a relief. When I got home, I found Jenny waiting for me. She took me to the hotel where we had a booking. In the hotel, we talked about the events of the night but only briefly. I did not want to dig deeply into the situation. I took a shower, snuck into bed where Jenny was waiting in red lingerie: one of her wedding gifts. I did not want to say that she looked like a whore because that night had already been a disaster. Jennys veil hid the real truth she had two sides to her life and now, two men: her husband and that bikie, her long-term lover. Our marriage was a sham before it had even started. I screwed her - this time, she was my wife, screaming like a banshee - and we both fell asleep. Yet it was me that was screwed.
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Chapter 5 Kill or be killed
After the wedding, I remember a lot weird shit happening and weird characters showing up with Jenny or just in the street, out of the blue. I was still intrepid and couldnt care less. I was no angel, but the path I should tread was always clear to me. Besides, every day I was making money, I was one day closer to going home. I could handle myself. However, Jennys antics were becoming life-threatening. We both started working in local vineyards, picking grapes. I was sweaty, pissed off and I could not understand why I, the king of Acre, had to pick grapes in searing 40-degree heat. I could not stand it. I talked to the boss and asked him if he had any work inside. You can take this forklift and transport boxes inside the cooler, he told me laughing, because it was obvious I was not used to such weather. Yeah, you bet! I replied, and I was off like a shot. What happened then was one of my cleverer scams. My education on the street in Acre had taught me to play it smart rather than graft like a donkey: that was inbuilt into the Arab attitude to work. I purposely injured my finger on a ladder. I jammed it and my wedding ring cut right into it, finishing it off completely. I got outpatient care, a years recovery time, and compensation money from the employer every fourteen days. I was happy that I collected the same money as in the vineyard yet didnt have to work. I was not the dupe they imagined; the dumb Arab who was being shafted by an Ozzie girl. Nobody knew how sweet I had played it. Not even my dear Jenny. With my money, I bought my first car: a jeep. I drove around the place, lonely but starting to get used to my new life. I used to drive to Mildura every day, about 80 km from Robinvale, where I made many friends. I was off the grid, looking for friends and support that could help me make money and then shoot back through to Israel.
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One day I was buying a snack at a local kiosk in Robinvale, when I was approached by a man who had been sitting in a car next to my jeep. He told me rather sneeringly: I want to see how long you will last. Then he flashed one of those artificial, toothless grins - full of affectation and slowly drove away. I did not know what he meant. I supposed he was a loony or a racist who hated Middle Easterns. I took a bite of my super-sized hamburger from Shula, a local fast-food celebrity, and let it be. Sinister happenings started after that. I had been in Australia for about three months when I was poisoned. Sitting down to watch TV one afternoon, my sweet Jenny went out a car that had stopped in front of our house in the street. Her mother went to play bingo game as she was at the pokie machines every day. I didnt pay attention to them and after a while, Jenny returned with a small piece of cake. Eat, its really tasty. A friend of mine baked it. I have just had three pieces. Eat. Its excellent. She stood over me as I innocently felt that sweet treat melt in my mouth. A few minutes later, I got terrible pains in my stomach. I wanted to puke and I feel dizzy. A few more minutes and I was frothing at the mouth, throwing up yellow bile in my already empty stomach and sweating all over my body. Take me to the hospital! What the fuck is going on? I lay in bed, wanting to sleep, but the pain and pulsing was stronger than me. Jenny just wiped my forehead with a handkerchief, saying: It will be alright, Salama, it will be alright. I told her:If I die, take me to Acre, bury me in my beloved Acre. Somebody knocked on the door. I could not discern if I was hallucinating or if it was real, but Jenny left me in the room alone. My friends had arrived and wanted to take me out fishing because they knew how bored and lonely I was in that little town. I do not know what Jenny said or what happened behind the door. I was lying in bed, and when I heard voices, I instinctively started screaming, making as much noise as my condition allowed. The man burst into the room and began yelling at Jenny: What the hell is this? he asked, horrified. She blushed and just stood there. Those two guys grabbed me,
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threw me on top of the beer cans in the back seat of their car, and headed for the hospital. They saved my life. Thank you, guys. The doctors gave me with all kinds of injections I do not remember anything but those injections. I couldnt sleep, but I was exhausted; I was dazed and confused, not knowing what was happening to me. The only thing they gave me was ice. I could not drink water, only ice. My body was on fire. I sucked that ice all night through, and felt the heat slowly fading away. The pain was gone when I properly crapped in the morning. A great shit of relief. Returning to the hospital bed, my doctor and a policeman are waiting for me. The doctor asked me what I had eaten the day before. I spoke slowly, trying to recall what happened the previous day, but I felt confused. The police admitted: Somebody tried to poison you with some pretty strong stuff. That just didnt make sense I was a nobody in a no-good bush town. Still, I was just happy the doctor had saved my life, and I did not think about who had wanted to poison me. I could not denounce my sweet Jenny who screamed like a banshee when I screwed her after all. Yet who else could it have been and why? I returned home from the hospital and waited for an explanation from my wife. I was sitting in that cramped kitchenette as she swore that it was not her fault. I looked at her with disbelief but what choice did I have? I had been in Australia for only three months; I didnt speak English very well; I had no family or support; I had no money for the flight home; moreover, my passport had suddenly disappeared. Jenny didnt know where it was. I had no place to go and no clue what this was all about. I was her husband and I could not return to Acre so piteously empty-handed. Everyone would have laughed at me had they seen me coming in one pair of worn out pants. In Acre, we have a saying that if you leave, you cannot come back penniless, and I was going to stick to it. I am like a train going at full speed even if there is danger up ahead. At that time, I did not want to stop and change tracks and there were no sidings to slip into. So I let the poisoning go, but I was not the good home boy so often after that. I did not even eat with her much. Her fairy tale love story had changed into monstrosity right in front of my eyes. I did not fully trust her because I felt that she did not trust me either; therefore, I never shared stories with her or what had happened each day. We lived in silent.
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The police interrogated my wife in the poisoning case, but she played the innocent. The policeman, however, knew there was more to it and eagerly embarked on the investigation. Then, a crucial thing happened. One of the Robinvale s police officers was gunned down in his own office. The perpetrators made that murder look like a suicide since the victim was shot through the chin from below by his own gun. Along with the murder of a sergeant, another policeman from Swan Hill suddenly disappeared, too. I have the impression it was the cop from the hospital. I tried to find the names of the victims, but the police officers who were serving in 1990 in Robinvale, Sergant Cook and Body, are not anymore around. Even now, I cannot say that these incidents were connected to me hundred percent because I do not have the proof. People whispered a lot of rumours, because such a small population wanted to know everything about each other, and it was quite a shock for all of us. My friends used to sing the Bob Marley song, I Shot the Sheriff and made black jokes about the whole drama. Yet all of us felt that it was linked to my arrival and gossip about my purpose in Robinvale. I do not even have proof of being admitted and discharged from hospital in Robinvale, because after many years I left my documents in the house in Mildura and to be honest, I am not a file keeper. The original documentation on the hospital files was deleted. I do not need to explain why. I considered the odd experiences Id had and the people that Jenny mixed with, then the police filled in the rest of the gaps. It turned out Jenny had been hired by Jews to exterminate me over in Australia far away from their own doorstep. Despite my reservations about marrying Jenny, the reality that she was trying to kill me rocked my world. How could I go on living with this woman? Yet she was my wife. I was in turmoil truth and lies were blurred, and everyone I had met in Australia had a double face. Yet I wanted to know more and thats why I did not leave her. I wanted to find the clues to the mystery. Yet looking for that needle in the proverbial haystack gave me many painful pricks. Never mind how long it took me crucial key to my weird life! I eventually found it and I am so glad to be able to write about it, safe and sound today. That time I had only an ominous feeling about Jenny and that she was part of some strange group of bikers and gangsters who were linked to a Jewish boss.
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Everyone knows that the Jews pay very attractive hush money when it comes to the black market. Australian biker gangs trade in drugs, arms and anything illegal. The Jews basically use them to do their work. Bikies have contacts in other Australian states too, so the mafia can operate across the entire Australian territory. Still, I could not believe that Jews would be so aggressive to kill like that. I thought that perhaps they wanted me out of Acre because I was an influential person there, but to kill me too? That was little bit like a film plot. It came to my mind too, that the bikies boyfriend wanted her back on his side and could not believe that I smashed his face, so he pushed her to give me poison and finish me off. Jenny would believe him; she was a stupid country girl after all, in deep shit and could not just run away because she was greedy and hooked. I really do not know what the reason was then. It was only after another seven years that Jenny confessed how, heroically, she accepted an offer from her partner in Melbourne to do the job of a cleaning lady, and lay me out for a princely sum. She thought it would be easy - that she would simply poison me, collect the money, and then together with her partner (I call him the Greasy Skull: the same guy who, on the day of our wedding, stuffed his dirty tongue into her mouth) would buy a villa on the coast somewhere and they would bum around on Harley-Davidsons. Still I havent given them the chance to fulfill this dream yet, and it will never happen because she is already dead, the screaming banshee of my night mares. After the homicide of the sergeant, the tactics of the police radically changed. They were not with me anymore. From that moment on, the local police knew me as a tough fella who was a marked man by the Israeli mafia. The case was closed. Instead, I was marked as a dangerous liability. Me? The street kid from Akko? That really wasnt my profile; however, how else to cover up Jenny and her cronies, and the dead police officers. From scams and bikies who killed police officers came high rank officers and secret operation was not anymore on quite. So, the Australian Federal Police began closely cooperating with its Israeli counterpart, Mossad, and things started to mess up for me, big time. After that, the police were actively against me because they were afraid of losing more people in nasty accidents. Also the Australian police understood that they lacked the means to win over those internationally organized criminals, so they basically left me alone to deal with it. Sink or swim! They monitored the situation from a comfortable distance and were probably waiting to find my dead body one sunny day. Jennys failure to kill me meant I heard some pretty nasty rumors about me being spread around town. A few of my friends - Aborigines - told me about
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it. They heard good reasons to avoid me, with the intention of breaking me down and making me fall into deep depression, so lonely that I would not be able to heal fix myself. I could not complain at the police station and even so, nothing would have changed. Wherever the Israeli mafia has its dirty fingers, there is only silence and denial. It was better to try not to think about it because explaining to people that it was not true would have been quite meaningless. I would have to walk out of town and keep on walking because Jennys cronies had started to watch my every move. In fact, I felt kind of important. I was used to a tough life ever since my childhood, and some girlish gossip about me was amusing more than worrying. I had the smell of money in my nostrils and I wanted to make more before leaving. I did not really care about the threats she and her Commando Ken had been plotting over the years I stuck with her and drove her crazy just as she stuck with me in Acre. I went by bus from Acre several times to visit Khaled in Melbourne, staying at his place for a couple of nights. We went out to clubs and parties; it was quite a relief from Jenny and that creepy place in the sticks. I complained to Khaled about what had been happened in small Robinvale since he left me there and he told me: Fucking hell, they brought you here to kill you far away from the homeland. Be careful, Jews are after you. He recommended I get an Israeli passport and shoot back home before some catastrophic movie character took the place of me. I thought it was good advice, but I did not know how to get a passport - administrative paper work and endless phone calls are not my cup of tea. On the other hand, I was already here, and I wanted to stay. I considered leaving Jenny behind, going to rent some place by myself. Yet I was married, had started making friends and money in Robinvale and Mildura, so it was confusing. I needed to be stronger to start alone. Now its 1991. I am 25 years old, illiterate and I still living in Robinvale, with my mother-in-law, Jenny and her brother, whose room was crammed with pinups of naked women and who masturbated every night in front of pimp videos. I didnt like that cramped house and sometimes, I did not come home at all. I would call up my family back home, speak to friends and ask for phone numbers of other people in Acre. I spent many hours on the phone because I missed Acre, my people, my language and jokes, the sea, fish: everything. When the phone bills arrived, my mother-in-law delighted in putting them under my nose. Of course, I paid them and almost everything else too because I was used to taking care of the family and looking for all kinds of ways to earn a crust, just as I used to at home. As soon as I earned some money, I started my own little business. Despite having no connections, I started selling small quantities of powdered sleeping
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pills in Robinvale that I got from a local GP as pure cocaine from Colombia. I was a smart-ass, its true. I do not know whether those times were more trusting and nave, but there was no malice on my part. When my punters found out, no one really cared. On the contrary, people had fun wondering how they had been tricked so easily by my ingenuity. When my GP was prescribing me the sleeping pills that he knew I was pushing, he told me: I need help, Hesham! He explained to me that I had a good reputation in town, that nobody could get me on my knees, and that he needed someone sorted out. He had an English wife, younger than him, and they had two small children. The trouble was that she had become involved with drugs and booze. One night, she rocked up to the house with two really disgusting, tattooed drinking buddies. The doctor couldnt get rid of them. Nothing worked: police, court, nothing. He asked me whether I could whack them. Then they would never have the courage to enter his house again. I saw how desperate and sad he was, so I agreed. He was a doctor, not some hooligan: an intellectual, who was afraid to kill a fly. How would he be able to knock off two beasts sleeping in his bed? Back then, it was quite easy to get your hands on a gun in Australia. I kept it a secret since I knew it was me against the mafia. After all, I was not going to be wiped out by some spoilt, Australian, tattooed gangsters who had a cushy life and were blown-up on steroids. When it comes to the real thing, they always called on their dads or the police. Of course, nobody in Robinvale was surprised that I got a small gun for selfdefense after the raw deal that my own wife dealt me! Those drunkards did not pay a bit of attention when we arrived at the doctors house. I massacred the first while the second was trying to escape. I got the other one, too, and shot him in the ear. Travelling back in the car, the doctor was truly grateful I had sent those pigs to hell, once and for all. I put on Eye of the Tiger from the Rocky movie and he loved it, singing I am the tiger and screaming with joy. The police came around because his wife had blabbed, and the doctor had to dob me in. He was a witness against me! Before the last trial, he poisoned himself with medication. In his last will, he thanked me. It was very touching and sad, and I realized that he only did it to save my skin. He did not want me to go to jail, so his life was my ransom. Whenever I hear the song Eye of the Tiger, I think of him: my GP from boring Robinvale. Despite the doctors selfless act, the police knew I had history, but this time, I was not so innocent. They were already sharpening their knives, but at the last
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moment, I was let off. I had never had any problems with the police up until then; only with the mafia. There are some gangs that are the police cant touch because some bad cops have affiliation to Israeli Mossad, who are protecting them. I only learnt this progressively, over a number of years. Nonetheless, I continued to live my simple life. I had friends, money, as well as supporting Jennys family and her mother who spent it on the pokie machines. I was even sending some money home to support my family in Acre. Jenny mostly sat at home. Even now, I do not know who she was meeting behind my back. I wasnt really curious, I guess. I began to feel that she was more of an enemy than a friend. I only wanted to fill my pockets with good size of cash and fly back home. On one occasion, I drove my new red 300ZX Nissan to Melbourne where I was meeting my faithful partner, Dio. When I first brought the car to Robinvale, everyone wanted to drive it. It was quite a decent chick magnet back then, and all the girls were ready to hook up with me for a burl in the Nissan. Sure we flirted, but I was showing off just for fun, and they were happy to come along from the ride. They shrieked that they were engaged, married, simply not available, and we laughed like twenty-year olds. I could not have cared less about bad rumors about how I had heaps of enemies who wanted to fight me or get me into trouble with the police. These were not my people, so why should I care about their impression of me? At that time, my friends started to rub their pricks when I passed by or when I saw them in the street: this was a sign that the mafia had brainwashed probably bribed - my mates against me. Except Dio, my friend from Melbourne, who did not give a damn. He knew I was strong and that is why some dumb asses tried to put me in the bad books. These lies about me were aimed at driving away all my friends and people I knew, to make them despise me. It would have suited them for me to top myself. This has lasted forever: the same tactics occur even after returning to Australia in 2008; my friends would still touch their crotches, as a sign they were taken by the mafia. Even my second wife was so shocked to see it. I got used to these taunts over time, and I knew I could only rely on myself, as I had learned to do when I was growing up. Trust in no one in a foreign country; have only fleeting relationships with friends, and never beg on your knees; stay strong and never give up. I was determined to try and earn enough money to get out of this place for good. Still young and naive, I never imagined I could be stopped by my fellow Palestinians from Adelaide, South Australia: I trusted them blindly. In the end, it was my fellow countrymen who destroyed my life, only to line their pockets. The counsel of false friends put me on the wrong road; just like Jenny, they
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duped me by showing me their double face. Only this time, they were my own people - Palestinians and their pretense at fraternity cut me deeper than any attempts to wipe me out. Just as well I was a fighter! Just as well I was true to my own heart and what lay within it; one day, I would go home to Paradise.
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Part three The Pawn Australia 1992 - 2000
Chapter 6 Shape-shifters
At the end of 1996, we packed our stuff (including our two daughters, Katia and Mecca) into the car and towed the trailer from Mildura to Adelaide. Jenny stayed at home with the children, and sometimes, she went out and did not come back for hours. I do not know where she used to go, or who she met. I did not care either because at that time, I had many new friends from Adelaide: I was often with Moustapha Merhi - lets call him Steve - and his Arab friends. I fitted well into the Arab community there. Several times, I spoke to Fathi Shahin (Fred) and his wife; I even met his sons who today - thanks to me hold the gas station monopoly in Adelaide. However sucked in I was by the platitudes of my new-found friends, I had always been a man alone, self-reliant and self-contained. I was not a dog to bark on command, or sniff around for the masters scraps. I have always had a good heart and an iron will: no outside forces could grind me down. I trusted my fellow-countrymen implicitly, but as often happens, the closest ones dig your grave sooner than strangers. The decision to move to Adelaide was precipitated by a trip there one day from Robinvale with my friend, George, in 1992. I was still fresh to Australia, not knowing any other Palestinian expect Khalil from Melbourne, who was from the same town. We parked the car and walked across Adelaide. George disappeared somewhere and when he got back, he told me about a Palestinian restaurant - the Jerusalem Shishkebab in Hindley Street, downtown Adelaide serving food I yearned for. So we both went to check the place out. I do not know whether that little fat restaurant owner, Steve, had ever heard of me, but he was incredibly attentive, bringing humus, falafel, babaganoush, tabouleh and pastries to the table. We talked for at least an hour in my mother tongue, and I felt as if I was at home. I recounted what had happened to me and
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how bad rumors had been spread in public about me. I did it just to warn him because storm clouds follow me around. He said when it was his turn to talk: You are a hero and now you are in good hands, I will help you. I realized that he knew about the poisoned cake. I told him anyway, but he was not surprised at all. He knew something more than I did because afterwards, he invited me to his house in Woodville, and we drove to the Coromandel Valley to his empty house over there. That was the house I shifted into a couple of years later. Come to live here, come anytime, we will look after you. We are Palestinians, just like you are. This restaurant owner, Steve, was a Palestinian like me. He still lives in Adelaide but today, he hides from me - and perhaps from others because he did a lot of damage to my reputation, and he also owes me a sizeable sum of money. He emigrated from Palestine to Jordan, later to Germany, and from there, to Australia. Back then, he must have been about fifty-sixty years old, and he knew a lot more than a twenty five-year-old guy like me. It impressed me when he talked about politics, Palestine, and millions of dollars. He seemed like an influential person who loved his homeland and who had connections with the Palestinian community and other Arabs living in Australia and all over the world. Our way of thinking was very similar, and I was glad I had finally found an ally in Australia who could help me sort out my trouble life. Steve had suddenly entered my life, and we became close friends. He adopted me as a son. I invited him to my house in Robinvale and he came a few days later, along with one of his son. He scrutinized Jenny, her behaviour, and her conversation. She was not happy about his visit at all because she could not understand a word when we were talking in Arabic. She was concerned that I had found friends who spoke the same language and who could possibly help me in such a distant country, while she and her cronies blindly obeyed their Jewish bosses. I guess my wife did not understand the politics of Israel and Palestine at all, just like me. In that way, we were both of us naive, not knowing what was coming tomorrow. I talked about Steve a lot and at the beginning, Jenny loathed him. I had a distinct feeling that the Arab community around me knew what had happened to me and what was still happening. Maybe because of that, Jenny got pregnant with my child. This would be proof to my new friends from Adelaide that
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she did not buy that plane ticket from Israel to Australia just to kill me, but because she loved me; her dearest husband with whom she had a family. So, Katia was born in 1993. Now, it was much harder for me to leave Jenny behind because of our daughter. I would have been happy to live in Adelaide which is not so big as Melbourne, and there is an Arab community, and most of all, there is a sea! But my boundaries from Jenny narrowed with a birth of our first child. When Katia was born, I could not stand Robinvale anymore. I especially needed to break contact with Jennys mother. So, I rented a house in Mildura, in the middle of some vineyards, and we moved in there. Jenny did not want to leave the house at first but, in the end, I persuaded her. The year of Katias birth, I was buying Katia new gifts, doing business, and making money. I had some friends like Dio and Lev. We used to travel to Melbourne and Adelaide together; it was such fun. These two were my good friends of mine and we made money together. I would call Steve or I would drive to Adelaide just to see him in his restaurant. To ensure the house in Mildura was constantly protected, I got the most monstrous dog I could find. It was a Rottweiler, Hali - a four-year-old professional killer - and it weighed at least a hundred pounds. At that time, he cost me 4,000 dollars. His original owner had to spend that night in my house to show me how to handle him. Leave him in a cage until he gets used to you, he explained carefully, letting me slowly take the leash as we walked along the river. Hali looked at me as though his soul were human. He probably wanted to examine his new owner and when, satisfied, he let me take the lead. The trainer left, and at home there was only Hali and me. The next day, I let him play in the garden, but after a piteous hour of commands, steaks and bones to get him back into the cage, he just growled and wanted to attack. He was really scary and even I, a six-foot fella, almost pooped my pants at the idea that he may have chewed me like a sausage. Jenny panicked, Christi cried, and I got mad, took a shovel and quietly from behind slammed his head to help that doggie skull realize that I was the master of the situation, not him. Hali ran squealing towards the cage, and I could finally bolt him in and there was peace. I kept him there for about a week until he understood why a dog is a dog. After that, we were friends for life. He saved my skin many times and I loved him; trusted no one but him, and I knew he was a good and faithful bodyguard who trusted me unconditionally, too. Hali was my only real ally after all.
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I was pretty happy with my easy life style even though bad gossips spread around me. It was not so new; I knew my territory - a little world without politics, but full of gangster rules and some kind of freedom. On the other hand, I was excited about my new Palestinians friends from Adelaide, and I was impatiently expecting the outcome of their involvement in my life. Thanks to Steve, I later met a very respectable man in the Palestinian community, Fathi Shahin. Everybody called him Fred. This was a man with class. Unlike Steve, Fred was an intelligent, noble figure, who had connections with the Palestinian political party, Fatah, in the West Bank, and had met Yasser Arafat in person. He moved his large family from Israel to the Lebanese camp, Sabra Shatila. In late 1970s, Fred flew to Australia with his wife and kids, and other brothers, with some good money from the camp. Fred had a voice in the Palestinian community and the government back home. Fred launched a tobacco business Smokemart and owned one gas station on Port Road in Adelaide, with an office guarded by dogs. At that time, he was a Palestinian at war with Israel and bikers, just like me. Only there was a slight difference; the entire Palestinian and Arab community and the Palestinian government - as well as the Australian police - were on his side. I had nobody. I was praying that Steve and Fred would help me to get rid of the bikers and the Jewish mafia. I was impressed to learning that Fred knew Yasser Arafat personally. I thought he must know how to help me. I admired Fred, as did many other Australians. Fred was easy going and not so snappy, even though he was quite rich and dominating. He learnt a lot from the Palestine situation, and he built his figure on the pain of others misfortune and even death. Nonetheless, he was good with me; I think he even respected me, but political business kept us separated. I took the business much too privately, and it cut my heart to pieces. I mean, I was not educated and I had never cared about politics. I only knew that I was born a Palestinian in the lap of the Jewish state. For me, all Arabs and Palestinians were the same; I did not differentiate between political affiliations. For example, I did not know that Saudi Arabia works with America and hates Syria and Iran. Simple as that. I was not aware of politics at all. So, when the Palestinians told me that they made a scandal about my secret fight in Australia, I trusted them. I believed they had done it for the purpose of achieving occupied land in the West Bank that is rightfully Palestinian. Ok, I can
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accept that, because then it will be for the Palestinian people. Yet I did not realize that it was all business, nothing personal, with no cause involved, and not for the good of the people, but for the good of themselves and their families. This hurt more than anything else. At the end of our relationship, Fred and Steve got into money, built bigger businesses and I ended up in jail. So, it really was nothing personal at all. In those days, when we firstly met, there was no opportunity for Fred to process dirty money from the Fatah-led Palestinian government. However, after using my story to bribe Likud (the Israeli government), he came into money, thanks to me. Then, in five short years, he had created businesses in Adelaide and Australia from Fatahs money, and probably laundered that money for Palestinian government, Fatah, even now. I mean, they bought gas stations, stores, invested money in various businesses, and realty in Australia. When I lived in Mildura in the 90s, I was such an easygoing guy; still wet behind the ears about the facts and ideology of politics, and very trusting of any Palestinians. After years, I got to understand that there are many different groups of Palestinians who follow different political powers and ideologies; for example, Fatah and Yasser Arafat are against Hamas in Gaza, and Fatah has worked with Israelis merely for money and business and control over the land in the West Bank. I learnt slowly and realized over time that money from the Palestinian government is sent to other states to be cleaned up, while civilians in the West Bank hunt for bread, angry and hungry, with no true information about their government, Fatah. I smelt that Steve and Fredo where cooking something up behind my back because Steve and Fred knew more about me from the police than I knew about myself. They knew that Jenny was supposed to kill me in exchange for the hush money from Israel, and they knew that the Jews - through their affiliation to biker gangs - pursued me for no real reason. My Palestinian friends also knew that Israeli involvement equated to plenty of money, corruption, killing, and deceit. Since they understood the situation I was involved in, they tried to make their profit. I was a tool; a pawn in the game. I was not human to them, merely a commodity with a monetary value. My story could have been an international scandal in Arab circles, so these guys made a deal with the Israelis in return for saying nothing about the way they had treated me. I did not know it because Steve and Fred never talked about blackmailing Likud government through Yasser Arafats organization, Fatah. They also never discussed the repatriation of part of the occupied West
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Bank territories. I thought they wanted to help me so that I was not all alone against the whole mafia. I thought they were going to tell other people and make a scandal, just as they had been telling me: You will be the hero; everybody will see you on TV This was the daily story from Steve, and I believed him. Fatah made a huge drama about how I had survived, but when the Arab communities - the international interest wanted to know more, Fatah made a concession with the Israelis for their profit and backed off. At that time, the Israeli Likud chairman and PM was Benjamin Natenyahu, who had negotiated with Arafat. Netanyahu was opposed to the political left wing in Israel and also lost support from the right because of his concessions to the Palestinians. When Steve and Fred got full pockets, they kicked me out into the street to hunt for bread, showed awful pictures of me in public, and kept spreading vile gossip about me in a community. There was nothing left for me after that. Everybody in Adelaide snuggled up with their full fridges and full wallets. Yet, it was Iran and Hezbollah that stood by me at this time in my life. I could not understand the whole mess - I mean, the situation of international interests of Iran and Hezbollah - until I eventually met Iranian and Lebanese face-to-face in Australia. They wanted to help me, but I did not want to go to Iran! Why? I did not understand; it was like a dream. Iranian knew about my situation, great, but they do not speak my language, so how I would be understood in Iran? And why they come? The influence of new political doctrine made me even more scared. I was only 28 years old, and I did not understand the network of political doctrines. I even did not understand maps in the directory. I could only understand a blank page in a book. So when I was approached by an Iranian man who tried to help me, I refused because I was confused and revolted against everything that confused me more. This had happened in 1998. So lets go back. In 1995, I got my Australian citizenship in Mildura, so I posted it in the local Mildura paper to let all those guys from the mafia see that I was an Australian now, just like them. Straight away, I also had my Australian passport done, and Jenny almost had heart failure, because she kept saying that I did not need it. She was still planning to get rid of me for good or perhaps she was scared Id come back for the kids or for her spirit one day. With my new Australian passport, I flew to Israel to show off my new Australian citizenship to my family, and they were very happy that I had naturalised in Australia. One day, they would visit me. For them, it was much
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more different than for me. They had never lived in a different country; their families, and kids were all in Israel. Yet, they were happy for me, and they did not care that my wife had already tried to kill me several times: throwing me off a cliff, trying to strangle me, blowing up my car and, for several nights, she even placed deadly traps with scorpions and snakes. With my family, I could not really share all those crazy experiences. They had known since I was born that I was a survivor and wished me good luck. There were blind, just like I had been when I lived over there. There were scared of their own lives knowing Israeli oppression. When I got back to Australia from Israel, I swapped my 300ZX Nissan for a truck full of twenty-five-litre tubs of universal liquid detergent. I was always resourceful it was in my make-up from childhood so prior to Adelaide days, I was always game to turn a trick to make a buck. Suddenly, I had gallons of the stuff, and I needed to get rid of them as fast as possible because they took up the entire driveway. I started going round farms and selling it cheap: one gallon for 25 dollars. Later, I tried restaurants and stores where I used to trade with the staff, telling them that I was only delivering what the bosses had ordered. Even if employees were reluctant to sign for them, I somehow managed to persuade them to take a gallon and give me cash. Then, the local television informed that a certain Hesham Galam was pushing soap and it was the end of my business. I appeared on this channel several times and always for the same accusation. Back in Acre, I would have been applauded for my business acumen and I guess, I would have been more careful not to get caught. Steve chased me to work in the drug trade and earn his money. He became rich through marijuana and insurance claims. Also he talked about terrorism a lot. In the 1990s, Israel was very bloody, with the Palestinians targeting the buses and creating more casualties than even today. Steve talked about blowing up a bus in Tel Aviv; how I should definitely be the suicide bomber on that mission because I had an Israeli passport. I did not take him seriously. I have never felt the need to kill innocent people, and I have never seen myself as a murderer. Plus, my entire family lived in Israel, so it was not my cup of tea at all. Nevertheless, I still saw him as a partner. Steve and I spoke the same language and ate the same food; I was like his son. Once in a while, I even used to give him some money. I thought he saw a strong man in me; a man of conviction, but he actually saw me like his cash cow. He played with my psyche; I was drawn in with all his stories, and
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I believed that something big was going to happened. Basically, I was the hero of his movie, and, I thought everybody would know me through Steve and Fred, and the Palestinians from Fatah. I admit I wanted to be like that; I admit I was greedy and hungry for glory. In the end of 1996, Steve suggested I move to Adelaide, to his house standing on a large property in Coromandel Valley. I saw that remote area and I definitely like it. It was a challenge. He told me that I did not have to pay the rent, and I could live there for free or later, even buy that house. I gave him 80,000 dollars as the first part of the money for the house and good faith to look after me. Jenny did not even protest that much when we went there to have a look together. The house stood on a hill surrounded by greenery and solitude, with only the sea gleaming in the distance. My wife had a second child, Mecca, who was several months old at the time. When the baby was born, I gave her that name after my favorite grandma in Saudi Arabia. Jenny was pretty busy with children, and I did not admit to myself that she was in relationship with somebody else. Rather, I did not see it. Only later, I learn that Mecca was not my daughter, but the child of a man who was very likely had been screwing her all that time. The man who had his lousy biker skull delicately caved in by me on the day of the wedding. That betrayal never stops hurting. When we moved to Adelaide, Jenny did not like Steve and Fred but somehow, also anticipated where my friendship with the Palestinians was heading. Fred was always absurdly friendly to me, and I would never have guessed that he and Steve were only using me to get money from Israel. I did not know that during the years when I was living in Victoria State; they were dissecting my past how I got to Australia, Jennys contacts, and the instigators behind that all. I had no idea that Fred, with the assistance of Fatah and Yasser Arafat, trumpeted all across the Arab world that the Jews wanted to kill me. I had survived those murder attempts, so I could expose them easily as killers as well as thieves. I did not realize that they had invited me to Adelaide to be sure that I sided with them, so that Jenny and her cronies would be more under pressure. I thought that they were offering help, but they basically played this charade to come into big money, knowing that the Israeli government and Likuds corrupt methods would pay, in case there was a chance of a world scandal and the truth being revealed. As incomprehensible as it sounds, my private drama was not only a
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scandal in Adelaide, Mildura, and Robinvale, but snowballed into a political conflict between Benjamin Natenyahu (Likud party) and Yasser Arafat (Fatah). And it was right in the middle of Adelaide, where the boiling water evaporated and I could not see the real friends for the steam. In the same year, Fred was building a house on Sellick Beach: a whopping, monstrous house for all the members of his extended family. Later, I learnt some pretty weird information from my friend, Peter, who was in my house daily and watched what was going on. Peter told me once when we drove over there: Fred is building that house for you, Hesham. Peter knew from Steve, and Steve even mentioned once : You will see your palace soon. I was impressed that my future would be big; I was excited. Fred wanted to show the Jewish mafia that Palestinian Fatah was going to support me at all costs. Even more so in the media; it would be big news how Israel was shamelessly working in Australia on one innocent guy. They would make me a Palestinian hero little by little out of me. Likud would get worried if this occurred because other governmental parties in the parliament in Israel would find out the truth there would be a big parliamentary scandal on the world stage, as well as nationally, with resulting instability and damage for the Likud party. Yet all this was just lip service; an elaborate hoax to stir up the Jewish Likud and get from them what Fatah wanted. It was also in the interest of the Australian police either that no information about me came out in the media because two Australian police officers had passed away under pretty illegal circumstances. The involvement of bikers and the Israeli mafia was never mentioned in any official documents in Australia because the police kept it secret. There was conflict of interests and Israel had to move fast.

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That is why Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, Likud chairman, negotiated in 1997 and 1998 with Yasser Arafat and made a concession to the Palestinians in Hebron and elsewhere. In January 1997, Netanyahu signed the Hebron Protocol with Yasser Arafat, which resulted in the redeployment of Israeli forces in Hebron and the turnover of civilian authority in much of the area to the Palestinian Authority. In 1998 another document was signed: the Wye River Memorandum between Netanyahu and Arafat with Madeleine Albright about another redeployment of Israeli forces elsewhere in West Bank and a security agreement. Israels 120 member parliament, the Knesset, approved the Wye River Memorandum by a vote of 7519. Israel undertook to withdraw its troops from a further 13 percent of the West Bank, in three stages over a period of three months, giving the Palestinian Authority full or partial control of 40 percent of the territory (complete control of 18.2%).In return, the Palestinians agreed to a detailed work plan under which they were to cooperate with the CIA (or Mossad) in tracking down and arresting extremists in the Hamas and Islamic Jihad groups. Israeli and Palestinian sides singed to carry out their reciprocal responsibilities, including those relating to further redeployments and security respectively. It sounds unbelievable to say that one illiterate Palestinian guy far away in Australia could have helped that international deal. Believe or not, I was the real jackpot for Palestinians. I was the key; the trump card for negotiation between Arafat and Netanyahu back then. I did not have a piece from it, because I ended up on the Australian street, hunting for bread. Steve pocketed my share of the bribery and then called the police on me. One is hitting the bull while the other is sharping a knife to cut the bulls throat. My good friends Steve and Fred gave me the greatest hit and let me bleed until now.
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Chapter 7 Humiliated and Insulted
Jenny was about to offer me money, but should I accept it? This was the same hush deal, cutting out Fatah entirely. If I had taken Jennys bribe, I would have been dismissed once more, and Fatah - along with Fred and Steve - would never have gained anything from Israel. Denying everything about Jenny the poison, the loveless marriage, her weirdo family, her long-term affair with the bikie, and the constant lies was not worth ten times the money. I wasnt going to give her the satisfaction of getting away with it. I just wasnt for sale to any of them, and this was a problem for them all. Jennys behaviour was really hard core after we had settled in to Adelaide life. Poisoning was Jennys favoured method of knocking me off this time it was in the form of venon from a scorpion, which I found under my pillow and managed to kill before it killed me. After that incident, I refused to eat with her at the table. What if she was planning to poison me the conventional way? It would not have been the first time. Her hatred was commanded from the top ranks; the Jews wanted me dead so as not to make a deal with Fatah. My story had started getting attention in Arab world, and the situation was reaching breaking point from every angle. Jenny once returned from town, crying that Steve had asked her something really shocking. At first, I thought something small-minded like he had wanted to bang her. Yet it couldnt have been further from the truth. In fact, Steve was blackmailing her. I did not know about anything; nobody informed me, neither him nor her. Everything happened behind my back. I drove to Steves place, wanting his explanation. I did not tell her anything, said Steve. He did not want to show me that Palestinians had started blackmailing and pushing Jennys people into the corner. A couple of days later, Jenny offered
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me money from Israel. Yes, she said Israel. We are at home, it is late 1996. She is finally opening up that Israel is behind her destiny to stay with me. You can be very rich, but you have to sell your people. Israel will pay you money. We will be rich now. She started talking about the possibility of getting a lot of money, but I would have to sell my own people, the Palestinians. We could dig a hole in the garden and hide the money there and then live happily ever after. She was so excited when she imagined the money even though I gave her money every week. I guessed then that she was completely deluded since happy wives dont give their hubbies the chop! She may have said happy; she actually meant rich. To Jenny, those two feelings were synonymous. At my Palestinian friends place at Coromandel Valley, looking out over the ocean rolling in, I wondered about Jennys proposition. I had the impression she was more trying to bait me; her murderous eyes constantly watching me. It was obvious that choosing correctly was vitally important. I did not want to make any decision straight away, because I did not understand why she was suddenly offering me money after years of secrecy. I had a feeling that something big was stewing. I called Steve, who had a bit of a power over me. I told him that I needed to see him; that I had something important to talk about. We met at the Shishkebab restaurant and I spilt my guts to him about Jennys proposal. Steve was adamant that I was their Palestinian son, that I could not be serious, and that those villainous Zionists would never buy me off. I heard the same song from Fred and so I stayed on their side, my Palestinian friends who had a great sway over me. I returned home to Jenny and refused the reward. Money wont make me forget what Israel has done, I told Jenny, when she got stuck into persuading me again. She was making coffee at the time, and started to get flustered and distracted. Her quest for riches at any cost was sickening to me; I had to ask myself why the heck it was so important. She did not love me and I knew we were like two enemies doing battle. I lived with her, but there was no communication between us. Still, even if you are not in love, you develop a certain bonding relationship with a person you have children and share a household with. Even though I am from a culture where marriage is considered sacred - especially when there are little children - I did not feel like accepting the money for Jenny: a woman who lured me, wooed me, and then tried to kill me to satisfy her lust for wealth. I continued: I do not want a dollar from Israel.
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Jenny screamed that I was stupid and done for; she was getting hysterical now. I was mystified, sitting in front of a blank TV while she was beside herself. I knew this was the end of our partnership, yet I had no idea what was coming on the next page. I did not know that my good Palestinian friends, Fred and Steve, aside from Fatah, were also involved in it right then. If I had accepted the bribe, my Palestinian friends, lead by the Palestinian government Fatah, would have probably hung me out to dry. I could have been rich instead of them. As it was, they got rich and kicked me out. I did not even dream that Steve and Fred were so full of shit that they would make money and then turn their backs on me, just like Jenny had done a couple of days later. I guess everything took place so fast since I had refused the money from Jenny. She wanted to move back to Robinvale, to her mothers house where she started yelling that she would call the police and that I should forget her, threatened me with police. I had already bad name in police file so far so I left her peacefully. She told me: Go to Steve, he will help you. Go from here. Somehow I was relieved to get away. I was not welcomed there anymore since the Palestinians had entered my life. If I did not follow them, I would be ok with her. Maybe I would have been living with Jenny until now or we would have separated and I would have returned to my life back in Acre. Who knows if I hadnt followed the power of the inner voice? Still, there is a great mystery because thanks to Palestinians, the other Arab countries got to know my private life in Australia, and it was more public than even before. If I had said to Jenny that I agreed with bribery from Israel, who knows if I would still be alive now? It could even be possible that Jews would have killed me before paying me money without Palestinians witnesses who would already be out of game. At that time, when I left her in early 1997, I did not think that the Palestinians were about to betrayed me. I will never forget the day we were leaving Adelaide, and my wife told me: You will never find out who I really am, not in a million years. This phrase still resonates in my ears as if she had said it yesterday. I might not figure out who my sweet Jenny really is in a million years, yet maybe I do not want to know. I can never forgive the way she, innocently drove me out of my hometown, sheltered by the Israeli forces. I was respectful to her - I gave her money and supported her even I knew she must doing wrong to me. Somehow I felt sorry for her because I knew that she was trapped. When I left her in 1997, I did not realized that I was trapped by Fatah, then as now. I left the car for Jenny and took a bus to Adelaide; then headed for the Jerusalem restaurant in Hindley Street. Steve and his son, Mohamed, were in the restaurant and they whispered something to each other. They welcomed me friendly but
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suddenly Steve showed me the sink and proposed me to start washing the dishes. I watched that snake treat me as if we had never been friends. This shapeshifting routine was beyond my comprehension what in Gods name was going on? When I followed him to his house for an explanation, he was shouting at me, threatening me with the police. Putting the whole sorry situation together for me, Steve said that Jenny had been out of ruin me, and I just never saw it clearly. I was apparently under the influence of some pills and heroin that Jenny had regularly been putting into my food and drinks in small doses over several years to develop an addiction. I was in shock at this revelation. He told me: Go to have your blood checked and see how much shit that slut has pumped in you, and he started laughing. I knew that my wife was linked to some pretty dodgy gang members, who wanted to do me harm at any cost, but I had no clue that she had secretly been feeding me all kind of drugs and she had been spiking my cigarettes with narcotics. In hindsight, I can believe it because my body was often inexplicably weak, and sometimes, I vomited and shitted water. More than that, Jenny had played endlessly with my cock to make me addicted to sex. Also, people in the neighbourhood were told that I was a faggot who sexually harassed children. These lies were used to undermine my reputation and alienate me from the community. I only gradually figured out why that whore played all those deviant games. She had been doing mafia bidding; they slowly wanted to destroy me, to turn me into a pariah, and I did not see it. I thought about all weird stuff but I could not do much about it. I fought the gangers my way and I never lose. But with the help of Palestinians I lost everything. When Steve continued revealing clearly what was happing to me pissed me off badly. It turned out that I had also been under constant surveillance. In the house on those distant Blackwood slopes, hidden cameras had been installed, I had been bugged with GPS in my shoes and watches, and that fucking Jenny and her cronies, acting as pimps of the Jewish mafia, had been painting me as a dangerous guy. I guess they had my fate in their hands without my deeper knowledge. I think she was mad with obsession and, in a weird way, I pitied her; I felt a certain compassion about how she had got me into this dirty trade and whenever she had looked at me, she saw dollar signs. Plus, she was the mother of my daughters.
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Since Jenny had not managed to knock me off completely, they began to defile my name. But my wife was the most perverse and deviant figure in this story. She wanted to build her fortune by reducing me to nothing: annihilating me. Not in my worst nightmares did I envisage that this village slut, with very poor taste in friends and questionable habits, would ever wipe the floor with me, the King of Acre. I remember that she would reproach me, saying over and over again that nobody could get me; that I was as hard as steel, better and stronger than all the others together. But I was not as hard as steel: simply flesh and blood. I only grew up in a poor neighbourhood and felt that there was something bigger going on outside that I wanted a piece of. Thats why I did not give anyone a chance to quash my spirit. It is called the will to survive. Thank God I was educated on the street. Since I was a child, I could sleep anywhere, go without food for long intervals, be alone, and count on no one but myself. If I hadnt been streetwise, I would have perished long ago. I know it all sounds like an American movie and it is even harder to believe that I have really lived in that kind of hell. Ultimately, what brought me closer to mental collapse than all the other weird shit in my life was the Palestinians in Adelaide - Steve and Fred - who turned their backs on me, pretending that they had never known me. When I saw Steve back in his house, laughing about me and saying good bye, I went to see Fred at his house in Kilkenny Street (today, it is kids drug den) and asked him for work. He was not as happy to see me as he had been before. He scoffed: You can neither write nor read. I do not have a job for you. Leave me alone! I couldnt give a damn about them: filthy Arabs. Being shunned this way by my Palestinian brothers shook me. Suddenly, I was not a hero for them anymore. They left me behind for their own wealth, the bribery from Jews. I felt like I had reached rock bottom, but I did not want to show it. They thought I would start crying and wailing, crawl into the corner and die or they must have thought that I really did not matter and go my way. But where was my way? I did matter a lot because the involvement of Fatah and Palestinians from Adelaide changed my life absolutely. Eventually I lost everything. I found myself on the street, learning the truth about my friends. It was immensely painful and almost ruined my life. I overcame my grief and decided to revolt but I wasnt young anymore nor full of courage. It was a sad and painful journey where I could not trust anyone because everybody in Australia got two faces. Living with deceit is like trying to escape a deep forest of trees. The lies are so dense that you just stick to the path that you are treading; at least you will not get lost in the undergrowth. Yet its a false illusion, since you are following the path shaped by the deceivers. One needs courage to go into the undergrowth
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as I have done since the Palestinians left me behind. One such brave friend, Peter, the guy I have already mentioned, was up to speed with everything that was going on. He was in my house almost daily in Coromandel Valley, and he knew Steve and Jenny. He told me that I had been damned by Fatah for its own welfare. He explained that it had negotiated a piece of land from Likud, in exchange of me. Thanks to me, some occupied territories in West Bank had been given back to the Palestinians in the West Bank. He mentioned that Steve got some money for me, but he pocketed it all. I was reeling from Peters disclosure over my mysterious past. So I was not a hero for them anymore; I was a liability. Paying me some money from their shares was denied by my closest friends, the greedy Palestinians. Steve pocketed all the money that should have been rightfully mine. My friend, Peter, then set about telling other people what he knew had happened to me; that I wasnt a disreputable man, but I was only a pawn in the international game of political entrapment; how the Palestinians had exchanged land and kicked me out to the street for their wealth; how Steve owed me money and that Fred and Fatah kept their noses clean because of their secret pact with Israel. By this time, the entire Palestinian community already knew that I was on the street, being pursued by the Jewish mafia who did not think that the Palestinians would disown me. Later, Peter was accosted at gun point and loaded into a car. They kicked the living daylights out of him, and he wound up in intensive care. I have not seen him since that days sorry business. When I came back to Australia in 2007, I contacted him by phone but there has been isolation and fear in the intervening years. It was all upside down. I felt like a wild taurus in the ring, thrashing everywhere yet nowhere to stop safely and rest as everybody there was trying to bring me down. I did not trust anyone anymore. One night, while walking down the street, a car stopped and two shots were aimed at my feet. I reported it to the police. One cop asked me: Can you fly a plane? When I replied no, he advised: Well, with a story that yours, Id learn to fly, and then get the hell out of here! Here were the first wise words Id heard in some time, and I began to think seriously about this prospect: going back home. Little wonder when you consider
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the catalogue of disastrous events and associations linked to my life in Australia: Jennys murder attempt on me; two dead policemen; bribery, buy offs, bad rumors about me, the Australian Federal Police; the Israeli Mossad and the polished cars of Jewish bosses linked to the Jewish mafia who loves to show off for Israeli superpower that they do the job properly; easily bribable bikies gangs; the Palestinians who, for a bit of money and a little piece of land in the West Bank, destroyed my life in a heartbeat and, as I later found out, Iran and Hezbollah, trying to save me from the destructive forces of this coalition. I was approached by an Iranian trying to intervene in my situation. A man speaking English approached me at a bus stop in Adelaide. He asked me: Do you have an Australian passport? I said that I did; I always have it with me. Then come with me to Iran. I was sent to escort you there. Ill pay your airfare. Finally, I thought I was a hero and other countries knew about me. Yet I did not realise that this was my greatest chance to run away from the melting pot. You know, I am the Arab, hot blooded and seeking revenge and justice by my hand - not with power of others. I have never accepted being a member of any group. I was born alone and I will die alone. I am not anti-social, but I do not like anybody telling me what to do. I did not want to go to Iran - I did not want to align myself with any strong militant authority and adopt their ideology. I did not understand it either as I was young and nave and did not matter about politics. I was hurt by the way the Palestinians had prospered from me and made my life a hell. So I did not trust anybody, and I knew to rely only on myself. I wanted to show all of them that whatever they were doing, they could never break me down. I again refused another challenge and stay alone. Yet since that time I have their protection. I decided to travel across Australia to get away from Adelaide. I used to call Steve to tell him where I was. Steve, living in Adelaide with his wife, is a prime example of lust, avarice and pure evil. This man is not a human being: he is Mephistopheles personified. As I had been informed recently from his sons, Steve received two million dollars that he should have given to me as compensation for what I had to go through. At least a portion of that money, but no, Steve was shafting me. When he accepted the bribe, he should have
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taken responsibility for me, and paid me my dues. Instead, that spiteful jackass sent me to the sink to wash his dishes. He pocketed the money, invested in properties, bought his grandson a new car, spent up large with my money and, in the process, he fucked me over. I always told Steve that I would kill him once I was back in Adelaide and he just laughed. He did not know I was serious. Of course, he ran off, bleating to the police, but they could not arrest me because there was no reason. As it stands, I have never had time to do anything about my eternal vow to get revenge, but I think about it every day since he left me behind. Today, no one talks to him because people understand that he is nothing but a greedy bastard who wants to pimp me. Instead of paying me and ending this drama once and for all, he has started to act like a boss. He has hired more minions to keep tabs on me: for a few dollars, they will make trouble then run to ground. Steve is a terrorist, a criminal, and a drug dealer who is hiding like a rat. Recently he sent a message for me through his son I am still in touch. It was not personal, it was all about business, his son said to me. Yet his own children live poorly. Steve never even looked after his children; why would he ever look after me? A greedy bastard from the West Bank who would even harm his own family for a dollar. 1997/1998 were dark days in my life in Australia; I was 31 year old, lonely, on the street, hunting bread while other celebrated a victory. Little did I know how far into the abyss they would cast me, and leave me for the vulchers to pick over. Yet only in knowing darkness can you appreciate the light. They had purposely taken advantage of me and then cast me aside - just like Jenny had done but the knowledge of my brothers deceit would be the turning point on my way to Acre.
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Chapter 8 Behind bars
As a result of being on the run, I have travelled to many places in Australia that I would probably never have visited. I shied away from people who looked dangerous. God Almighty himself could bribe anyone against me, attack me and curse me. It was certainly tough, but I was determined to get through this rough patch even I did not know where I was heading to. However hard I tried to keep on the straight path of righteousness, I did end up in jail once. The Jewish mafia wanted to put me in prison several times, claiming that I was doing some illegal stuff, but I never gave them any chance. I pulled myself back from the brink. The drugs were gone, I was clean and I knew what I was breathing was just air. However, I was still being pursued. I did not have GPS in my shoes, neither in my watch - it was hard to monitor me. Every place I went, different bikies tried to set me up and put me in jail, to put an end to the stalking. I had escaped death several times and now I was a vagabond, tired and confused. It was not just a couple days: it was months and months. Behind my back, I was declared a dangerous person so that nobody would discover the truth and give me a hand. My closest friends were bought out, utterly destroying my life. I slept wherever I could and ate what was available. Some undercover cop, probably from the Mossad, was after me, and it was in Sydney when I was approached by a stranger in a suit. He begged me to return to my wife or I would lose a great deal. I wondered what more I could lose? I had spare pants, a shirt, some underwear, and a new pair of shoes without GPS. He said there was a lot at stake. I told that cop in a suit to get lost. I did not know what was happening on the political sphere, that there must be still arguing about my destiny. Truly, I did not have the capacity to even think like that. There must had been great fear of Iranian involvement for Israel. Israel had got rid of Fatah and Arafat with deal agreements of redeployment of Israeli Army in West
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Bank, but Iran and Hezbollah power supported me after all. Who knows what kind of schemes were on the table between those greatest enemies? What I know now for sure is that thanks to Hezbollah, I have survived until now because they gave me strong protection in Acre when I went back in 2000 and stayed there until 2007. Even though I refused to go to Iran - and later one Muslim asked me Arabic to fly to Lebanon and I refused again - they understood I was a fighter for my rights as they are fighters for Palestinians against Zionist power. They watched me from afar and I learnt that in Acre for sure. I did phone my wife a couple of times; only to call her names. Jenny and I had only one joint bank account which she cancelled within a few days of my leaving. I was penniless and exhausted. I slept in a car for 500 dollars. She just laughed at me. She did not care because she had her money. She shared it with the whole of her family. They bought houses, farms and a gas station in Robinvale. Unfortunately I did not meet Jenny and my daughters in Australia ever again. Poor as a church mouse, I was back in Adelaide in 1998, and registered at Centrelink; at least I was able to pay for the shelter. Then, I rented a small closet in a hotel in Hindley Street. At the park in Rundle Mall Street one day, a Palestinian guy (Steves pal) grabbed me aggressively by the collar and rebuked me for discrediting them; he said I should stop sulking and rebel-rousing. I was seriously pissed off by how he grabbed me with anger, and I gave him the anger back. I lashed out and stabbed him with a little seven-centimeter knife in the ass. I did it about five times so that he would not be able to sit down for a couple of days. I just wanted to send a clear message about the end of our friendship, because it was also him who was seriously involved with Steve. He probably wanted to made a deal with me, but I did not trust his aggressive gestures after months of hunger. I think the cops had been waiting for this moment for quite a long time; they finally had a good excuse to lock me up so they would turn all the prisoners against me. About ten pigs in police uniforms with truncheons and helmets jumped me and then threw me in a small cell; I guess my reputation as a serious villain preceded me. So I sat in the cell and hated the whole world. Understanding now that the police were in bed with Fatah and Jews, I couldnt have given up
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because it was not me who had started the war. It was them who wanted to throw dirt at my name, use and abuse me for secret bribery. I felt incredible defiance, disappointment, and passion. I was wildly angry, standing alone against a corrupt world. I never expected what came next. From the watch house, I was transported to a mental hospital. I guess they decided I would be contained and under surveillance no matter what. This way, any story I may tell would be discredited as the ravings of a loony. Those police chained me to the bed. They believed I was dangerous and they feared my revenge: I was a pretty wild mustang. They implanted GPS into my body, just like the surveillance devices I had had in my shoes and watches before. It is basically illegal, but nobody really cares because the police deny it. These microchips exist everywhere in the world and they are used to track the most incalculable convicts. Thats what they have made out of me; a street-wise innocent boy full of vigour who used to help others at all costs was chipped like a dog. When I talked to the doctors, I was naive, frightened, confused and hurt, although I was telling the truth. But the doctors had already classified me based on a back-hander from the police, so I basically could do nothing. They had transformed me into a criminal; a Frankenstein monster with some mental illness. I was tired and confused, but it was merely from dealing with all of them. I was not mentally ill with brain difficulties, or psychotic either. I was illiterate, but it was not about that at all. In the game was my pride, strength of personality, my boldness, my defiance; on the higher level was the Iranian and Hezbollah interests in my situation on the Australian field, so the Australian police was in the game as well. There was great secrecy and, with all the convoluted involvement of other countries, everybody tried to avoid exposing my story to the Australian government. Big people, big money and big corruption is not good press. So they gave it a name that was the key to my disposal: paranoid schizophrenia. There is nothing more simple and intelligent than to make a lie from the truth, or reality into pure imagination. Illegal corruption was swept away under the table based on one psychiatric report, saying that I was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia, that I had hallucinations and talked
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a lot about Mossad. I was actually telling the truth about what was happening in my life, but the doctors had already been instructed differently from the top and nobody cared that I was the one telling the truth while the top-ranking police officials lied. There were strong interest by everybody to finish me off in the mental institution. Whenever I said Mossad, I got an injection in the ass. The doctors promised that they would not inject me, but I had to stop mentioning Mossad. What else could I do? I was evidently outnumbered and targeted. So the truth was disarmed and declared as hallucinations. Thats how they got me, the bastards! Now that Steve and Fred had abandoned me and banded with the gangs of bikers and the police instead, they were stronger than anyone else. Everyone in Australia has been against me: the Arabs, the Jews, the police, the bikies and since then also all psychiatrists from one psychiatric report starting my no true psychiatric history. I am, so to say, the enemy of the state: a pariah because I have dared to revolt. Until now.
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Chapter 9 Walking on water
Recognising the reality of the situation that has impinged on my life is, for me, like walking on the surface of the water; looking down and seeing the strangled faces of victimised and oppressed Palestinians looking up towards the light; looking towards me as they grasp for a lifeline. Further down in the water, I see the grabbing arms of the Israelis; Leviathans - pulling my people back under: submerging them. The suffering in my life has been transformed into a mental illness so that I could never seek any compensation or investigation the legal way against the Australian police, Fred, Steve, the Israeli Likud, or the Fatah-led Palestinian government. Clever bastards! Yet the pen is always mightier than the sword. Padded walls are softer than iron bars and, with a strong will and a powerful mind, liberty is assured. What occurred during my incarceration after 1998? In the Middle East, Fatah celebrated the deal. Without my story in Australia and Freds connections to Fatah - Arafat would have never made a deal with Likud and forced Netanyahu to sign the Hebron agreement or document the Wye River Memorandum about redeployment of Israeli army in West Bank. It was obviously a victory for Arafat to get a piece of land back for free from Israel.
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6.1% percent of the Israeli occupied territories in the West Bank - including part of Hebron, Nablus and Beitunia - was to be returned to Fatah in an agreements signed by Netanyahu and Arafat in 90s. I believe that similar transactions over land had been made by Likud and Fatah previously. This is not a speculation because if we have a look at the hard borders between Israel and West Bank in 1948 and where they are now, it is not believable that Israel had stolen all those areas in the West Bank without serious war or international scandals. It must have been buy off mechanisms just as I have shown in my story. There are secret exchanges of businesses, money laundering, and everybody basically knows that Fatah is a puppet for Israel. In return, Fatah opened its arms to other machinations in security of the West Bank and the Palestinian police in the West Bank do the job for the Israeli army. Those deplorable Palestinians, together with the Jewish population, do not have any idea about Fatahs collaboration with Israel in exchange for hush money. From my point of view, new houses for the Jewish population in the West Bank are not illegal because the State of Israel has already bought these pieces of land by secret conventions and the transfers of businesses and financial skullduggery with the Palestinian authority, Fatah. Poor Palestinians are being expelled from their homes; they curse, cry, throw stones at the Israeli army and none of them know anything or can change anything. Everything has happened between the upper rich with power who blackmail and buy off. People do not understand anything, only hate each other for some political ideas. And then, all of a sudden, some gas stations are bought, some new franchise businesses are created, and some lands and buildings are also purchased elsewhere in the world. Basically, the money is very quickly invested so that nobody asks too many questions. Fatahs financial aid for the Palestinians, including all donations from Arab countries, ends up in global money-laundering speculations, such as here in Australia with Freds family. Israel will not allow this money into the hands of the Palestinians in the West Bank. This money could make Palestinians in the homeland stronger and therefore capable of extricating the Israeli supervision. Instead, it is sent into the world and the exiled Palestinians, who are in the business, launder it. People do not understand that the leader of the Palestinians - Yasser Arafat and today, Mahmoud Abbas - have only been repeating over and over again what those unworthy people have been doing in their own state, and at the same time, killing their countrymen in exchange from the money from Israel. The West Bank is basically Israeli, but no one will officially admit it because Fatah
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pretends to be entirely focused on the salvation of Palestine. Everyone knows that the decision to create the State of Palestine is in the hands of Israel and the United States, so why all this hypocrisy? There is a great spirit of redemption of the Palestinian state in the West Bank, but it will never happened with Fatah who only act proactively. They do all the talking about Palestine just to make people happy, but they are liars, getting more Jewish army and settlers into the West Bank for private profit from land. The Arabic word Fatah means open in English. This is exactly the remit of the political party of Fatah: open slather for all who have money. You pay, I shaft you, and then I shut up. I know it is rude to say like that, but I am angry about what Fatah has done to me and what they are doing to millions of others. Fatah is merely a money-laundering machine that has nothing to do with the Palestinian people. They are nothing but corrupt liars who juggle with the worlds diplomatic affairs and especially with those poor people who live in the West Bank. I am sick of seeing how the Jews behave and how the Palestinians counter that behaviour. The politicians on both sides are guilty of corruption.. It is the simple people, both Jews and Arabs, who are unaware and suspicious of each other because their politicians never tell them the honest truth. Ignorance makes us dull, the nerves become restless, and we have no choice but to throw stones at each other, pull out the batons, fire rockets and burn mosques. Israel and Palestine is a doctrine of hatred and death because of the secret machinations between the government authorities. When I ended up in jail in 1998, Steve and Fred got into money. Steve bought a lot of properties in Australia and overseas, bestowed his grandchildren with some cars, and Fred took over the Australian franchises of the well-known BP and Subway in South Australia and got into big money. Primarily, Fred Shahin was able to secure his whole family in Australia, thanks to me: Fred came into a fortune and, now that he is dead, the family suffocate under large amounts of luxury. Their wealth came from Fatah, as a thanksgiving for the assistance for getting land in the West Bank. Fred shared the wealth with all his family, who created new businesses and upgraded drugs trafficking to the highest level. That year, Fred helped Jews to get rid of me in the psychiatric hospital, and the Shahin family found themselves putting together a business plan for the petrol station business. That is why Freds family suddenly discontinued their careers in July 1998, such as a lucrative job for Yasser Shahin, the Chief Justices associate. What a stunning overturn! All about business and nothing personal. Freds children got the greatest respect in business classes in Adelaide, but
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nobody really knows how they got rich. The painful truth behind their financial success was seeded from my lifes misery. In 1998, I did not understand all the deals with Netanyahu and Arafat, and the redeployment of Israeli army in the West Bank. Nobody really talked to me about it. Suddenly, I was simply caste out of the circle by Steve and Fred, but I did not understand why. Neither of them talked to me amicably, and everything was about big money, secret deals, blackmailing, starting with Jenny and her angry, strange bikies, as well as the Jews, Fatah, Iran, Hezbollah, staying in Freds big house, and then accusations of mental illness. What a weird scenario. When I first let the editor from Adelaide look at this text, he said it was good fiction. But if it is non-fiction, as it is presented, thenhmm He could not find the words to express how shocked he was to expose my story to the public. How we all can live along side this kind of crime and we do not know it. What is really serious in telling this story and it makes harder is a kind of proof, because where there are bribery and buy offs, there is a lack of proof that are referenced only to the author of the story. Do you believe my life story, and why Shahin family got richer thanks to me? Do you want to know what is coming next? You know, my heart is bleeding but I am proudly alive until now. My past is history, my future is a mystery and this moment is a gift. Thats why it is called the present. I never see Fred Shahin again, and his family claim that I am a sick man who does not deserve anything - just ignorance, police supervision and finally death, the end of their nightmare. They did not want to help me, and they do not want to help me after all. Where is a bribery and black market, there is no truth and no honour. Still, Freds family are quietly buying up all of Adelaide, and the fact that their share is expanding thanks to me and the dirty trade between Israel and Palestine does not cause concern to anybody. What concerns me more than my Palestinian friends and their rich lifestyle in Adelaide is the secrecy of my home land - Israel and Palestine. The politics and buy off mechanism made me bleed, yet with the knowledge of the Fatah
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government, I can clearly say that I do not trust them and I do not think they should be in power. If I were a politician, I would do one crucial thing: I would create the State of Palestine in Gaza, open the entire West Bank with Israel, kick out all those corrupt business leaders from Fatah along with their secret bank accounts, and finally open peoples eyes. People live in fear and hunt bread, while the top politics do not distribute money to the population but rather made a business concession with the Israelis and internationally. The money is not there, after all. I would open the West Bank, give Palestinians Israeli passports, slowly open businesses and borders to all Arabs countries to visit each other, and forget brainwashing about threats and hatred. In the West Bank, people would buy land from other people, not governments from governments. Fatah does not deserve the Palestinian state for their speculations and misleading. Perhaps some Arabs would not agree with me because it is madness to say that the last Palestinian land should be with Israel. Perhaps they do not understand clearly what is really going on with Fatah and how they spent their budget in overseas money launderings. The West Bank should be reunited also for the simple reason to understand the Israel and Palestine as a Holy land; a land for everybody not just the Zionists with guns on one side and Palestinian Muslims and Christians on the other. The Holy Land, as it should be, could be the most powerful place on the planet, where the victory over years would be finally achieved. Then, there would be a the great victory for Israel because Iran, Russia, Syria, China, and Hezbollah would not have any more interest in the Holy Land. Gaza could be the Palestinian state, the main Mecca for all Palestinians who live abroad, in the West Bank, and Israel. Gaza, one of the most ancient cities, could be visited by people all over the world, by boat, by airplane. The seaside resorts of Gaza could be the most prominent places in the world. Peace would be there and would be everywhere, too. I know it is impossible to do it without a strong person who could understand both sides and be there mainly for the people, to lead the crowd to glory, Jews and Palestinian together. If I had the power I could change the world. But according to those in power, the intelligent agents, the greedy bribed liars, I am only a head-case; nothing more.
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Part four The Wise Man Israel & Australia 2000 - 2011
Chapter 10 Homecoming
I finally left the mental clinic in 2000. When the treatment order expired, the doctor told me to simply go home. Simply goodbye and good luck. My wife had sent divorce proceedings to the hospital. Perhaps she feared that I would come to visit her when I got out. It was no better in Adelaide than it had been before because Fred and Steve were after me. They were out to destroy me for their own satisfaction, so I left them to their rotten consciences and their wealth, kissed my Aussie life goodbye, and finally after 10 years of hard Australian training- returned to my beloved hometown Acre in Israel. It was 2000, and I was 33. I did not think that harder part of my life is waiting for me overseas. In my beloved Acre, people used to say, never come home empty handed, but they also said, better alive than dead in coffin. I fulfilled the second saying this time. I had paid homage to the first one so many times in the past. I had visited Acre during the years of my life in Australia, buying gifts and giving out money. You know, the town had always received me as if I were still the boy who ran round the streets; everybody knows him and everybody shares bread and stories with him. Nobody really understood what kind of hell I had gone through in Australia. I always had money, and money talks in poor neighbourhoods. I bought a car for my brother, a flat for another brother, took the family on trips to Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa, and Nazareth. We always enjoyed ourselves, and I hid the truth under my disguise as a happy, successful man. When I had needed money for a ticket from Australia back home in 2000, and again in 2007 (leaving Israel for Cyprus), my uncle, Omar Ali, helped me to buy the air fare. He was the cleverest person in my entire family, and he lived in Denmark. He worked at the airport in air control. Omar left Acre when he
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was young: he wanted to achieve something, to live decently, and not waste away in Israel. As a Palestinian, you need to have connections in the government or the police to get on in life. You also have to walk properly on the right side and be against your own people who do not walk right. This uncle of mine, a good-natured dandy, ignored all these absurdities and flew to Europe. In 2008, my uncle was found dead in his apartment in Copenhagen, just a few months after his second marriage. Nobody knows much about how my uncle passed away in Copenhagen: they found him just lying on the floor in the living room. He did not suffer from any diseases, so they all wondered why he suddenly died. Several times, I have thought about him being murdered because he helped me twice, but then I have told to myself that it cant be true. His body was transported to Acre; however, I could not go to his funeral. Nor could I go to my fathers funeral, due to ongoing complications with courts and passport in 2009. I have not seen all my family since that time I was back in Australia. My mother is still alive: she has had her leg amputated, suffers from severe diabetes, is almost blind and mute, though still very much alive. I wish her enough power until, at last, I can personally say goodbye to her. I hope it will be sooner than later. I left her in 1989 for Australia and I did not imagine that in 2000, when I went back home, I would had to say good bye to her again. When I finally landed at the airport in Tel Aviv, my dad, sister, brother and some other man were waiting for me. I did not know that man, Mahmoud. I found out later that this man had killed Yahya Ayyash with the mobile phone in 1996. Yahya Ayyash was a Hamas member who knew how to make bombs against Jews for Hamas. Mahmoud was a member of Yehya Ayyashs family, and gave him a phone with the bomb installed by Israeli secret service, Shin Bet. When he pressed the green button for an incoming call, his ear - actually his entire head - was blown off. This was at the peak of Palestinian and Israeli conflict. This character, Mahmoud, worked with the Israel police, Shabak and Shin Bet, for money. He married a sister of my brothers wife to be close to the family and worked against me through my family. He narked on other people, just the same as half the Palestinians do in Israel, simply because they do not know how else to make good money legally. The very first day at home, we sat with the family on the veranda, sipping
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coffee. Mahmoud was there as well, together with some buddies, and he told me: You see all these shops down the street of Acre? They can be yours! Do you want them? I had scarcely arrived in Acre; I had not even have a proper shower, hadnt even spoken with my mother, and he was telling me about entitlement to shops as a compensation for what the Jews did to me in Australia. I was affronted and told him I did not want those other peoples stores or have him show up at our home again. I did not want to make trouble, and I did not want anything from the Jews or Palestinian Fatah. Still, they did not let me be. If you do not want to be bribed, then they must destroy you. This is a strange strategy of the Jewish mafia. Let me be and I will let you be. But it was impossible because Hezbollah always had their interests wrapped up in my situation and covered my back. My dad was indoctrinated by Mahmoud and one other man, a Fatah Palestinian from Acre who now lives in West Bank. That second man is the same age as my father and knew everybody in Acre. He acts like he is Palestinian, but he is basically with the Israelis; like a spy. Before I returned to Acre, these guys of Fatah opened a Fatah office for anybody from Acre to sign up a membership of Fatah. They were offered money and nearly half of Acre became members; even they have Israeli citizenships. They did not know that they would have to listen to those who would tell them what to do. Nobody understood that this movement was basically against me for the government pacts that Fatah signed. Fatah should have looked after me because of their profit. The same scenario played out with my father; he became a member and had to turn against me. Nobody really understand what is in the game. Fatah was responsible for paying any outstanding bills of members in return for putting me down. It was unbelievable what Steve and Fred from Adelaide had got me into in my own home town, where people had known me since I was a baby. It was more painful than any Aussie bikies and it was only because Steve and Fred left me behind for their money. My father and brother, Isa, were angry that I did not take over those shops offered to me by Mahmoud because they would have liked to share in the profits. They were grateful for the money I brought, unaware of everything I had been through in Australia. I was basically half dead, and I could not get excited about anything. Isa urged me to become a member of the Shabak
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the Israeli secret police - and father wanted me to cooperate with Fatah. I did not want to be on either side because I knew that these were corrupt, killing organizations. I wanted to be myself and belong to no-one. At home, there was only arguing and I felt that it was no place for me anymore. Isa and Mahmoud turned the whole family against me, telling them that I was insane. Several times, he wanted to challenge me, so I left the house as I knew it would turn to be the same drama as in Australia. I was physically exhausted and psychologically ruined, but I was wary. I knew the strategies my enemies had used in Australia and thats why I changed tactics and began to write testaments - photo collages in Arabic and Hebrew - supporting Hezbollah and Iran or attacking Israels government mafia, Likud, and the absurd and cruel to treatment of Palestinians and even Jews. I wrote about peace between Jews and Palestinians, about the local drug war, about other Arab countries, about the floods, the ozone hole, about the identity of Gog U Magog. There were many appeals to action, and every time a new topic, but always with the same simple objective: provocation and rebellion. I spread the propaganda pieces I had written around Acre, Haifa, Jerusalem and Tel Aviv and many other places. Between 2001 and 2007, I disseminated about 50 different topics, each time about 3000-5000 copies. I printed my phone number on them, and people who were interested in my viewpoint could call me. I spoke with them about what they thought and how I saw it. A lot of people stopped me in the street and gave me the courage to continue, telling me that I was a hero to them. When I started publishing these provocative writings, Israeli newspapers reported that I had lost my sanity, that I would be sent to prison for five lifetimes, and that people should take no notice of me. Conversely, the Arabic press wrote that I was a hero and that I was fighting for the people, that I could write whatever I wanted and no one would condemn me for it. I could have easily gone to jail again, and I was ready to do that because I still had nothing to lose. When I got support from a secret martyr of Hezbollah, I was absolutely sure that I was protected by them. After that, I knew that Hezbollah
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was monitoring the situation using its secret members, so I had their protection. I understood that the Jews couldnt just bump me off because Hezbollah already knew me from Australia, and they might easily start striking Israel just for me. I believe Jews knew that I just rebelled to wake up people from lethargy and fear. If Israel really wanted to kill me they would find the way. Israel did not want to kill me because I was not a terrorist, I did not have any connections, weapons and destructive plans. They knew that I love provocations and I fight merely for my justice, for my own destiny and for my loving Acre. Hezbollah protected me from their site but I did not know their plans and strategy, secret members. I even did not want to know because I relied only on myself. I was strong and gutsy and the people in Acre stood by me; however, Fatah hardened their tactics and began to circulate computer-generated photographs of me, not looking like a hero but a pervert. That photo was sent to Acre by Steve from Adelaide; he collected a tidy sum for that. It was easy for him to pay a graphic artist to make a gross photo collage. After seeing the photo, naive people began to turn away from me, while others rubbished it because they understood there were deep political problems surrounding my situation and supported me in a subdued way. Other people were corrupted trying to get me into the fights and secretly sprinkling drugs into my food. People had been told that I had AIDS, that I was sick and other disgraceful rumours. My own people from Acre - my own family - were bribed and brainwashed to stand against me. It was a heart breaking time in my life. I have recounted many time that only Steve and Fred Shahin in Adelaide got me in trouble with my own community where I was born and where I was always welcomed. In return for their wealth, they poisoned my people. In fact, it was the same scheme I had already encountered in Australia. If I wanted to earn somebody some money, I went to visit them every day until Fatah got him and bribed him to be against me. How many people have been bought! How many people did I make lucky! Its almost ridiculous. People used to call me money train. Bribes came from the Fatah grants land deals in exchange for their silence about me - or from Australian deals done by Steve Merhi and Fred Shahin; it was money from the same source anyway. It was a painful discovery in my life to realize that Jews bribe Palestinians to do the dirty
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work for them. We throw dirt at each other; we exterminate each other for Israeli bribes and a full stomach, for the facade of happiness, or for the political power which brings only fear of tomorrow. Clearly, nobody was surprised that I lived alone, on bread and water, and published testaments against my people. I did not want to be dirty; people had defiled me enough. I knew I was playing chicken with the authorities. I was fair game: left to run wild, then hunted down and shot at point blank. Truly the involvement of Steve and Fred Shahin in Adelaide brought an awareness of my situation to Hezbollah and Iran, Hamas, Fatah. I should be really thankful that it happened - even though I made money for them and they turn their backs on me. At least there was the support of Hezbollah and, thanks to them, no gangster gunned me down in Acre. Unfortunately, there were a lot of other lives lost during my stay in Acre. About eleven men from Acre were killed because they did not fulfill the task to get rid of me nicely, without suspicions. These young victims obtained drugs from Israeli gangs. Drugs are supported by the political government of Likud by selling them to the Arabs and slowly making junkies out of them. Those boys received drugs for free because they had to deal with the task of destroying me. Boys would mostly sell the drugs, bag the money, but not attempt to harm me in any way: they knew me and did not want to hurt me. Others tried, but I was always alert, never giving them the opportunity. Those men who did not meet the
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task were simply removed by different gangs, hit-men of Eli Sadon. This is the harsh reality of Acre. The bribery and drug gangs of gangsters Arabs. Families and wives of the killed protested and rebelled, but what could they do against the government regime? They went onto the streets with large placards: Stop killing the innocent, but nothing changed. In Acre, there are either old cars or luxury cars driven by drug dealers. It was not like that before: only the strong and brave Palestinians, who had not obeyed the so-called system, were wiped out. Now, they kill young Palestinians of Acre with drugs. They want them to be weak and too busy raising money solely for the basics of living; therefore, forgetful of the struggle for Acre. Since the Palestinians of Acre do not have much money, drug trafficking is the fastest earner, even though they often have to pay with their own blood. Arabs must not sell drugs to Jews. If they sell it to Jews, they are killed on the spot. Jews should be kosher, while Palestinians should be wastrels and junkies. The government mafia strives to do this and they have been quite successful: totally destroying their brains and making empty shells out of vibrant young men. That way, it is much easier to manipulate inhabitants and push them to leave Acre. The government also threaten people with letters claiming to pay higher tax for a house in prominent parts of Acre; they force them to sell the house, take some ridiculous sum of money or stay and pay more and more. It is irritating for all inhabitants and unfortunately, they cannot do much about it. At least their voices are raised in united protest. The people of Acre must stay there as long as possible otherwise Acre will be lost forever.
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Chapter 11 Retreat and suffering
Several times, I was sent to prisons in Israel for no reason, and I always escaped from those places so that others were surprised to see me back on the outside again. In July 2006, I was locked up because my brother, Isa, pretended that I attacked him. It was simply a lie in order to get him a few shekels. I shouted at him in the street, shouting everywhere, that Hezbollah will now hit Acre and it indeed happened. Hezbollah was at war with Israel, just as I had said to my brother. Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, is Shia Muslim, the same as Iranian people. He is based in the southern part of Lebanon, and inhabitants there are on his side. His special army runs his own Hezbollah weapons, administers Hezbollah schools and hospitals. As a result, he is a very rich and important man. Israelis hate him and constantly try to kill him. Later, it was said that they started this war to release the prisoners from Israeli prisons. Thank you, Sayyed Hasssan Nasrallah; you are some kind of savior of the Palestinian people in my eyes. On one occasion, when Hezbollah missiles were falling and I was in prison, a guard tried to choke me with a toothbrush as I shouted: You see! Hezbollah is hitting. The guard pushed the toothbrush into my mouth and the brush was lodged in my digestive cavity for two years, until they got it out in Adelaide in 2008. I was afraid to have the brush removed in Israel since I was a fighter there, an enemy of Israeli mafia. So I could not trust anybody. I did not want to die in hospital for some failed operation. It was not even seen in an x-ray scan so nobody believed that I had endured that torture. After months of living in Australia, my second wife could see that I was not able to eat. She took me to hospital and the doctors finally saw the toothbrush with an internal camera. They did special hook and pulled that 20 cm black plastic brush out of
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my digestive cavity. Doctors wondered how it was possible I was still alive. I wonder the same myself because the pain was unbelievable. In Israel and Palestine, cops stop you in the street because you are Arab, and whenever they search you, you are forced to undress. God protect you if you have more than just pocket money on you. They will take it and anything else valuable watches or chains: you have to show them a receipt. I was locked up for 24 hours many times in Akko without a reason, where I was beaten for nothing, leaving me with a swollen, broken face. They probably wanted to make me beg for mercy, but I would never do this. Once, when they had almost killed me because I had not narked but merely insulted them, a policeman squeezed my nipple as hard as he could, until my eyes watered. When he let go, he laughed, because I had finally cried. In the largest prison near Haifa, I once poured the stools bucket all over the prison director and the desk in his office. My shit smelled everywhere, and I said: Thats for how you treat me. They jumped on me, kicked me, and I only woke up the next day. When I was released, I was forbidden to come within a hundred meters of the jail. Of course, why would I want to cross that perimeter? Several times, the army or the police purposely burnt down the place where I lived. I would find a new place immediately and they would track me and destroy my new digs. I shifted around from tents to the underground and then, in my last two years in Acre, I settled down in a cave near the old raiding wall. They burnt it out twice; however, I reassembled it again in an afternoon. These caverns served as torture sites for Jazzar Pasha, a Bosnian boy who, in the times of Ottoman Empire, made his way up to the head of Acre and Galilee. He was nicknamed the butcher as he murdered one and all. It is said that in this cave where I was living, he killed all of his 24 wives because they conspired against him. One woman cheated on him and he did not know which one. One day, he called all the women to a room, where now there is a hostel at the lighthouse, and asked which of them had been with another man. There was a silence while he waited for the adulteress to be revealed. Still, the women were in silent unison against him because they did not want to betray each other. He got crazy and ordered them all to be killed. The cave had been renovated inside and was well maintained. There were two rooms; I was in first one, and the second one was dark. I guess it was for
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the spirits of the dead girls. I did not want to interrupt them after all these centuries, so I closed the second room off. I lived there with two young cats and it was a magic place; I love it. I had a table with a vase on it, a lot of necklaces for tourist, candles, a lot of pictures around, a lot of my testaments, and a bed. It was really strange and it attracted lots of attention; everybody went there for magic. As I lived in that strange cave, people visited me. These were people from Acre, from surrounding villages, from Jerusalem, and from distant towns. They were the Arabs, Orthodox Jews, police from Tel Aviv, tourists from the world, and smart people who told me to stay there. Perhaps, they knew I was being provocative. The wall was a national monument and I was a public attraction. I lived there in protest of everything that had happened until I met my second wife; this encounter turned everything upside down. She burned it all down with my matches. I was somehow charmed that the girl from nowhere is gutsy. I felt in love with her. The next day, they brought big boulders and put them at the mouth the cave to seal up my place of pilgrimage. Finally, they got me out with the help of my nave woman who leaved after couple weeks. I was lonely and in love. Acre was suddenly not good anymore. My self-imposed exile had served its purpose, and now I knew what to do. It had been exactly seven years since I arrived in Acre. I knew I had to change my environment; otherwise, I would get stuck in Acre or something catastrophic would happen because I was more and more under pressure. As I was leaving Acre, Eli Sadon stopped me, blabbing on about some crap. He was basically very happy and glad that I was leaving, and the other Israelis on the outside would continue monitoring me and let me stuck somewhere forever. Jews did not want me back in Acre and they paid attention and checks. I flew to Cyprus; from there, to Beirut with an Australian passport. The only problem was that my Australian passport was issued in Tel Aviv by the Australian embassy, and it is forbidden to travel to Arab countries with Israeli citizenship. I was detained in Beirut for some months under very harsh conditions.
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Firstly, the Lebanese army arrested me and I was transported to jail for questioning. They offered me a glass of water which I refused to drink because as I told them Israel used similar shit mixed in water if they want to force interrogation. This probably annoyed them, so they took me to the mountains somewhere near Beirut, where an army barracks was located. There they ran hearings and tortured terrorists, as the voices of people screaming and groaning could be heard. I was internally strong now; my psyche was robust again and I had been reinvigorated during my pilgrimage. I knew I would survive this. I told them that Israel was after me, that I fled into Lebanon because I had no choice, yet I believed in Lebanon and Hezbollah, but they were not interested. At that time, Hariri was in power; not the current Hezbollah sympathizer, Prime Minister Najib Nikati. Consequently, the worst torture of my life followed. They covered my eyes for five days, and they beat me continuously. I was bleeding profusely, my whole face was swollen, and still they kept thumping me. They told me I was a Rambo figure for Israel and asked who sent me there. I told them I didnt support Israel and that no one had. It was truly absurd. I had a feeling that perhaps Mossad had bribed them to hurt me like that: the Lebanese army was an ally of Israel during Hariris time in power, so it would not be at all surprising. Then, another blow to the chin and more unanswerable questions. I internalized the pain and went back to my beloved cave in the caverns of my mind. There, I found sanctity. I told them stories - I had to make a theatre to be realized. There were so many people in the room, I heard their steps, all of them watching me and whispering to each other. After five days of torture, I was taken into a small room (the size of the smallest toilet) where only a narrow hole let in oxygen. And that was on the top of the room. They dragged me bound and beaten, removed the tape from my eyes, and threw me into that little death cell. I really almost died that day. I collapsed. After couple hours I woke up without oxygen and something told me I should try to stand up, I was getting to the heaven. My broken, battered, twisted body, with my hands bound behind my back and feet tied together, had to stand up in a small room. I needed to find how to do this. I started banging my body against the wall and somehow, got into a rhythm whereby I inched my way up the wall, like dead man trying to stand up. I would inch up at least twenty centimeters and then slam down again
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on the other side of the wall, with diminishing hope of moving any further up. It took me forever, but I finally stood up, and took a deep breath out of the air-hole. I began to breathe deeply and I was really on the verge of death. When I pulled myself together, I started to yell to be released. They did not want to let me go until they brought the boss who initially told me that I needed to stay there for another two days. However, he changed his mind for some reasons and ordered me to be let free. That was a huge relief. The prison guards took me to a cell with the other refugees. About thirty of us slept on the ground in a small room. One man came to me and said that I should go to Australia because I have Australian citizenship. The embassy would help me to fly to Australia. I did not want to go to Australia because I knew another kind of hell was waiting there for me, but I had no choice. I would stay stuck for a long time in this Lebanese prison, so I started to repeat the same phrase: that I was Australian and my right was to speak with the Australian Embassy. They allowed me to do so, and I started negotiating with the Red Cross. Eventually, I got a ticket to Australia, thanks to the embassy. I was about to fly, when two prison guards did not drive me to the airport but forced to get out of the car, handcuffed me and marched me round behind the car. One of them threw a piece of paper on the ground and told me: Pick it up! I had to bend down and somehow pick the paper up with my mouth to his hand. I replied: My hands are tied. I cannot bend for that fucking paper. Do it on your own. He bullied me that I was a hero and pointed his gun directly at my head. I told him: Try to fly to Israel and you will see how they sweep you away. They are going to shoot you secretly. The prison guard got mad and grabbed me. The other helped him and we went back to the car. I was transported back to the cell where the commander asked them why Im still there. They answered that I wanted to escape. I explained: Thats not true. I did not want to escape. Where would I run to when I have a ticket to Australia? I defended boldly because I was out of danger. Perhaps the prison guard were bribed to gun me down in Lebanon: many people became rich thanks to me, so why not them? Anything is possible in this story of my life. The next day, I took the bus with other refugees to the airport and I felt calmer now as I wasnt alone with the prison guards. At the airport, official army guards asked me if I wanted to remain in Beirut. I told him no thanks and continued on down the corridor without looking back. I do not know whether he wanted to help me, knowing that I was still on the run or aimed to get me behind bars finally. I did not think about it as I was so dog-tired.
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After the initial joy of returning home seven years ago, pain and suffering had been my constant companions. Yet I had also found strength and peace the cave, which I knew I could return to in my mind at any time. Life had been just as hard, if not worse, than my time in Australia, but I realized I was returning overseas a wiser man than the one who had left almost a decade previously.
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Chapter 12 Clean money; dirty tricks

Returning to Adelaide in November 2007, the airport officials didnt want to let me enter the country although I was a legitimate Australian citizen. They enquired about my so-called friends and relatives that I was staying with, like the short fat Arab who runs a Shishkebab Jerusalem restaurant in Hindley Street in downtown Adelaide. I really wanted to punch his lights out! They rang him from the airport and Steve answered, saying that I was welcome. I was lucky that he did not disown me over the phone. I wanted to get closer to him, and see what really made this parasite stick like a tick. Upon meeting Steve, he welcomed me cheerfully. This was certainly his perfect mask. I was tired and hungry, and I needed to recharge my batteries to be able to catch up with all the goings-on here over the seven years Id been away. Steve told me that my ex-wife Jenny had died from cancer in 2005. I didnt believe him. I thought she was hiding from me, until I saw her grave in Mildura where I went with Steve. I pretended to be thick and not to understand anything although I knew exactly that the bastard had pocketed my money (may he rot in hell!), then slandered me the same way as Jenny and all her buddies had done. I knew he was scared to follow me to a derelict cemetery in the bush. Perhaps he expected me to bury him right there and then, alongside Jenny. I didnt give a damn about him. I didnt have the energy to dig a grave for him. I was rather asking myself whether Jennys death was not actually a slow murder. No one knows as cancer is a ubiquitous illness, and nobody would think that it could be used as a weapon. (Even Hugo Chaves, the president of Venezuela, and some of his officials developed cancer recently: they claim the U.S. secret services to be behind it) Perhaps the mafia had ordered her to knock me off, she had failed, so they didnt need her any more. They had paid damages to ensure Jennys family stayed quiet about her actions. They couldnt bribe me, but they got to her and then they killed her. I only believe in myself, not in any political powers, so I was still suspicious of everyone. This is surely just speculation on my behalf. As a religious person who seeks questions and answers in mystics, I am inclined to say that her death was natural - Gods punishment for what she had been doing for all those years. May God forgive her! May the memory of her be only an eternal disillusion and her soul be born again as someone who helps mankind to flourish, not to kill for gains and riches. I understand that, for a working class woman,
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the promise of a million dollars is a prize that would allow her to have anything she wanted. But she did not realize that it is wrong to kill inhumanly for it. Killers must be killed. This is an ancient Mafia rule that I do approve of. I desperately wanted to search for my daughters in Australia, but I couldnt find them anywhere. As to their thoughts of me, they were thoroughly well brainwashed. They were living somewhere with Jennys sister, who didnt have children of her own. I longed terribly to see them, but I knew that Jennys family would keep them away from me, so that the girls would never find out the truth about their bizarre mother and possibly side with me. Steve started pouring heroin and other narcotics into my food and made me sleep in the back store of his restaurant. I knew he was still on my case. Then I found out that he had pocketed more money from the Jewish Mafia. He was paid to take care of me, to keep annoying me, to hire people to spy on me, and to make me grapple with the police and courts. And I was again on the same track. I stuck with him to get from him my share of the bribery, but he denied everything. Steve introduced me to John Purple. Purple was a veteran: around 38 years of age. He rented rooms to students. John told me that he could get rich if he brought me in. The guys from Likud sent their regards and asked how you are doing, John told me once, and I played dumb. There have been dozens of blokes like this, wanting to bring me down for an elusive promise of wealth. John thought (probably like most others) that he would get a million dollars if he got me behind bars and banged up in Australia forever. As not to return to Acre where I was an official Hezbollah supporter and received their protection. I was a thorn in the side of the Zionist system, and the only way to keep me away from Israel was to set me up with courts and police in a different country. John Purple had an idea. He talked his flat-mate into calling at the police station, going hysterical and accusing me of shouting at her and threatening to slice her into piece, then throwing them into the sea. This was the kind of typical rubbish to get me into trouble that I dealt with all the time. The Australian law is very strict
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and anybody can run to the police without really serious reason. They took the allegation to court and the case went for nearly two years. Then it was thwarted due to a lack of witnesses. Still, I had to remain in Australia because of the bail conditions. As for Fred, I tried calling him, but he didnt want to see me. His son knocked me back over the phone, saying that his father couldnt help me, and what did I want from him anyway. Shahins family had a shitload of money - got richer from my blood and sorrow - yet they were not willing to help me at any cost. Basically, they had to help destroy me for their profits from secret governmental deals in 1997 and 1998. I was taken aback by the luxury that Fred had accumulated for his family, in exchange for keeping my bitter life with Jenny a secret, and for repatriation of Palestinian land in West Bank. Fred pocketed a really good share of that bribe, which opened doors for Fatah in Australia. Jewish hush money and transferring businesses for Fatah and Shahin put Fred Shahin in the top class of Adelaides business people. I saw Shahins families monstrous properties in Burnside area and elsewhere; fast-food chains Subway, fuel pump businesses BPFuel and Mobil, convenience stores, On the run, K-food Express, smokers supplies Smokemart and many other Oporto, HappyWash, C Coffee, Hot hooks, Chill, HappyDogWash, Giftbox, Brumbys, Eat, Wok in a box, car parks, realties, investments, sport cars, and a shiny Rolls-Royce: all worth millions of dollars. His relatives businesses are spread all over Australia and abroad, and ordinary people in Adelaide certainly admire and envy their wealth. They dont understand where this superpower comes from. Nobody really knows that I and thousands of other Palestinians like me must pay for their lifestyle. Palestinians overseas live day-by-day, having been expelled from their homes due to IsraeliPalestinian secret operations between corrupt governments. The money is not there for poor Palestinians: it is here in this Western country for the rich, where it can be easily laundered, out of sight and out of mind of the suffering masses. The public should know that this flashy living in Adelaide is only a money laundering operation of the Palestinian government that recklessly squanders poor peoples money. Israel gives money to Fatah outside the country, and these secret deals are a strategy to keep Palestinians weak and to maintain supervision over the West Bank, governed by Fatah. All the donations Palestinian present in Australia as help to Palestinians end up in businesses all over the world and also into Shahins family pocket, to buy property for his grandsons and nephews, for the generation of Australians who are spoiled from childhood and marked by cocaine and partying. These exiled Arabs dont give a damn about their poor Palestinian brothers in the other hemisphere.
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I was upset that Fred and Steve just continue their weird contract for life. Am I robot or what? I wanted to relax especially when, after a year back in Adelaide, my new wife came from Europe. She was 27, and didnt understand anything. She was as naive as I was when I came to Australia. She longed for high heels and new clothes; she wanted to travel and go to theatres and galleries. She kept smiling at everyone and I felt desperately sad that I should burst her bubble and introduce her to my trouble here. She only understood when we lived in Mildura and all the neighbours were terribly brainwashed by two dark blokes who pulled up in a flashy A.W.D: Israelis, by the looks of them. I stupidly stood by and didnt say a word. The neighbours changed after that: the man from next door became a spy for money, and the woman who used to visit us was now scared to look into our eyes. My wife once asked our neighbour why she had changed her mind about us and she came clean, saying that people gossiped about the man who lived with his wife, kidnapped children and molested them. Such disgusting rubbish was a real part of our lives my new wife and I in Mildura. My wife, although quite naive, knew right away that something very important was happening here, and started to understand. We lived in Mildura for only a couple of months because someone set our house alight. Police said that it was probably a fault in the - electric wiring. We were not convinced of this assessment of the situation, and we moved to Adelaide to try and bring the case to court. However, I didnt succeed because Israeli connections with police and lawyers overpowered me. I am still going through court proceedings with other matters and it makes me very uneasy, especially because of my current wife and our child that has been born. I have a new family, but no one seems to respect it. The court case is dragging on and I am getting really sick of the behaviour of people around me. I have been asked by the prosecutor to undergo a psychiatric assessment to determine whether I am able to withstand a trial. I know that the police want to locked me up in a mental hospital and dose me up with injections because I am, supposedly, a moron. At the psychiatrist sessions, I didnt mention anything in relation to the mafia, Israel, Steve and Fred, or Jenny. The psychiatrists report indicated that I had never suffered any mental illness and that I was able to represent myself in court. I was excited because I knew that Israel was swelling with anger, and it was obvious that they were not going to let it be. A few days before my trial, an ambulance crew, a psychiatrist and police called at my door. They jumped on me, wrapped me in a straitjacket, tied up to the bed, and transported me to a mental hospital. I have got the whole drama videotaped and it can be
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used as evidence in my defense. At the hospital, an Indian doctor from the Queen Elizabeth Hospital was set against me, so the whole drama repeated itself. Probably doctors got clear financial instructions from the Indo-Jews and police as to how to kick me around and I was back to square one.
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Chapter 13 Deliverance
I am in hospital in this goddam country again and the cave in my mind is sealed shut; I cant access it I hate Australia: this multicultural, corrupted country. I want to fly away, but I cant because others have money and power, while I am locked up in a mental hospital for nothing. I am innocent and I have done nothing wrong. I am falling into a black hole that I am unable to fight against. I am lying on the bed and musing on what it is all about. Something urges me to get up. I am not rushing. I am soothed by pain that doesnt let me get up swiftly. I am down and out, but I know that I must fight on. I have come so close. The trial I had been preparing myself for was about to start and the malignant bastards locked me up in a mental hospital, so I cannot rat on anyone in the court. I could have won due to lack of witnesses because all of them were bribed against me. They had been promised that they would not have to come to court. Psychiatrist should have written a report that I am mentally ill and the trial should not proceed. However, I was fit to plea, and that alone turned everything upside
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down. My presence in this hospital only confirms that I could win the case. For what other reason would they lock me up one week before trial? There are no witnesses, perhaps only a couple of pieces of written evidence against me. I dont annoy anyone; I dont expose myself in public, and I dont attract attention for behaving inappropriately. I have been locked up here for political reasons - to hide truth forever and protect a couple of corrupted liars, and my wife is suffering at home. Luckily, we have a pretty daughter who needs care, so at least my wife is not left alone. I looked at my wrinkled, tired face in the mirror. Am I dead or alive? I have the feeling that everything is tumbling down into a swirling vortex, and I only wish a war would break out and people would suffer, particularly those who have caused me all this pain. Yet, just for saying this in public, usually the psychiatrists promptly prescribe a type of barbiturate, so I am silent and still, I am not dead. I have experienced thousands of lies, injustice and disappointment, so no pill can surprise me. It hurts me a lot, mainly the injustice of bribery in which we are forced to live. I do not think only about me and the drugs which are in my body as a result of the liars and criminals with full wallets - but also the global injustice; social and mainly political injustice for people in this planet. I walk down the corridor and watch nothing happening. It is quiet; only strip lighting on the ceiling whistles stridently. It is hard to believe that I am a nut and even harder to convince all the brainwashed doctors that I am not. I will strive to balance the level of cognition versus confession under any circumstances. People are spoiled by money and the will do anything for money, for the feeling of wealth and luxury. They bribed our neighbours who lived next door in Allenby Gardens. Allegedly, they were complaining about my health and had to move out. What a load of rubbish! How much were these poor unsuspecting victims paid? What about Mark, my neighbor on the other side of the house? A lonely Cypriot in his forties, who got me committed to this mental hospital. First, he got a new car, a Mazda. Then, they took it away and blackmailed him that he must do this and that. He treated me pretty friendly although I knew all that was just a facade. I watched him carefully because we have lived under same roof. It was the kind of semi-detached house, where you hear every word from the other side. I treated him friendly so as he wouldnt do anything against me. I even gave him some food my wife had cooked over the fence. But he was in the hands of the powerful with money.. And he did it, writing a letter to the mental hospital, saying that I was bragging about bringing a tank from Palestine and
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razing his house to the ground. Then he packed his bags and left the house for good. And now is his house for sale. Probably, he got new one free from Shahin. My wife talked to him when I left for hospital and he did not open the fence door repeating: They are big people. I could not go against them. Sorry. So I am now a locked up nutcase because of my neighbours. What wouldnt people do for money? They are able to destroy someones family, just to be well off. They bribed numerous people, paid a Greek family from same neighbourhood in Allenby Gardens for a vacation overseas, new cars, new homes, and cash. All those who are bribed feel they have the upper hand because the police are on their side. The night shift nurse is asking me if I am okay, as she sees me sitting in a hall, looking morose and thinking deeply. I am standing on a sofa chair to smoke secret cigarettes out of the toilet windows. It is forbidden to go out after 8.00pm, so I am smoking and thinking about my wife and child, and the house where she is now... I would never stay in a house if I didnt have a wife and a child. I dont need a house. Owning a house is actually dangerous as this is exactly the way of getting me behind bars through a couple of naive and unsuspecting neighbours. But I do have a wife and a child, and I am committed and bound to them. But nobody cares. Nobody offers any solution. Rather they would destroy because I am far away from home, where nobody knows me, and I am officially sick. So why should anybody could feel sorry for me? Nobody cares about anybody these days. Who gives these life-altering orders? The Jewish mafia in Australia connected to Israeli government, because as an Israeli citizen, it is not proper to have the support of Hezbollah? For governmental secret packs? Bribery that was paid for Shahin and Steve Merhi and their valid contract? For Jenny and bikies? Probably all together in my destiny. And who is behind all these psychological manoeuvres, the blackmailing and bribing of my neighbours, friends, and even people I dont know? They are organized gangs, called bikies in Australia, led by some Jewish boss or other drugs dealer. They bribe people who find out the truth. They simply pay them for keeping the truth to themselves. People are driven to harm me in order to make more money. And who pays for the vacations, the new cars, air ticket, houses, cash bribes to police chiefs, neighbours and friends? Shahin family, collaborating with the bikies (drugs people) and top class people only for prestige and protection. Shahin has been financed by Fatah from the West Bank and Shahin family clean money for Fatah. Simple. All together they create a great international chain of exclusive, dominating people
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who are slaves for the great Zionists in Israel and Palestinian West Bank and even here in Australia. The Zionists, the powerful devils that want to destroy everything that resists to be conquered, just did not get me all that years. I suffered a lot; most people could never imagine the torturing, hard condition I have been living in. Only the dirty gossip about my personality in my own community could put down any man, shut all the doors. There are so many bad memories in my mind that it is too painful even to think back. At least my worries are halved by the testimony in this story. I have a good feeling that it was me who told the truth publicly, not the authorities who only twist facts and deny everything just to protect a couple of corrupt Jewish bosses and nouveau riche Palestinians in Adelaide. I am innocent; I have never follow any political power, and finally I am a winner after decades. It was the powerful who started this war, the Israeli political party, Likud. That party has nothing to do with the Jewish culture and religion. I honor anybody who does not come to control me and manipulate me. That means I am not against Jews, but I am against this mafia government, mainly Zionist Likud, with which even many Jews in the world disagree. How many Jews leave Israel daily because they feel they are living in the military ghetto? How many Jews never wanted to live there because they do not like the racist demagogy of government mafia which blackmails, steals, buy offs, imprisons and kills? Even in Iran, many Orthodox Jews who live there do not feel that Iran is dangerous for Israel. They live there because they know very well that the real danger is the mafia government of Israel, which is strongthened only by the U.S. lobbyists. They want to control the whole world - to conquer everybody - the Zionist new world order - and they basically do not care about their methodology of world domination. At the same time, Jews in power have an incredible fear of the unknown. They are afraid to step into the darkness and find the glowing diamond. They want to buy it illegally and then kill the smuggler. Perhaps they cannot see the diamond in the darkness. Perhaps they know about it, and they want to own it, but do not know how. I am referring to Hamas in Gaza Strip, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Syria, and Iran- Israels neighbour states. If Israel could overcome this irrational fear, they could really achieve something huge. Instead, they drop bombs from aircrafts, pervert the truth to lies, accuse Hezbollah of killing Lebanese President Harriri, and complain about the Iranian threat to the state of Israel since they cannot control it via their relationship with the Western superpower, America. I still claim that Gaza should be opened as a Palestinian state and the West Bank opened to Israel. I am sure that lasting happiness could be achieved in this way.
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The old oasis of Gaza is one of the oldest cities in the world and the Israelis are bombing it as if it were a computer game. Arabs would never shoot a Jew who is coming in peace. Arabs are not bad people. What made them bad is the Jewish injection in our brains, the American brainwash, the Al-Qaeda style disguise, the media and lies about 9/11, lies about the war against terror in Afghanistan and Pakistan, lies about Iraq and the overthrowing of Arab powers, and lies about the Syria and Iranian threat. They are super-powerful Jews: Zionists and their ownership of media and banks in America, and the American government lobbing war strategies in the world. The government of Israel should change their tactics openly and look at the problem through different eyes. They should convey a message of peace, not war; present love, not hatred in the media; help all the nations and not harm. If they forgot about themselves momentarily, and tried to understand the issues of their opposing factions, they would be halfway to victory. They should apologize to the Palestinian families who experienced slaughter and expulsion in the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948; the Sabra Shatila massacre, the dead victims and stolen territories. Pay compensation to real citizens and families rather than making secret deals with government, Fatah something would happen immediately. However, I do not think that the Jewish mafia, which controls America, will ever be able to right the wrongs committed. At least, I hope the Israeli government will try to accomplish it in the future. Given that Jews and Arabs come from one ancient family, Isaac and Ismael, what have all those bloody years achieved? What has happened to us? The Jewish politics have forgotten to open their arms to other nations, they are indifferent and, in certain political manoeuvres, even pathologically destructive towards everything that is not as they like it or dictate it to be. If someone without fear and hypocrisy came up and spoke openly to people - Jews and Palestinians- something would happen immediately. Perhaps this is the person the orthodox Jews are awaiting. In fact, they are closest to the Palestinians who keep their religious tradition, whether Christian or Islamic. Some of these Jews believe in Israels Zionism, but I am sure all of them respect any religion and any land. They are not a mafia: they dont need to kill, steal, run checkpoints. They would be able to speak to people, preach and not mislead, challenge and not bully. I would welcome these people the Orthodox religious Jews as the Israeli state power. Then, the Holy land would finally become holy. So, holy peace would finally come to all in the world. But the Israeli government; the American government, and even Fatah are
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full of destructive manipulators who only talk badly of Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Russia, China, North Korea, Afghanistan, Pakistan; ban concrete production for new Gaza homes, ban this and that, close entrances, kill by mistakes, mass murders by accidents, and call ordinary people terrorists, or beasts, while they themselves laze about with stolen money and inflate their egos just to manipulate others. The equation is so simple. Is there really no one strong enough to resolve it? Or is it forbidden? I am flushing the toilet and washing my face. I am going sleep next to my crazy mate in the room number six instead of my wife. This draft of my life story is only one of many examples of how top politics and state intelligence services can become malicious towards their own people just for the benefit of power. My story shows that one well paid cheque for members of the Australian police and one psychiatrist could change a destiny forever. Where is buy off and bribery there is no justice. At least I have a gift from God. Otherwise I couldnt have survived my adult life. I may be tired and battle-weary, but my eyes do not deceive me, and the truth in my heart is unconditionally apparent. I am the wise man, and I bring tidings from the Middle East to the minions in Australia and the international leeches and jackals. The desire to bring the powerful down; the desire to tell people the truth, even though the powerful have been spitting dirt on me for over 20 years; the desire to breathe free this has all disappeared in the end. I dont long for revenge any more. The one and only thing that I impatiently await is the day when I will go back home and die beside my ancestors in my beloved Acre. And God hears me and he will answer my prayer. Thank you. Hesham Galam
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THE TRUE STORY
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HESHAM GALAM
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The Price of A People

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THE TRUE STORY

THE TRUE STORY

page 9 page 17 page 22

page 49 page 59 page 67 page 71

page 77 page 84 page 91 page 96

Words of the author

Faithfully, Hesham Galam

Part One The Rebel Israel 1966-1989

Chapter 1 My birthplace: Acre, Israel

Chapter 2 Street Education in Acre: the early years

Chapter 3 The Honey-trap: leaving Acre

Part Two The Fighter Australia 1989 - 1992

Chapter 4 Robinvale, state Victoria: a town called Malice

Chapter 5 Kill or be killed

Part three The Pawn Australia 1992 - 2000

Chapter 7 Humiliated and Insulted

Chapter 8 Behind bars

Chapter 9 Walking on water

Chapter 11 Retreat and suffering

Chapter 12 Clean money; dirty tricks

THE TRUE STORY

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