Someone asked me what I was doing to discourage suicide bombers. I wrote this reply:

I think that raising awareness and understanding is one of the keys to finding a way to a solution - or at least making some positive alterations to the current situation.

Before I answer your question, I think it is important to first ask and answer another question: What is it that is encouraging these bombers? If I am to know how to discourage them, then first I have to know what is encouraging them so I can combat it.

The general answer, from which I will also bring out specifics, is that it is the ongoing inhumane illegal occupation of the Palestinian people by the Israeli government and carried out by the brutal Israeli army.

Let's understand what this means:

It means that children never know which days they will be allowed to go to school. More than that, they don't even know if their school will still be standing.

If they are going to school, they are too often abused, assaulted and terrorized by Israeli settlers and their children as well as Israeli soldiers.

Living under this occupation also means never knowing when you'll be able to go to the market to replenish your household supplies and when you hear the announcement that you are now allowed to go, just as you venture far enough from home to be out of range of any protective cover, another annoucement is heard saying that the previous announcement is no longer in effect - and then the soldiers start shooting at all the people "violating curfew". You run out of the store when you hear the shooting and find that your daughter who was waiting for you in the car has been virtually decapitated by the number of bullet holes across her neck. It's not the last memory of your 6yr old that you were hoping for.

You stagger home, stunned and dazed and try to think of how you will tell your wife and children why you are coming home alone when you see on the news that the Israeli government has been gently chided for using excessive force while being patted on the back for taking a stand against terrorism and in defense of their security.

You slump into your chair and ask yourself what kind of a threat your little girl had been and how did it make the Israelis feel safer to terrorize a community of hungry families trying to buy some food.

Living under occupation also means knowing that 80% of the country's water supply is given to the Israelis while only 20% is allotted for Palestinians (http://www.palestinemonitor.org/factsheet/water_inequalities.htm)

What does this mean? It means that you may or may not have enough water to drink, bathe, cook, wash while looking out across the road and seeing communities with big swimming pools and sprinklers on everyday.

When you are lucky enough to have the water turned on in your area, there may not be enough pressure to fill the water tank which is on your roof - that is, if it hasn't been shot off yet. Water tanks have been a favourite target of Israeli snipers.

Living under occupation means celebrating your 15th birthday with family and friends just in time to hear on the news that the Israeli army is coming to your neighbourhood to arrest ALL males aged 15 and up. You watch helplessly as your mother bursts into tears. Your younger brother was shot in the head and killed a few months ago because he was throwing stones at the tanks that came blasting into your street, and now she is afraid she will lose another son.

Living under occupation means that as you and your wife are rushing to the hospital because she is in labour, you get held up at a check point. Your brother, who accompanied you to the hospital, gets out of the car to explain the urgency of your situation to the soldiers and when he is done, they shoot him and walk away. Your wife gives birth in the back of the car and then she slowly bleeds to death while you wait for permission to move ahead. By the time you are allowed to pass through to the hospital, your baby has also passed away.

Living under occupation also means getting a call from your buddy while you're at work. He takes you to a nearby cafe because your fiance is trying to call from overseas. You talk and laugh for a few precious moments and as you are returning to work, you hear heavy gunfire and see huge black Apache deathships hanging in the air firing missiles into the building you had just come out of. You catch your breath and thank God that He urged your mate to call you when she did.

Occupation means that when numbers of injured laying in the streets, bleeding and screaming for help are getting higher and higher, there are no ambulances allowed in. They are shot at if they try. Eventually the cries and groans and screams are silenced as the injured become more of the dead.

There is no "combat zone" because the nightmare is all around you. There is no safe place to hide.

You keep your family in your home and suddenly there is a loud knock at the door.

The soldiers come in and force all of you to squeeze into one room. You can hear them scuffling all around your house but you can't see what they are doing. Then your home is rocked by a deafening explosion - your children scream as you and your wife try to protect them. When you can finally assess the damage, you see that the soldiers have blown up your kitchen and bathroom. Your children look at you and ask "WHY???" through their tears.

Their home has been reduced to a shell - and you know you are one of they lucky ones, because you just heard about your neighbour whose home collapsed on their whole family when the soldiers blew up a nearby home.

Your shock turns to horror when you learn that your neighbours wife, who was due to give birth this week was hit by the falling debris. She was injured, but when rescuers tried to get at her, the soldiers wouldn't let them. She bled to death in the night and her soon to be born infant died with her.

Her children are in shock and can only mumble - WHY?

You attend peaceful demonstrations, you write letters to other government leaders.

You help reporters come in and observe all the has been happening to you in hopes that the people of the world will step in and somehow bring about an end to this living hell you are caught in.

You hear rumours of peace but then the shooting starts again.

Your son is growing into a man so quickly that you hardly notice. Then you realize it's because he never really got a chance to be a child. In his young life, he saw his brother murdered because he threw stones, he saw his father humiliated again and again by soldiers barely old enough to be on duty. He has mourned the senseless death of his mother and new brother or sister - he'll never know now.

He has watched his people cry out to the world for decades and no one has come to protect him.

He doesn't believe that there is another life because this refugee camp is all he has ever known.

He's never tasted freedom, never known what it was to be able to dream and make goals for himself. He has seen what happens to people who dare to speak out because their photos adorn the walls of the ghetto he calls home. There is a special wall for the photos of the children who have been murdered and he walks past it everyday.

This boy doesn't know any families at all who have not lost a loved one to the occupation.

One day he wakes up and realizes that he is already dead. He may still be breathing, but he has no life but this hell surrounding him. He has no illusions of going to college or university because the soldiers have closed all schools and even bombed the university. Even if it was still usable, they have passed a new rule that doesn't allow him to travel.

The enemy has the power to come into his town, onto his street and into his own home anytime they want. They never have to ask - they take what they want, kill whomever they choose and walk away without any explanation or apologies.

He knows that it is only a matter of time until he feels the hot sting of a bullet tearing through him. He has often wondered what his brother was thinking as the bullets tore through him.

He doesn't know anything about diplomacy, or what makes a good tactical decision.

He only knows that he will not allow himself to pass from this life without taking a stand for his people, for his mother, her baby, his brother, his little sisters, whose eyes never lose the look of sadness and fear, and his father who suffers shame and humiliation because he is unable to work and provide for his family because he is no longer allowed to enter the region where his job is. He used to raise vegetables on a small plot of land until the soldiers came and plowed it under and then claimed the land as their own.

This sad, angry young man has seen more sorrow in his short life than most of us will ever imagine in a hundred years and on that day, he decides he has seen enough to know that he is the only one who can do anything about it.

Since he already considers himself to be dead, he has nothing to lose. In his mind, this is the way to win back the dignity which was stolen from him and his family.

In his mind, he is going to attack the enemy with the only weapon he has, his own body, thereby making a chance that his sisters and his father will at least have something to be proud of.

Should we be shocked that he no longer sees the enemy as people who just are going about their lives? No - not at all.

This boy and his people have never had a chance even to know what it means to just go about their business.

He walks into the crowded mall. As he looks around, he sees people laughing and talking, eating and drinking.

They don't care that his neighbours are all starving. They don't care that his family has mourned the loss of 3 precious members already this year. They are laughing - and he feels like they are laughing at him, at his suffering, at his pain.

He knows that many of these people are the same ones who ride into his community and leave death and destruction in their wake.

Of course, unlike them, he won't be home for dinner tonight.

What am I doing to discourage these bombers? I am currently trying to arrange support for the children of Mrs. Noha Sabri Swidan who just yesterday suffered the loss of their mother and their unborn brother or sister. I want these children to be comforted with the thought that their mother did not die for nothing. I want them to know that her death caused tremors half a world away.

If I can effectively convince these children that they ARE cared for and that someone IS trying to help them, then I have a chance to plant seeds of HOPE in their hearts which the Israeli Occupation Forces are working so hard to destroy and in doing so, can save these children from becoming the next wave of human bombs.

Linda