 songs & lyrics This Side of Paradise (This Side of Paradise, 2001)  This Side of Paradise was written between 1993-1994 after a series of encounters with Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip from 1989 onwards. Each verse relates to one event. The first, to an experience in Jabaliya Refugee Camp in Gaza, 1989, when our bus inadvertantly turned the corner on an Israeli soldier about to shoot an 8-year-old on a deserted street. The second, to a story told to me by my first Palestinian friend in 1993, about his friend Birzeit University student Hazem Mohammed 'Eid, who 'hung himself' in a cell where the only place to tie anything to was just 1.5 meters above the floor. The third, a visit in Jabaliya Refugee Camp to the family of a Palestinian youth shot by the Israelis. The fourth, relates to my experience at a conference at Birzeit University in October 1993. The fifth, to my state of mind when I came to live in Palestine and began to see such things on a daily basis. The sixth verse and epilogue, relate to the phenomenon of suicide attacks against Israelis, which only began here after Jewish settler Baruch Goldstein murdered 29 Palestinians in the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron and after Israel deported 415 Islamic activists to South Lebanon. I often wondered while living there amidst the daily horrors why there weren't more suicide attacks against Israelis when you consider the amount of violence and repression the Palestinian people have endured for the last 50 years. If you're reading this as 'an apology for terror', you really, really don't get it. Final version of lyrics: Saturday, January 1st, 1994 This Side of Paradise (This Side of Paradise, 2001) no one ever asks, "how are you feeling?" no one ever really asks, "how are you feeling?" la ahada yeselu, "keifa tushhur?" la ahada yeselu haqan, "keifa tushhur?" well today i feel i want to die i saw a man point his gun at a child and i wondered how it could be this way and i wanted so much to make him pay. a friend just told me how his friend was killed in a prison cell in an israeli jail and how they had planned to paint his kitchen one day until his friend was arrested and summer never came. well today i feel i want to kill someone as a mother's tears fall at the death of her son and i hear of how some soldier wouldn't let her see him one last time before they buried his body. i went to a conference in a west bank town and we all stood up and people's heads bowed down. i asked emma if this was for a national anthem and she smiled and said yes as a minute's silence began. well I'm feeling like i've seen everything that's under the sun and i live each day as if it's my last one and i pray one day that all of this will end and i've had enough of too many false friends. well today i'm going down to tel aviv - i've got some pain inside that i want to release 'cause i've seen too many of my people die to let it rest, this side of paradise. holy holy holy lord. god of power and might. heaven and earth are full of your glory. hosanna. hosanna in the highest. 1993, London; 1994, Ramallah, Palestinian West Bank. 
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