Montreal Serai

 

غزوة غزة

  

بأكتبلَك

من جوه حصار

بأكتبلَك من تحت جدار

كان يوم شايل سقف الدار

بأكتبلك من أرضي الحِبلى بالأحرار

بأسمي وبأسم الشهدا والثوار

… بأكتبلَك

… وفي حلقي مرار

   ***

غزوة غزة

غارسة في قلبي سيف من نار

جيش جرار

كل سلاحه جبن وعار

وشعبي الأعزل واقف صامد

وإنتوا بتختلقوا الأعذار

   ***

أنده لك

ألاقيك محتار

أسيادك ماسكينلك ذِلة

وإنتَ حمار

لا بتحسب إيه أخرة صمتك

ولا عارف مين اللي بياكلك

ولا بكره مين راح يحتلك

ما هو لازم حيجيلك الدور :

مرسوملنا كلنا إدوار

   ***

الأخت الكبرى

بايعة شرفها ، ويّا الغاز ، للسمسار

وولادها لو ولّعوا شمعة

أو قالوا بصوت عالي كلمتهم

العسكر يحرقوا دنيتهم :

أسوار جواها أسوار

   ***

غزوة غزة

شاهدة عليكوا ليوم الدين

مساكين

باصين لكن مش شايفيين

طول ما إنتوا في ليل الخوف مساجين

على فين رايحيين ما إنتوش عارفيين

   ***

غزة يا أخويا مش حتموت

ولا حتسلم

ولا تنهار

أقفل بابك ، سد ودانك

الّف الف حكاية خسيسة

مهما حتكدب

مهما حتهرب

حتماً برضه حيجي نهار

 

 

The Invasion of Gaza

  

Besieged

I write

From underneath my collapsed roof

I write

From my persistent land

I write

In my name

and for the fighters

and the martyrs

I write

 

Bitter …

I write

 

***

 

The invasion of Gaza

pierced my heart

with a poisoned spear:

Planes and bombs

Unarmed people

A world

that doesn’t see or hear

 

***

 

I call on you

You are confused

Clueless, manipulated, used

For you too they have a plan

but you can’t see your time is near

 

***

 

The invasion of Gaza

will scar you

to the end of days

You can’t move

and you can’t think

You’re stuck in fear

 

***

 

Gaza, my friend,

will not collapse

surrender

or die

Plug your ears

Close your eyes

Believe their lies

No matter how long

falsehood survives

the sun shall rise

Introduction:

When I left Montreal on February 15th I knew that this would not be a predictable trip.  From all that I’d heard, the border crossing from Egypt to Gaza (at Rafah) was unpredictable, at best.  Yet I did not hesitate to pack and go, backed by the support and endorsement of many groups and individuals.

The need to lay the ground for sending larger Canadian delegations, the show of support to the suffering people in Gaza and the importance of witnessing and reporting the reality in the besieged territory were the major reasons and motivations behind this trip.

It was also important for individuals and activist groups to challenge the brutal and unjust siege of Gaza, since countries worldwide, for the most part, were either participating in it or silent about it.

Map: The tiny Gaza strip measuring an average of 8km x 40 km. (from Google Earth)

  

Photo 1: Blocked at the border.

The trip was not an easy one.  My first two attempts to cross from Egypt to Gaza ended at the Rafah border crossing when the Egyptian authorities denied us exit announcing that, “the border is closed”.  International activists, including myself, held a picket in front of the gates.

 

Photo 2: Tunnel police.

Tunnels between Egypt and Gaza are the lifeline for the besieged population of the strip.  It is an industry that is flourishing and a few are making millions out of it.  The tunnel industry is not sustained by arms smuggling, although some weapons must be passing through.  The profits made through this trade are the reason the Egyptian government will never be able to crush the smuggling industry despite turning the border area into an army base.  The only way to crush the tunnel trade, and also curb the arms smuggling, is to lift the siege and allow legal exchange of goods between Gaza and the world.

Photo 3: International delegations.

I met many internationals at the border, both individuals and small delegations from Britain, France, Jordan, the US as well as Bosnia.  All were denied passage to Gaza.  But when larger delegations were on the horizon: Code Pink from the US and Canada and Viva Palestina from the UK, the Egyptian government succumbed to the pressure and opened the border.

Photo 4: Two borders.

The contrast between the inefficiency at the Egyptian side of the border and the simple but efficient setup on the other side is astonishing considering the lack of resources available to the Hamas government in Gaza.

Photo 5: Targeted assassination.

In the Jabalia refugee camp (one of the most populated and dense areas in Gaza) Israel assassinated Nizar Rayan, a Hamas leader, by bombing the apartment building he lived in, killing him and over 10 members of his family in addition to other neighbours. A tent now stands in place where the building used to be, between the heavily damaged neighbouring buildings.

Photo 6: I don’t want to make new friends.

How do you react when a 13 year old tells you that the death of his friends is so painful that he does not want to make friends anymore?

Photo 7:  This is what my factory looked like.

To remind the world how his factory was before Israel destroyed it, the owner placed a photo in front of the ruins. The destruction of this factory is not unique, Israel flattened anything that stood (houses, factories, schools, mosques and even plantations) in an area extending up to two kilometres from the border.

 

Photo 8: Tents again.

How many times will we have to build then move back to tents again?

Photo 9: We don’t want handouts …

We want our houses back and we want security, she told us.

Photo 10: “We don’t like your democracy.”

Israel also targeted the Palestinian Legislature in Gaza city.

Photo 11: Gaza is still beautiful.

Sunrise at the Gaza harbour is spectacular, despite the warning gunfire heard whenever a fishing boat leaves the harbour. The Israelis are always trying to intimidate. 

One thing was clear to me by then, my last morning in Gaza before heading back to Egypt: The Palestinians will not disappear.  Their persistence and determination to continue their lives as normally as they can, despite all difficulties, is the pinnacle of peaceful resistance.

A cosmic motherly-sounding voice has always told me that even the darkest of clouds have silver linings. The past two weeks have forced me to now wonder if the same idea of a silver lining applies to clouds of white phosphorous.

In an arbitrary 15 years from now, the past two weeks (and, unfortunately, the remaining time to come) will be remembered with images of disturbing death and injury, reports of complete destruction of an already weakened Gazan infrastructure; thousands of IDPs; an unreachable humanitarian crisis and stories from survivors. Yet there is another memory which may leave an impact on the dynamics of the region and the North American perception on the entire 60-year-old conflict.

Without question, the North American media has often shown sympathy with one side more so than the other – an unfortunate, but natural occurrence. At the same time, however, a digression from such a grievance is vital. The aforementioned complaint does not take into consideration the surprising slight shift in the coverage of the war and humanitarian crisis. Oft-repressed opinions and oft-ignored facts are being given the opportunity to be expressed. Fierce criticisms of Israel and piercing predictions of the ramifications of the war are flooding major newspapers.

Unapologetic opinion pieces about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are being published every day. Aside from asserting truths about the conflict during an extremely pertinent and bloody time, a common cause cannot be found amongst the authors. The claims of the Israeli government in regards to the operation and the facts about the humanitarian crisis are two points of contention which have been repeatedly brought up. The commentary has also, unsurprisingly, treaded outside the proximity of the current conflict. It is extremely hard to discuss this war without considering 60 years of context. And it is this particular tangent which may leave a legacy in popular discourse and thought about the conflict at large in North America – a region in dire need of another perspective. Underdog ideas seeping into the mainstream allow for a slim, but potentially momentous opportunity for the balance to be tipped toward a more equal and fair footing.

The rise of commentaries has also thrown out a rather pathetic and almost saddening punch to Israel’s public relations monopoly. Active writers, in print or online, have rushed to assist in and showcase the “unravelling” of Israel’s claims of self-defence and cries of moral responsibility. Fingers are viciously being thrust toward the direction of the political timing of the war, the Israeli breach of ceasefire; the failures of Israel’s propaganda machine this time around, and the unfathomable denial of the existence of a humanitarian crisis. Even the International Red Cross, a thoroughly neutral organization, came out with a statement which condemned and criticized Israel for its complete lack of compliance (and fatal defiance) of the organization’s attempt to reach injured and starving Gazans.

There generally seems to be an air of exasperation, as though the war has become one of the final pieces in a long and painful Jenga puzzle, with the prophetic early quivering of the tower just beginning. These sighs of being fed-up most poignantly found within the brief titles of the daily commentaries.

American historian Mark LeVine’s seething article “Who Will Save Israel from itself?” featured in Al-Jazeera discusses the gun with which Israel has shot itself in the foot, albeit with an extremely unsatisfactory answer to the title question. Robert Fisk’s repeated commentary in The Independent has asked and answered age old questions from an insightful and firsthand perspective, in such pieces as “Why do they hate the West so much, we will ask,” and “Why bombing Ashkelon is the most tragic irony.” Gideon Levy’s “The Time of the Righteous” in Haaretz unwaveringly with silent solemn anger lashed out against all supporters of the Israeli so-called “defensive war,” claiming that “anyone who justifies this war also justifies all its crimes.”

The BBC’s Paul Reynolds brought to the public’s attention, early on, the question of Israel’s propaganda in “Propaganda war: trusting what we see?” Khalid Rashidi’s “What you don’t know about Gaza” in The New York Times wrote a quick and to-the-point piece with “a few essential points that seem to be missing from the conversation [in the press] about Israel’s attack…”

Former Israel Defense Force soldier and now Oxford professor Avi Shlaim’s furious article in The Guardian, “How Israel brought Gaza to the brink of humanitarian catastrophe” labels Israel as a rogue state. Just recently, the Times Online reported that Israeli soldiers coming back from the frontline were revealing the sort of “ruthless tactics against Hamas” being used. One soldier claims that he was shocked to see the neighbourhoods in Gaza as though “we [had been] bombing them for years.” Naomi Klein also got in on the action when she posted “Israel: Boycott, Divest, Sanction” on her online blog. And the list continues tirelessly.

This proposed shift is not solely about politics, just as the situation in Gaza is not. To approach the conflict as such is to approach it with a narrow and propaganda-cluttered ideological mind. The Palestinian issue is about a mounting humanitarian crisis which has existed for far longer than 18 days. Our governments (save for the Venezuelans) may not be taking the appropriate action required to address the atrocities being committed by Israel, but challenges to the mainstream discourse through the mainstream discourse allow for the general populace to gain the critical information necessary for change in the policies of our own states toward any country oppressing another people. On January 14, the president of the United Nations General Assembly, Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann, described the slaughter of the Palestinians as genocide. The tower begins to sway a bit more.

This is the silver lining in the clouds of white phosphorous over Gaza.