Several years ago I travelled to Israel for a literature festival. I did so with some reluctance and some uncertainty. Ought I to go or not? Perhaps this dilemma will not make much sense to today’s generation, but for those of us who grew up with a stamp on our passports that said ‘valid for all countries except Israel and South Africa’, the question of whether to go or not was a very real one. For me, the decision was eventually made after my Palestinian and Israeli friends encouraged me to do so. Come and see for yourself what it is like, they said.
It was in 2011 that the borders — Israel’s with Jordan, Lebanon and Syria — erupted with demonstrations, shooting and tear gas. Palestinians everywhere gathered at the border to mark Nakba Day, the day of catastrophe, in 1948, when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were made homeless.
Standing atop Haifa University, we could almost see all the borders of this small country, and it seemed so strange to think that this small piece of land had held the world to ransom, and now its soldiers were standing at the borders, ready to stop the Palestinian people from marking with sorrow the day on which their history changed forever and they became refugees in their own land.
It’s difficult to believe if you don’t know this reality, a Palestinian friend who lives in Jerusalem told me. Imagine coming out of your home and seeing men with guns aimed at you. Imagine leaving your home in the morning and not knowing if it will still be yours in the evening because ‘settlers’ will have moved in. And, she said, these settlers are not even those who carry the history of the holocaust with them, instead they are rich Jews from America and Europe who are looking for a new life. And it’s our lives that are at stake.
As we walked in the old city to which pilgrims flock from all parts of the world — the largest numbers in recent times have been from India — she pointed to a large parking lot in front of her home. Do you know, she said to me, till last week this is where I used to park my car. Now this space has been designated only for Jews. I’m forced to use paid parking nearly 10 minutes away. This is what it means to live with the dailyness of occupation in your own home.
Inside Ramallah, things were tense — the checkpoints were abandoned because the soldiers, young Israelis with guns and bullets, were busy elsewhere. Roads bordering the walled town held groups of young students, black T-shirts on their backs and keffiyehs wrapped around their heads, hurling the occasional stone or potato at the soldiers, but for the most part they shouted slogans and clutched large segments of cut onions in their hands to arrest the effects of the pervasive tear gas.
Deeper inside, things were quiet. In the market square, a stage had been mounted, and people sat around on chairs, singing, talking, telling stories of that day long ago when their lives changed forever. What was it about this day that made the Israelis so fearful that they were willing to deploy soldiers with guns to stop it? I found that difficult to understand. No one was inciting violence, the day was about sorrow and grieving and that was the predominant mood — except for the occasional burst of anger.
I was reminded of a time many years ago when a rally called by the Association of the Parents of the Disappeared in Kashmir was not allowed to take place and the security forces were deployed to disperse groups of supporters and parents who had come to attend it and to mourn the disappearance of their children. What was it about people’s sorrow that made the State so fearful?
Today, like thousands of others, I watch in despair as Israel carries out mass slaughter in Gaza — that small strip of land which has faced terrible attacks repeatedly, where essential rations can barely make it in, where water sources and electricity have been turned off, hospitals have been bombed, shelters destroyed. Some years ago a Palestinian doctor living in Gaza poignantly described the pointless deaths of his young daughters and a niece by an Israeli bomb that fell randomly on their home. I shall not hate, he said again and again to the audience, I shall not allow myself to hate.
Brave words from a man of courage. But how many people can think like this? Indeed, it is remarkable that a lone man, faced with the loss of virtually his entire family, can hold on to compassion. But a State, armed with formidable military might, and supported by the powers that be (including in our own country where our politicians will not even allow a discussion on the subject), cannot even hold on to humanity — not the humanity of allowing an occupied people to grieve, not the humanity of allowing an occupied people to live. This is the real tragedy.
( Urvashi Butalia is an editor, publisher and director of Zubaan )