Daybreak in Gaza

 

Post number 4          Daybreak in Gaza

Zionists ask my if I have any “skin in this game”, which is to say, if I am not Jew or Arab it really should not matter to me.

They say I must be antisemitic, because I care about Palestine, not the Congo or the Sudan, where Arabs are committing atrocities.

Yes, there are lots of atrocities going on all the time in numerous parts of the world. I care less about these.

I care about these people and this conflict because it focuses on the land I heard about every single day of my early life from 5 to 18.

Why else?

Because my maternal line is Bedouin, way way back. No, that is not enough, though it matters to me.

Because this is the Holy land.

Because I know the Bible, with its historical and mythological stories. Because I know that David killed Goliath, who was a Philistine, from Philistia or as it is now known, Palestine.

I know that The Bible and the Jews did not come from the Holy Land, but conquered it brutally, carrying out atrocities on the people of Canaan. It is all there in the Bible.

The bible describes a particualrly unpleasant, jealous, violent, vindictive and possessive God, who would wipe out whole populations just for displeasing him. Now the Zionists have made an abomination of their religion by doing the same in their God's name, even when they are mostly atheists.

Because the Holy Land is also the birthplace of a new and compassionate version of God, whose teachings were and still are revolutionary, in teaching love and equality between men and women. A new version of God few Christians, Jews or Muslims follow, even though some pretend to do so.

Because the Palestinians are defiant, and will not submit to an evil Western Empire. I am always on the side of the underdog.

I had a Rabbi friend called Danni Smith at University. I learned about Jews in school and from my father's Jewish friends. I lived among Jews in London and saw both their beautiful and ugly sides.

I have led groups with Jews, loved Jews, slept with Jews, had a Jewish psychoanalyst and was taught by Jews. My daughter was a teacher in a Haredi school for 18 months and enjoyed it.

As for Muslims. I worked among them in Oxford, shared my office space with them, and was very kindly treated by them. But I don't feel the same closeness even though I watched a Muslim version of a Christtian Sunday School in Oxford and appreciated an integration of ethnic groups. I still felt and feel less connected with them.

I have a small percentage of Jewish blood, says my DNA.

My non Jewish friends who are not really concerned about Gaza. It is my Jewish friends who inspire and encourage me to support Palestinians.

It is Israelis, with their endless lies and false claims which make me struggle against being consumed with anger at their hideous cruelty and arrogance, their casual assumption of racial supremacy.

What I detest most in this world are people who think they are superior to others, for whatever reason.

We all come from a spark of divinity and it is ultimately the same divinity, whatever name you want to give it..

My father visited Jerusalem when I was young. It was so important to him and my mother too.

My favourite poet, Blake, wrote about the Holy City, Jerusalem being built in England. The anthem about the poem, “Jerusalem” should be our National Anthem.

My knowledge is very deficient, but much better than about other genocides and wars.

So I am getting to know Palestinians though their Art, Music, Literature, Architecture and cooking.

Maybe there will be refugees here soon.

To that end I bought “Daybreak in Gaza” a book of very short accounts of the country and its people.

I found there short histories, many anecdotes of life and culture there over the last 80 years.

There is archeology going back thousands of years.

There are wonderful poems and drawings.

There are terrible tales of exile, grief and suffering.

To my surprise there is a rich history of the development of photography created in Gaza.

I warmly recommend the book.