IRA MATH­UR

This Sun­day’s Book­shelf on Di­vali, which Hin­dus be­lieve marks the tri­umph of good over evil, is ded­i­cat­ed to the peo­ple of Gaza.

I vis­it­ed Jerusalem sev­er­al decades back when I was still a stu­dent dur­ing one of the Pales­tin­ian in­tifadas.

It was an elec­tric vis­it, charged with what felt like the re­li­gious fer­vour of cen­turies. Just out­side Jerusalem, in The Chapel of Gol­go­tha with­in the Church of Holy Sepul­chre, Chris­tians be­lieve Je­sus was cru­ci­fied and rose from his tomb.

Walk in­to the Old City of Jerusalem, and you are greet­ed with the ex­quis­ite Dome of the Rock, the Is­lam­ic Shrine at the cen­tre of the Al-Aqsa mosque com­pound on the Tem­ple Mount, which Mus­lims be­lieve was con­struct­ed on the spot from which the Prophet Muhammed was tak­en up in­to heav­en for an en­counter with God ( Mi'rāj). Walk some more, and you can see the mov­ing sight of Jews lament­ing the de­struc­tion of the great Hero­di­an tem­ple of 40 BC at the Wail­ing Wall, the rem­nants sur­round­ing the Tem­ple Mount, the site of the First and Sec­ond Tem­ples of Jerusalem, holy to the Jews.

You felt in this an­cient city of Byzan­tine church­es, Cru­sad­er cas­tles, Is­lam­ic madrasas, Tem­pler hous­es, Arab arch­es and minarets, Russ­ian Or­tho­dox onion domes, a place where hu­man faith has min­gled for cen­turies that peo­ple would feel soft­ness, and em­pa­thy for one an­oth­er. But boys threw stones, sol­diers, ri­fles, and tanks were ev­i­dent, and women walked with their bas­kets bowed as if in some an­cient bib­li­cal scent.

I saw a sol­dier stand­ing on top of a mosque, stand­ing by a minaret, point­ing a gun down at the street. The sol­dier’s eyes nar­rowed as he saw me look­ing at him, and I knew one group here meant busi­ness and was in charge, not out of faith but force. The West Bank has been un­der mil­i­tary oc­cu­pa­tion by Is­rael since 1967 when Is­raeli forces cap­tured the ter­ri­to­ry.

For half a cen­tu­ry, Is­rael’s oc­cu­pa­tion of the West Bank, in­clud­ing East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, has re­sult­ed in sys­temic hu­man rights vi­o­la­tions, with Is­raeli set­tlers push­ing Pales­tini­ans off their land sys­tem­i­cal­ly. At the time, I met my friend Rana there, and she couldn’t say much, but enough to know that mil­i­tary rule dis­rupts every minute of her life and re­minds her every day that she does not have cit­i­zen rights, and is not al­lowed to be­long in her own home.

The protests against the Pales­tini­ans took the form of stone-throw­ing, graf­fi­ti, bar­ri­cad­ing, Molo­tov cock­tails at the IDF, gen­er­al strikes and eco­nom­ic boy­cotts. Is­rael’s ini­tial re­sponse then (be­fore the world no­ticed) was to de­ploy 80,000 sol­diers who were sanc­tioned to use live rounds at crowds of protest­ing Pales­tini­ans. Hamas’s Oct 7 at­tack, which left 1400 dead, was an act of ter­ror de­signed to fu­el ex­trem­ism to ben­e­fit the pow­er-hun­gry on both sides.

But even the Pales­tin­ian peo­ple who have come to ex­pect the brute dis­pro­por­tion­ate armed force to op­po­si­tion to Is­raeli oc­cu­pa­tion could not have an­tic­i­pat­ed a state re­sponse so ug­ly, bloat­ed, so amoral, so blind­ed, so crazed by fury, that its leader would be al­lowed to or­der its army (sup­port­ed by the Unit­ed States with some $3.3 bil­lion an­nu­al fund­ing and 500 mil­lion for de­fence tech­nol­o­gy mak­ing it among the best-armed na­tions in the mid­dle east ( ABC News)) to pound Gaza killing over 4000 chil­dren, some 7000 adults with more than 25,0000 tons of ex­plo­sives, equiv­a­lent to two nu­clear bombs ( source- Eu­ro-Med Hu­man Rights Mon­i­tor). I am still agape at the pol­i­tics played by world lead­ers, with the US pro­vid­ing mil­lions of dol­lars of weapons to Is­rael to bomb Gaza by night while mak­ing an­nounce­ments of send­ing aid with the Biden ad­min­is­tra­tion de­liv­er­ing the weapons to kill thou­sands, turn­ing a blind eye to a block­ade of food and wa­ter to Gaza and promis­ing a few trucks of aid.

If the world was dis­gust­ed at the com­plic­i­ty over the holo­caust, the world should be as dis­gust­ed at the com­plic­i­ty of most world lead­ers to­day who re­main mealy-mouthed with Is­re­al, who want to speak from both sides of their mouths. As some­one said to me yes­ter­day. If you want to know what’s hap­pen­ing in Pales­tine, fol­low the oil, fol­low the arms, fol­low the mon­ey. The fol­low­ing are quotes from Pales­tin­ian writ­ers on Gaza.

Pales­tin­ian writer, Karim Khat­tan:

“We do know one thing, though: The dead stay dead, and the wound­ed don’t al­ways heal. A dead man is ten peo­ple, a fam­i­ly, a vil­lage, mourn­ing and shat­tered. A wound­ed per­son is of­ten a mu­ti­lat­ed body. When in­ter­na­tion­al at­ten­tion, that cru­el and fick­le god­dess, turns to some­thing else, the mu­ti­lat­ed will re­main mu­ti­lat­ed, and the dead will re­main dead. The tolls of the vi­o­lence that keep us on our toes con­ceal the deep time of our re­al­i­ty, which will con­tin­ue when the world has had its fill of our shared ag­o­nies and no longer wants to look us in the face. I could, it is true, count the num­bers on ei­ther side–to demon­strate, for ex­am­ple, that af­ter an es­ca­la­tion of vi­o­lence, the num­ber of Pales­tin­ian vic­tims is al­ways dis­pro­por­tion­ate to the num­ber of Is­raeli vic­tims, not by ac­ci­dent but be­cause the bal­ance of pow­er is es­sen­tial­ly asym­met­ri­cal. To do so would be to en­ter in­to a game from which I would like, at least for a while, to dis­tance my­self be­cause it dis­gusts me.”

Pales­tin­ian po­et, short sto­ry writer, and es­say­ist from Gaza Mosab Abu To­ha:

“On May 13, 2021, in the mid­dle of the night, Is­rael heav­i­ly bom­bard­ed the Sheikh Za­yed neigh­bour­hood in North Gaza, just three kilo­me­tres away from where I live. In my and oth­er peo­ple’s ex­pe­ri­ence, it was the most in­ten­sive and hor­rif­ic bomb­ing by Is­rael. Among the dead was an en­tire fam­i­ly, the Al-Tana­nis: the two par­ents and their four chil­dren, all un­der ten years old.

“I was stand­ing at the win­dow when it hap­pened. The sky was lit, and our ears got clogged with the deaf­en­ing sound of bombs. The next day, I went to see the area. The hous­es were un­recog­nis­able. I couldn’t dis­tin­guish a bal­cony, a chil­dren’s room or a kitchen. I could see a bath­tub sand­wiched be­tween a de­stroyed ceil­ing and floor. I took a pho­to that I lat­er in­clud­ed in my de­but po­et­ry book.

“I can­not but share my sad­ness as I watched the re­con­struc­tion of the de­stroyed build­ings a few months lat­er. It’s per­plex­ing. I felt like the hous­es should have re­mained on the ground, in a heap of rub­ble, as a tes­ta­ment to all peo­ple, even to the crim­i­nals who or­dered the killing and those who pressed the but­ton.

“I have a po­em ti­tled “Shrap­nel Look­ing for Laugh­ter” in my po­et­ry book Things You May Find Hid­den in My Ear.

“I wrote this po­em dur­ing the hor­ren­dous 11-day Is­raeli bom­bard­ment of Gaza in 2021. It was 1:10 am on May 13, and the Is­raeli war­planes struck dif­fer­ent parts of Gaza with new kinds of bombs. We could hear them be­ing dropped from the planes. Every­one looked in­to the eyes of those around them as if to say good­bye take care.

It was the same day the Al-Tanani fam­i­ly was mas­sa­cred.

Here is part of the po­em:

“The house has been bombed. Every­one dead:

The kids, the par­ents, the toys, the ac­tors on TV,

char­ac­ters in nov­els, per­sonas in po­et­ry col­lec­tions,

the I, the he and the she. No pro­nouns left. Not even

for the kids when they learn parts of speech

next year. Shrap­nel flies in the dark

looks for the fam­i­ly’s peals of

laugh­ter hid­ing be­hind piles of dis­fig­ured

walls and bleed­ing pic­ture frames.”

Gaza has lost its light but not its heart.

Ira Math­ur is a Guardian colum­nist and the win­ner of the non-fic­tion OCM Bo­cas Prize for Lit­er­a­ture 2023. (www.iras­room.org)