Comments on the current realities extracted from a Facebook post by Larry Harder.
Larry Harder
I rarely post anything on FB. And if I do, it is almost never political. For me FB is about friends and family. Those of my friends who know and share—or tolerate—or do not share but respect—my political and humanitarian views do not need convincing. Those of you who might not be aware of the situation or my point of view, might be just fine with that, or don’t care, or may strongly disagree. Whatever I might have to say to them will not likely make any difference anyway.
But sometimes silence is not enough.
This is on a day when 8 children have been killed in a refugee camp in Gaza. This on a day when low-tech, inaccurate, short-distance rockets are intercepted by some of the most sophisticated anti-missile systems on the planet and responded to by the artillery and air arsenal of one of the most powerful military institutions on the planet—sometimes described as the 4rth strongest army in the world.
This on the day that marks the beginning of what in Arabic is called the Nakba, roughly translated as the “the catastrophe,” the beginning of the displacement of the Palestinian people in 1948 when the state of Israel was created, and the beginning of a modern cycle of violence and hatred that continues today. It has been said that this is one of the longest unresolved human rights issues in modern times. This in the month that marks Israeli military victory in Jerusalem in 1967, which for some Jews is the fulfilment of the promise of the return to the promised land, but for Palestinians is the beginning of a military occupation that has become progressively more oppressive over time.
I realize that for most people this is a very distant and abstract thing that has nothing to do with you or me and has been going on forever and will likely keep going on forever.
But it is not abstract.
I rarely post anything on FB. And if I do, it is almost never political. For me FB is about friends and family. Those of my friends who know and share—or tolerate—or do not share but respect—my political and humanitarian views do not need convincing. Those of you who might not be aware of the situation or my point of view, might be just fine with that, or don’t care, or may strongly disagree. Whatever I might have to say to them will not likely make any difference anyway.
But sometimes silence is not enough.
This is on a day when 8 children have been killed in a refugee camp in Gaza. This on a day when low-tech, inaccurate, short-distance rockets are intercepted by some of the most sophisticated anti-missile systems on the planet and responded to by the artillery and air arsenal of one of the most powerful military institutions on the planet—sometimes described as the 4rth strongest army in the world.
This on the day that marks the beginning of what in Arabic is called the Nakba, roughly translated as the “the catastrophe,” the beginning of the displacement of the Palestinian people in 1948 when the state of Israel was created, and the beginning of a modern cycle of violence and hatred that continues today. It has been said that this is one of the longest unresolved human rights issues in modern times. This in the month that marks Israeli military victory in Jerusalem in 1967, which for some Jews is the fulfilment of the promise of the return to the promised land, but for Palestinians is the beginning of a military occupation that has become progressively more oppressive over time.
I realize that for most people this is a very distant and abstract thing that has nothing to do with you or me and has been going on forever and will likely keep going on forever.
But it is not abstract.
Can you imagine your daughter or sister giving birth in the back of an ambulance because the ambulance was not allowed to go through a checkpoint to the nearest hospital? Or can you imagine having your uncle die in an ambulance of a heart attack for the same reason? I can because both of these things have happened to people I know.
Can you imagine having your well—and only source of water—deliberately polluted by animal and human faeces and your water tank intentionally toppled by trespassers on your own land? I can because I lived in a village in which this happened. The only source of the village’s power, a diesel generator, was burned at the same time.
Have you ever met an old man who had been partially blinded by a beating in the fields as he was tending his flock of sheep? Or a young man whose arm was broken while running away from some bullies also while tending his sheep on his own land? Or a teenager with brain damage from a beating when cornered by a gang in a hidden stairway beside his home? Or a young boy of 11 or 12 who was just released from hospital because a woman had forced a rock into his mouth and then smashed his chin with her fist, breaking his teeth and his jaw. I have.
Have you ever been spat at while walking down the street with some friends on a lovely summer evening In your own neighbourhood? I have—and my friends were not even Palestinian themselves, but friends of Palestinians.
How would you feel if you were prohibited from worshipping in a church that was a mere few kilometres from where you live? I know people who can literally see, from their homes, the Dome of the Rock of the Haram al Sharif, and the al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, the third most sacred place in Islam, who are not allowed to go there because they are on the wrong side of a big wall and do not have the right kind of permit.
How does it make you feel to know that if you are a Christian in Canada, it is easier for you to go the the Christian holy sites in Jerusalem and Bethlehem that is for a Muslim who lives in the West Bank just on the other side of that wall to go to one of the holiest sites in Islam?
How would you feel if your church or synagogue or temple was violently invaded by people who did not share your faith—at the end of the holiest season of the year. That happened last week in Jerusalem at the al Aqsa Mosque at the end of the holy month of Ramadan.
Can you imagine being able to see the sea from your window, but never, ever having been able to go to the beach? I have been in a city in the West Bank where this is the case. At this place there is a 30m tall wall. On one side it is a vertical slab of concrete, covered with political graffiti. On the other there is a landscaped embankment that makes it seem like there is no wall at all.
Can you imagine having your house demolished three times, and re-building it every time fully expecting that it will be demolished again? I have been to a house like that and watched the family hunkering down to go at it yet again. Can you imagine being an old woman living alone in a house where your family has lived for generations who cannot leave because if you did someone would break in, take over your house, and never let you back in? I have met this woman. She received everything she needed from neighbours, who provided her with what she needed via a basket on a rope from a window.
Can you imagine being a farmer who is only allowed on your own land for a restricted number of days, often not knowing in advance what days or for how long? I have watched at checkpoints as farmers wait to pass, starting as early as they can when the checkpoint opens in the morning, to process through one by one, aware that all they have to do they need to get done before they have to return through the checkpoint before it closes in the evening. I have seen with my own eyes a young man at one of these checkpoints with nothing in his hands who was required to lift his shirt to reveal his bare torso in the middle of wide-open space at the checkpoint, with guns pointed at him, to prove he was harmless. At the same checkpoint another man was refused entry because he did not have a permit for his donkey, which, that day, the soldiers regarded as a piece of agricultural equipment which was not allowed to pass. A permit had not been required on other occasions.
I could go on. My point is that none of this is abstract.
I can only speak from my own experience of what I have seen with my own eyes or what stories have been told to me by real people I know and trust. I have not personally had to endure this day after day, year after year, from generation to generation.
Palestinians have had to, whether they live it day-to-day in the West Bank or Gaza, or precariously from a refugee camp in Gaza, or the West Bank, or Jordan, or Lebanon, or Syria (I have been in some of those camps in the West Bank, Jordan and Lebanon), or from the huge diaspora of Palestinians around the world, amongst who are my friends, who live a life of displacement, who worry every day about the safety and well-being of their family and friends back home.
Sometimes you can’t remain silent.
I am going to post two other things without comment that have especially resonated with me in the deluge of information that has come my way in the last few weeks since the violence has escalated.
I have no intention of telling any of you how to respond or what to do. That would be presumptuous, arrogant, and likely futile. I have no intention of starting a debate and I will not engage in a debate. Just be aware that this is real. For me it is simple: it is about basic humane rights.
Can you imagine having your well—and only source of water—deliberately polluted by animal and human faeces and your water tank intentionally toppled by trespassers on your own land? I can because I lived in a village in which this happened. The only source of the village’s power, a diesel generator, was burned at the same time.
Have you ever met an old man who had been partially blinded by a beating in the fields as he was tending his flock of sheep? Or a young man whose arm was broken while running away from some bullies also while tending his sheep on his own land? Or a teenager with brain damage from a beating when cornered by a gang in a hidden stairway beside his home? Or a young boy of 11 or 12 who was just released from hospital because a woman had forced a rock into his mouth and then smashed his chin with her fist, breaking his teeth and his jaw. I have.
Have you ever been spat at while walking down the street with some friends on a lovely summer evening In your own neighbourhood? I have—and my friends were not even Palestinian themselves, but friends of Palestinians.
How would you feel if you were prohibited from worshipping in a church that was a mere few kilometres from where you live? I know people who can literally see, from their homes, the Dome of the Rock of the Haram al Sharif, and the al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, the third most sacred place in Islam, who are not allowed to go there because they are on the wrong side of a big wall and do not have the right kind of permit.
How does it make you feel to know that if you are a Christian in Canada, it is easier for you to go the the Christian holy sites in Jerusalem and Bethlehem that is for a Muslim who lives in the West Bank just on the other side of that wall to go to one of the holiest sites in Islam?
How would you feel if your church or synagogue or temple was violently invaded by people who did not share your faith—at the end of the holiest season of the year. That happened last week in Jerusalem at the al Aqsa Mosque at the end of the holy month of Ramadan.
Can you imagine being able to see the sea from your window, but never, ever having been able to go to the beach? I have been in a city in the West Bank where this is the case. At this place there is a 30m tall wall. On one side it is a vertical slab of concrete, covered with political graffiti. On the other there is a landscaped embankment that makes it seem like there is no wall at all.
Can you imagine having your house demolished three times, and re-building it every time fully expecting that it will be demolished again? I have been to a house like that and watched the family hunkering down to go at it yet again. Can you imagine being an old woman living alone in a house where your family has lived for generations who cannot leave because if you did someone would break in, take over your house, and never let you back in? I have met this woman. She received everything she needed from neighbours, who provided her with what she needed via a basket on a rope from a window.
Can you imagine being a farmer who is only allowed on your own land for a restricted number of days, often not knowing in advance what days or for how long? I have watched at checkpoints as farmers wait to pass, starting as early as they can when the checkpoint opens in the morning, to process through one by one, aware that all they have to do they need to get done before they have to return through the checkpoint before it closes in the evening. I have seen with my own eyes a young man at one of these checkpoints with nothing in his hands who was required to lift his shirt to reveal his bare torso in the middle of wide-open space at the checkpoint, with guns pointed at him, to prove he was harmless. At the same checkpoint another man was refused entry because he did not have a permit for his donkey, which, that day, the soldiers regarded as a piece of agricultural equipment which was not allowed to pass. A permit had not been required on other occasions.
I could go on. My point is that none of this is abstract.
I can only speak from my own experience of what I have seen with my own eyes or what stories have been told to me by real people I know and trust. I have not personally had to endure this day after day, year after year, from generation to generation.
Palestinians have had to, whether they live it day-to-day in the West Bank or Gaza, or precariously from a refugee camp in Gaza, or the West Bank, or Jordan, or Lebanon, or Syria (I have been in some of those camps in the West Bank, Jordan and Lebanon), or from the huge diaspora of Palestinians around the world, amongst who are my friends, who live a life of displacement, who worry every day about the safety and well-being of their family and friends back home.
Sometimes you can’t remain silent.
I am going to post two other things without comment that have especially resonated with me in the deluge of information that has come my way in the last few weeks since the violence has escalated.
I have no intention of telling any of you how to respond or what to do. That would be presumptuous, arrogant, and likely futile. I have no intention of starting a debate and I will not engage in a debate. Just be aware that this is real. For me it is simple: it is about basic humane rights.
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