I Shall Not Hate: A Gaza Doctor's Journey (26 page)

This catastrophe that killed my daughters and niece has strengthened my thinking, deepened my belief about how to bridge the divide. I understand down to my bones that violence is futile, a waste of time, lives and resources, and has been proven to beget more violence. It does not work, just perpetuates a vicious circle. There’s only one way to bridge the divide, to live together, to realize the goals of two peoples: we have to find the light to guide us to our goal. I’m not talking about the light of religious faith here, but light as a symbol of truth. The light that allows you to see, to clear away the fog—to find wisdom. To find the light of truth, you have to talk to, listen to and respect each other. Instead of wasting energy on hatred, use it to open your eyes and see what’s really going on. Surely, if we can see the truth, we can live side by side.

I am a physician and as a consequence I see things most clearly in medical terms. I am arguing that we need an immunization program, one that injects people with respect, dignity and equality, and that immunizes them against hatred.

I have dedicated my life to peace, to healing, to bringing babies into the world, to solving the problems of the infertile. My work involves doing joint research projects with Israeli physicians; for years I’ve been something of a one-man task force bringing
injured and ailing Gazans for treatment in Israel. This is the path I believed in and what I raised and educated my children to believe in. I find it somewhat inconceivable that after a lifetime of contributing all I had to coexistence, I would be the one to bear witness to the worst consequences of war.

The New York columnist Mona Eltahwy interviewed me about six weeks after the tragedy. She wrote, “He seems to be the only person left in this small slice of the Middle East with its supersized servings of ‘us’ and ‘them’ who refuses to hate.” She was making a point that’s important to me. I don’t spend time feeling sorry for myself and I certainly don’t hate anyone, but I have wondered why this has happened to me. Why was I spared when my daughters were killed? Was I selected for a reason? Many people, both friends and strangers, have remarked on the dual tragedies that have been visited on my family during the last year—the sudden death of Nadia, the loss of my daughters and niece—and they ask if I feel like I’m being punished. I don’t. But I do wonder at times why I was not the one to die.

And I do sometimes feel like Ayoub in the Quran or Job in the Talmud and the Bible: the man whose faith in God was so severely tested—his crops were destroyed, his children were killed, he suffered from disease and loss of wealth, his friends abandoned him—but who still kept his faith. I’ve been tested and I have the feeling that I’m expected to come up with a solution. As a believer, I feel that I have been chosen to reveal the secrets of Gaza, the truth about the pain of the dislocation, the humiliation of the occupation, the suffocation that comes from a siege, so that once and for all Palestinians and Israelis can find our way to live side by side.

I believe in coexistence, not endless cycles of revenge and retribution. And possibly the hidden truth about Gaza can only sink in when it is conveyed by someone who does not hate. I’ve
been tested by brutal circumstances the whole of my life, as have many people in Gaza. Until now I’ve seen each hardship as an opportunity to make myself stronger, to give myself energy and a weapon so as to be better armed for the next struggle. But maybe the tests have been designed to strengthen me as a messenger who can help bridge the divide in the Middle East.

I’m not a prophet; I’m a human being and a believer who is trying to accept that what happened to my family was God’s plan. The perpetrator was man, the violence man-made, but surely my mission is to try my hardest to ensure that the consequences lead to good, not to ever-increasing evil, violence and despair.

I believe everything happens for a reason, and that even my family’s terrible loss serves a purpose. The deaths of my daughters opened the Israelis’ eyes to the suffering on the other side. That’s the message I want to spread: allow yourself to see what it’s like to be in our shoes. The tragedy certainly led to the ceasefire and opened the hearts and minds of the Israeli public, the whole Palestinian diaspora and the international community to the misery the Gazans face day after day. I believe that there is a better future for us because of what this tragedy taught the world. There is hope; the past is only there to learn from.

Anael Harpaz, the woman who met my daughters Bessan, Dalal and Shatha at the peace camp in Santa Fe, came to visit Shatha and me in the hospital and ended up staying by Shatha’s side for the entire ten weeks she was in the hospital. At the end of March, just before we were to move back to Jabalia, she sent me an email whose subject line was:
In Memory of Bessan.
It read:

Her words struck a huge chord with me. I am presently laying the groundwork for a foundation in honour of Bessan, Mayar and Aya whose aim is to empower women and girls through health and education programs in order to promote change for women and girls throughout the Middle East.

As I’ve written earlier, women in this region have not been part of the discussion in civil society, but Palestinian women know about sacrifice and suffering. They know how to manage in the face of chaos. It’s not that the women aren’t able to participate; the issue is that they’ve been denied the right to take part in discussions vital to our future.

I want to see that opportunity come to women and girls everywhere. I want them to be part of the conversation. I’ve been delivering Palestinian babies and Israeli babies for most of my career. There’s no difference between a Palestinian newborn and an Israeli newborn. And I believe that the mothers who birth these babies can find the way forward for this region.

Many women and girls in Gaza cannot get an education because of their financial and cultural circumstances. I firmly believe that Palestinian women can carry the torch of change into the future. But first they need to be released from the bondage that culture, occupation, siege and suffering have imposed upon them. Empowerment means being independent and respected. And to create change in an entire society, women must be educated and empowered.

My daughters were special. They were modest and lovely girls, willing to help others, thinking of others. They could recite the passages in the Quran that support the education of women and girls. And they were full of dreams and ambitions when they were killed. But not all of the women in our society are as emancipated as my daughters or have fathers or families with the resources and attitudes to support them. That needs to change.

The initial funds for the foundation will come from the blood of my daughters. Although compensation for their deaths was discussed at the outset, to date there’s been no payment. In fact, there’s been no apology. The Israeli government has taken responsibility for wrongly targeting my home and killing my daughters, but it has never apologized; no official has said, “I’m sorry.” If they are true to their word, they will pay the compensation, apologize for the mistake they made and take responsiblity. Then the blood of my daughters will provide the seed money to launch this new experiment in changing the status and role of women.

I want an organization that will enable girls and women to speak with a stronger voice and play a more influential role in the improvement of conditions affecting the quality of life throughout the Middle East. I believe we need to accept that the women among us can contribute a great deal to the changes we need to make. Most people become exceptionally nervous when cultural change is suggested, when the status of women is challenged. But it’s time to start the discussion.

Every girl in Palestine (and elsewhere for that matter) must be able to go to school. The foundation will provide scholarships for high school and university education and will study existing programs and services and find out what’s working to advance women and girls and what isn’t. It will develop new curriculum to fill the gaps and assist in improving current programs. At the same time, the foundation will use its funds to commission research
into the advancement of women and girls and create an advocacy program to make sure the community gets behind the changes we propose.

The ultimate objective of the foundation—which will be called the Abuelaish Foundation—is the creation of a credible voice throughout the Middle East on societal issues that affect the lives of women. When the values of women and girls are better represented through leadership at all levels of society, overall values will change and life will improve in the Gaza Strip, in Palestine as a whole, in Israel and throughout the Middle East. That’s the legacy I want to honour the memory of my daughters.

Part of the aftermath of this tragedy is that I’ve had the opportunity to travel even more widely to countries in Europe, North America and Asia to speak on coexistence and the real truths of Gaza. Each visit presents me with a chance to straighten out the facts, to right the wrongs and to gain supporters for coexistence and human rights in the Middle East—and everywhere. And at the same time, I talk about the lives of women and the work my foundation plans to do. My stand on coexistence has set me apart, but now that I am challenging the status of women in the Middle East, I have two platforms to speak from.

I was invited to Brussels in April 2009 to meet members of the European Parliament. While I was there, I was awarded honorary Belgian citizenship and given the opportunity to meet with the president of the EU parliament, Hans-Gert Pöttering of Germany. I also found out that Jean-Marc Delizée, secretary of state for the Belgian parliament, had nominated me for the Nobel Peace Prize for 2010. I spoke to the media that day in order to dedicate the nomination to people everywhere who suffer from prejudice and injustice, and to the leaders of both the Israeli and Palestinian peoples, urging them to work together to
prevent further destruction and pain. Enough blood, enough animosity. Military means have proven a failure, and a new method must be found to deal with the conflict. We must focus now on the lessons of tolerance and compromise, on hope, good deeds and saving lives.

I was, of course, overwhelmed. When I’d had time to absorb that news, I reflected on the worldwide response to my family’s tragedy and on the heartfelt goodwill that has come from political leaders as well as opinion makers. Apart from the fact that I can never get my girls back, it seems as if there is nothing that is truly impossible in this world.

Soon after the trip to Brussels, I was informed that I was to receive the 2009 Niarchos Prize for Survivorship. The prize is given by Survivor Corps, an organization that works to break cycles of victimization and violence, individual by individual, country by country. I was deeply honoured to receive an award that mirrors so closely the reality of the lives of Palestinians. Nomika Zion, from Sderot, also received the award, and spoke out against people who glorify war: “I am frightened that we are losing the human ability to see the other side, to feel, to be horrified and to show empathy. It’s our obligation to make our leaders talk, to compel them to tell us for a change, a different story. Maybe, one day, our voice will be heard.”