Mariam Barghouti gives space for my youngest daughter to tell about her first Israeli interrogation at age 12 and for me to describe my recurrent harassment at Ben Gurion airport, in her article in The Forward, “Palestinian Women Are Harassed and Humiliated at Checkpoints. Here Are a Few of Their Stories.” Read the full piece here.
This article was originally published by Mondoweiss here.
My father was a social worker on Los Angeles’ skid row for decades. He felt deeply about the humanity of homeless people, and he did what he could to help each person to have a better life. Herb Lester, my father, saw homelessness as a humanitarian disaster; he saw it as the failure of governments to ensure the well-being of their people. And he felt a responsibility to act.
If my father was still living, he would have been appalled to hear about the demolition of Ashraf and Islam Fawaqa’s home in the Sur Baher neighborhood of Jerusalem. He would have been furious that Israel intentionally and systematically makes Palestinian families homeless.
The demolition of the Fawaqa home on May 4, 2017
I was thinking about my father on June 13 at the “Iftar on the Rubble,” which I organized with my friends at the site of Ashraf and Islam’s demolished home.
We planned the Iftar to show solidarity with Ashraf and Islam, and the tens of thousands of Palestinian families whose homes have been demolished, partially demolished, or sealed, and who live every day under the imminent threat of demolitions by the Israel authorities. I felt compelled not only by the humanitarian instincts I inherited from my father (and mother), but also by my profound disappointment in the United Nations coordinated humanitarian response, a prominent feature of the Jerusalem landscape, but not, in my point of view, an effective one.
Home demolition is not merely an Israeli administrative policy, as it is often presented in the western media. Home demolition is part of Israel’s political strategy to expel Palestinians from any place they want control, often through the establishment of Jewish settlements.
Given the magnitude of the impact of demolitions on Palestinians, I have long felt that the humanitarian sector should do more to fulfill its “protection” mandate. Protection involves reducing vulnerability, and for me, this means humanitarians should provide proactive, robust help to strengthen at-risk communities. Even after demolition, the response of humanitarian organizations is inadequate, bureaucratic, and according to some families, demeaning.
My friends and I felt that the least we could do to show these families–families who are on the frontline of the continuing Nakba–that they have real allies, that they are not alone.
On the night of the Iftar on the Rubble, local and international media were in attendance as Ashraf and Islam Fawaqa talked about the demolition of their home on May 4 and how they now live in limbo on the rubble of the demolition site.
Munir Nusseibeh of the Al Quds Community Action Center, one of Jerusalem’s most prominent lawyers, spoke about how demolitions are increasing and the danger demolition poses to the ability of Palestinians to stay in Jerusalem. Nurredin Amro, whose home was demolished on March 15, talked about his experience. His wife, Nabiha, spoke about the terrible psychological impact the demolition had on their children.
Powerful as it was to hear these families talk about their experiences, I think my father would have agreed that the real accomplishment was the Iftar itself. Muslims break the Ramadan fast at the sunset call to prayer, and that’s when the nearly 75 attendees pulled out the dishes they brought and set them out on long tables the Fawaqas had rented for the occasion. There were grape leaves stuffed by the Domari of Jerusalem, home baked cookies, whole meals contributed by the zakat society, and roasted chicken donated by Jerusalem Hotel and Café La Vie, dried figs and juice and more donated by Tanour Market and Abu Zahra Market. People from different walks of life, Palestinians and international solidarity activists, sat elbow to elbow and ate.
The sun went down and the temperature dropped, but people did not rush to leave. They stayed and talked and talked and talked. In the dim spotlight Ashraf rigged, an unusual mix of human beings enjoyed the cool Jerusalem breeze together on the rubble of the Fawaqa family home.
I felt my father’s presence with us that night in Sur Baher, Jerusalem. Like me, he would have been heartened by this real humanitarianism. It wasn’t programmed. It wasn’t funded. And it wasn’t part of anyone’s three-year plan. It was just people caring for people. And it felt hopeful.
UPDATE! We got excellent media coverage of the event. Here are some of the links:
Aljazeera Plus 2:09 English subtitles (this one already has 450,000 views!)
Aljazeera Online, 28:56 minutes, Arabic
http://www.aljazeera.net/reportslibrary/pages/69ccf346-e532-43d8-a38f-bbfc75dddb08
Falastin Al-Yoom, 2:24 minutes, Arabic
https://youtu.be/wCW3sx-WCVs
Ma’an Network, 3:07 minutes, Arabic
https://youtu.be/X8uw6Baajxg
Aljazeera, Arabic
http://www.aljazeera.net/news/alquds/2017/6/14/%D8%B9%D8%A7%D8%A6%D9%84%D8%A7%D8%AA-%D9%85%D9%82%D8%AF%D8%B3%D9%8A%D8%A9-%D8%AA%D9%81%D8%B7%D8%B1-%D8%B9%D9%84%D9%89-%D8%A3%D9%86%D9%82%D8%A7%D8%B6-%D9%85%D9%86%D8%A7%D8%B2%D9%84%D9%87%D8%A7
Al-Araby, Arabic
https://www.alaraby.co.uk/society/2017/6/14/إفطار-فوق-الأنقاض-مبادرة-للتضامن-مع-عائلة-المقدسي-أشرف-فواقة
AA Turkish, English
http://aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/palestinians-break-fast-amid-rubble-of-demolished-home/841683
International Solidarity Movement, English
https://palsolidarity.org/2017/06/iftar-on-the-rubble/
This story was first published in Mondoweiss.
Every single home demolition is devastating to a family. Every single family who experiences a demolition tells a unique and surreal story about the day when Israeli bulldozers rolled over their children’s schoolbooks, their grandmother’s prescription medicines, and letters from their uncle overseas.
Home demolition is one of Israel’s preferred methods of evicting Palestinians from land they want, usually to provide housing for Jewish settlements, in violation of international law.
I want to tell just one story — the unique, surreal and totally intolerable story of Ashraf and Islam Fawaqa and their four daughters — Ritaj, 9; Rimas, 7; Saba, 4; and Aya, a newborn.
On May 4, the Fawaqas took baby Aya for a newborn checkup. While at the clinic, they got a call from a neighbor that Israeli authorities had started to demolish their home in the Sur Baher neighborhood of Jerusalem. According to Ashraf, they had paid 25,000 shekels to delay the expected demolition.
“Isn’t that a particularly upsetting case?” I asked a friend.
“All home demolitions are upsetting.”
“I know. But when Ashraf rushed home and showed the demolition crew the Israeli judge’s order to pause the demolition, do you know what they did? They noted the judge’s name, left the site, and returned one hour later with a new demolition order from the same judge. Ashraf says an emergency court session gave them legal cover for their immoral act. Isn’t that evil?”
“All home demolitions are all evil.”
“I know. But shouldn’t we get some more international media coverage of this case? Surely the world will be appalled that four children, including a newborn, are living on a demolition site under a thin awning stretched over the few sofas they salvaged.”
“There were twelve demolitions in Jerusalem that day.”
“What?”
“Nine Palestinian families’ homes were demolished in Jerusalem on that same day plus three stores.”
I had no words.
“It’s ethnic cleansing,” my friend said. “And sadly, it’s so common that it’s not considered news.”
I visited Ashraf and Islam on May 15, the day of commemoration of the Palestinian Nakba, the ongoing historic expulsion of Palestinians from their land and the attempt to destroy their property, history and identity. I sat on the sofa amidst the rubble, my feet on the hard dirt.
Their little girl, Saba, served me some apricots.
“I see they left your chickens alone,” I commented as one walked by my feet.
“And the chicken coop,” Ashraf pointed out.
I looked and indeed, the chicken coop was standing. “Why did they leave the chicken coop?” I asked.
“I guess so the chickens would have shelter,” Ashraf said ironically.
Ashraf had lived in the house for six years. He built it with his own hands on land Ashraf’s family has owned longer than the State of Israel has even existed.
“That house was built without a permit,” Ashraf motions to one of the neighbors. “They told me they paid a lot of money after the fact and now they have a permit. And that family,” he points to another building,” tried for years to get a permit and was denied. They built without a permit and paid after the fact and I heard that now it’s considered legal.”
The Fawaqa family had already spent hundreds of thousands of shekels, first to try to get a legal building permit, then to pay fines for the home they ultimately built without a permit, and then to delay the demolition until after the baby was born. Now they must pay the expense of demolition itself (90,000 shekels according to Ashraf’s estimate), and the removal of the rubble (60,000 shekels plus a fine if the rubble isn’t removed promptly), and the cost of a temporary shelter. Ironically, Ashraf earned the money he’s paid for the home by working in construction. He works for the Jerusalem Municipality.
In order to have a kitchen, bathrooms and a place to sleep, the Fawaqa family ordered a prefab caravan, not unlike those that some Gazans, whose homes were destroyed by Israeli war planes, consider death traps because of the sweltering temperatures in the summer and the cold in the winter. Ultimately, they will face the cost of rebuilding, and if they build again, the new home will also be subject to demolition.
It seems there’s a great deal of profit to be made in the denial of building permits to Palestinians in Jerusalem.
I’ve visited several demolished families in Jerusalem, since my friend Nureddin was locked in a room with his wife and kids while Israeli authorities demolished the house around them. That experience, and the families I’ve met since then, have me feeling heartbroken and angry.
For Palestinians, owning a home is everything. They spend every penny they have on their homes, forgo every other need and luxury in order to build a home to provide security for their families. But clearly, while the international community makes every effort to uphold Israel’s right to security, little Aya’s right to security is violated with no effective action by those governments obligated to ensure respect for the human rights of Palestinians under occupation. Fortunately, Human Rights Watch did cover this case.
The legitimacy of a state comes from the protections and services it provides to the people in its jurisdiction. What kind of state has an explicit policy to destroy people’s homes? What kind of state has an elaborate infrastructure to make people homeless, impoverished and hopeless? Because that’s what Israel has done—made the destruction of Palestinian lives a national priority.
Almost two years ago, I wrote an article about Marwan Abu Jammous (Abu Fathi) and his family in the Khuzaa area of the Gaza Strip. At that time, they had been living in a temporary caravan provided by a donor for almost one year, and no permanent housing was on the horizon. Despite the billions of dollars donated after the 2014 Israeli attack on the Gaza Strip, tens of thousands of people (or hundreds of thousands, depending on how you calculate) still lack adequate housing. It has been 1003 days since the 2014 ceasefire after which there was supposed to be massive reconstruction.
I visited the Abu Jammous family last year and they were in a new caravan, a wooden one, which was touted as an upgrade from the aluminum type.
But it floods in the winter and is unbearably hot in the summer. There is still no prospect of permanent housing. Some other families have gotten assigned to donors and are re-constructing around them, but when I asked, no one could tell me the criteria or process by which some families were chosen before others. It might not matter so much if everyone quickly got what they needed, but they don’t. Reconstruction now seems virtually at a standstill.
Abu Fathi calls me every couple of weeks. I call him back because he has no credit on his phone. His children talk to me one by one, each of them calling me “auntie,” breaking my heart by begging me to visit. Of course I can’t visit without a permit from Israel. The Gaza Strip is under an illegal blockade and very few people can get the special permission needed to enter or exit.
Rumors are there will be another attack soon. Escalations often happen during Ramadan. Ramadan starts tomorrow. What do I say to Abu Fathi when he calls?
Meanwhile, a relative of the family sent me a short video of their dinner time this week. With no electricity and no cooking gas, Abu Fathi sat in the dark and cooked over coals with his five kids. There is nothing romantic about not being able to give your family a safe, warm, dry place to live and enough nutritious food, not to mention the pervasive fear of more bombing, with no place to escape.
Please, contact your representatives and the media. Tell them you want them to put pressure on Israel to end the blockade on Gaza. It’s just wrong. It’s just so very wrong.
This story is about my sister-in-law, Juwahir. No, it’s about her car. No, let’s be honest. It’s about me.
It was a struggle to write it.
This Week in Palestine asked for a “positive” story about Palestine for their January issue themed, “The Common Good.” I could not for the life of me think of a single positive thing about Palestine. I went to sleep sure I’d miss the deadline, but I woke up with this fully formed story. It is one of my favorite stories of all time.
You can find the original here on pages 56-60.
**********
Through the Window of Juwahir’s Old, Gray Chevy
My sister-in-law died at the age of 40 leaving four beautiful children. Breast cancer moved to her lungs, then to her brain, and stole one of the kindest and most humble human beings I’ve ever known. Five years on, there is still a hole in the village in the shape of her life-force.
Her husband gave me Juwahir’s old, gray Chevy and told me to donate payment for it to people in need. I sent it to Syrian refugees in Jordan. I still try to do good in her memory every day. When it’s very hot, my daughters and I pick up old ladies who are burdened by kilos of vegetables balanced in baskets on their heads, or old ladies dragging bushels of wild thyme they harvested in the mountains. We drive them home and they bless us and we feel we’ve honored Juwahir.
But driving Juwahir’s old, gray Chevy through Palestine isn’t always easy. Through her window, I have seen a lot of stupidity.
Just last week I pulled into a parking space marked with the logo of the beauty salon where I had an appointment for an expensive procedure. The doorman came out to tell me to move — it was the private parking space of the owner of the salon. I looked up and down the block and there was no other place to park. I remembered my uncle in the US who had owned a jewelry store where excellent customer service wasn’t a matter of greed, it was a demonstration of integrity. “Are you really sending away a paying customer so you can keep a spot empty for the owner?” I asked incredulous. The man smiled as if to say it wasn’t his fault, but I was tired and stressed and I left in a huff. Yes, I have seen a lot of stupidity through the window of Juwahir’s old, grey Chevy.
But I have also seen decency.
There was a time I stopped at an intersection then inched forward right into a car that was soaring by. The only damage was to the guy’s hub cap, but if I’d hit the body of his car, he might have flipped over. That experience scared the hell out of me and I couldn’t bring myself to drive for weeks. My husband and I often walked passed the guy’s house, and he waved whole-heartedly and invited us in for coffee.
When the car died on my way to an important meeting just before the busy Sharafa Junction in Ramallah, I leaned out of the window and summoned a small group of young men on the sidewalk. They pushed me into a space in front of the bookstore before there was even time for a traffic jam to form. I hailed a taxi and phoned my landlord to ask him to have a mechanic meet me at the car two hours later. But in just 15 minutes he walked into my meeting, took my car keys, supervised the mechanic, and it was all fixed before my meeting finished.
When the car died between two Israeli settlements as I left my friend’s house in Susya in the South Hebron Hills, a man and his wife with what seemed like ten kids in the backseat stopped and filled my radiator with water. They followed me for more than one hour, refilling the radiator every couple of miles, until we reached a military checkpoint they couldn’t cross with their Palestinian license plate. Although I didn’t have his name or mobile number, I believe he was genuine when he yelled from his window, “Call if you need any more help!”
When the car died in Beit Hanina, I went into Ja’afar Supermarket to ask for help and ran into a friend who offered to deliver me to work – on his bicycle! I found a nearby service station, but the mechanic wasn’t yet at work. A neighborhood boy went to wake him up. He arrived soon, coffee in hand, without complaint.
Juwahir’s old, gray Chevy is a piece of junk but I can’t say goodbye to it because I can’t say goodbye to her.
Last week I had one terrible day after another. It seemed everyone around me was ignorant and incompetent and selfish and I just wanted to be alone. I dropped my daughter at her circus class and parked in front of Zaman Café where I could sit in the car and use the wifi. I guess I stayed too long because when I turned the key to pick up my kid, the car battery was dead. I collected my daughter in a taxi and brought her back to the old, gray Chevy where we tried to figure out what to do.
Within minutes, the shabab who work at Zaman and the shabab who work at Shishapresso across the street were in competition to see who could find jumper cables first. They accosted every single customer in their respective cafes, and when the cables were found, a small mob gathered around my car debating which bolt was positive and which was negative – it was a community affair.
For years one of Juwahir’s hijab pins remained stuck in the soft ceiling above the rearview mirror and I’d rub the white plastic tip when I needed strength and perspective. I’d imagine her fixing her scarf before she went to the health clinic where she worked or before she led a religion meeting for women, or before she popped into her mother’s living room to greet me warmly with her slightly lopsided smile. The pin got lost at a car wash years ago but I still touch the place it used to be.
Through the window of Juwahir’s old, gray Chevy, I have seen shooting and teargas and arrests and home demolitions. I have seen children sent by drug-addicted parents to beg at military checkpoints and women and children abandoned in poverty by cheating husbands. I have seen students disrespect teachers and teachers disrespect students and I myself have endured periods when I felt that nothing I did mattered in the slightest.
Then I remember Juwahir. I get into her car and go out into the world to do the work that has to be done. If I need anything, I just look at the world through the window of her old, gray Chevy, and I see good people like Juwahir. Ordinary decent people.
When my phone rang before 5am on May 17 and Nurredin’s name flashed on the screen of my cell phone, I knew it was something bad.
“The bulldozers are here!” he said. “For your house?” I asked, suddenly wide awake. His home was partially demolished on March 31, 2015. “No. They are demolishing the Tutanji and Totah homes. Right now! They are demolishing right now!”
I had visited the Tutanjis before, when they expected a demolition and called for internationals to help them protect their home. When nothing happened and weeks went by, they thought they were safe. They were wrong.
Of course there was nothing I could do except cry and spread the word. Then I got in my car and went to visit. I took some film clips and Institute for Middle East Understanding put them into a very nice little video.
Later that week I went back to visit and Hoda Tutanji insisted on making me coffee, despite not having a kitchen! I wanted the world to see what it means to demolish the home of a family, so I made another little video.
That same week, three other homes in the neighborhood went under demolition order.
When Israel gave me permission to enter Gaza, a little strip of land integral to Palestine but completely cut off, I jumped for joy and called my friends to gloat as if I’d won a lottery. A few minutes later, I heard myself sigh involuntarily as I admitted that I really didn’t want to go. Who would want to go to a place that oozes hopelessness, that embodies the failure of the world to deliver on even their most basic humanitarian obligations? Last year after a visit to Gaza, also for work, I spent two weeks in bed trying to recover.
But my recent visit was fantastic thanks in great part to the brilliance of Aid Watch Palestine’s Haneen Rizik Elsammak, one of the most energetic, decent, generous and inspirational people I have the privilege to know. From north to south and east to west, she introduced me to people who opened their homes and shared their very, very difficult stories. In between I reconnected with true friends (you know who you are) who continually amaze me with how much they offer to the world and how many obstacles they are forced to traverse in order to do so.
I left Gaza sad but refocused. I still believe Gaza exemplifies #HumanitarianBetrayal, but it is also bursting with #TransformationalOpportunity.
* * * *
Latefa and Nezam Alaqaad in Khan Younis lost their home in the 2014 Israeli attack and now, nearly two years later, they still live in a makeshift aluminum room on the site of the four-story building they used to live in.
Inside, the temperature was comfortable in the early spring, but it becomes desperately cold and wet in winter and unbearably hot in the summer.
The tiny kitchen is outside as is the tiny bathroom.
Much of the basic infrastructure is damaged, so utilities are rigged, unreliable and dangerous. There is no privacy, no security, no community, and no hope for any solution in the near-term.
Not far away in Khuzaa, I visited a family of seven that I wrote about in Huffington Post 8 months ago. Before the 2014 Israeli attack, Marwan Abu Jammous lived with his brothers in a 4-story building that used to stand in the place where laundry now dries. After his house was destroyed, Marwan’s family was given temporary shelter.
The aluminum caravan was so hot last summer, they slept outside. When the municipality wanted the land, Marwan moved his caravan near to his demolished home; that made the caravan even more unlivable. A donor provided a new, wooden caravan, but as the photo shows, it floods. There is no clarity if, when or how this family will ever get a new house.
But despite the glum situation, the family welcomed me, fed me, and showed me a great time.
To me, the caravans exemplify the catastrophic failure of the humanitarian system, not just in Gaza, but in the world. Humanitarian actors are supposed to respond to emergencies, and therefore they provide short-term relief, not long-term solutions. But in Gaza, which is locked in a long-term, man-made disaster, short-term relief (like caravans that are intended for habitation only up to six months) are ridiculous — unless paired with intensive, serious and effective political advocacy to end the root causes of the humanitarian crisis. While the international community whines “we’re doing the best we can,” kids in caravans in Gaza are dealing with the physical, emotional, economic, academic and spiritual effects of three major Israeli attacks in 8 short years.
One little girl in Beit Hanoun showed me her skin condition, which her mom said is rampant in the caravans. Can we not prevent this kind of needless human suffering?
There was some weird stuff along the way:
Water made in Turkey, by a company in the United Arab Emirates, imported to Gaza, with taxes paid to Israel. Wow, a lot of people are making money from Israel’s preventing Palestinians from accessing their own water.
And this towering billboard advertising Bank of Palestine’s daily prize of $5,000. It’s normal in cosmopolitan Ramallah, but to see this in Gaza where the prize might well feed a poor family for something like 8 years, it was, well, weird.
Also, all along the highways are notices that donors are building new housing, but many of these signs have been up for a long time, in front of empty lots where there is no visible beginnings of any work, and no one in the community has heard about the project or believes that it will ever come to fruition. It’s like Gaza exists in two “realities,” the deteriorating and frustrating real one and the fantasy one that is “advertised” by international organizations as being in the process of development.
In Beit Hanoun, we drove towards Israel, but it’s hard to see where the buffer zone starts (an Israeli demarcated no-go zone in which soldiers routinely fire from watchtowers at farmers or livestock), so we felt a bit nervous. Haneen, ever efficient, leaned out of the driver’s side window and invited this exceptionally nice woman and her shy granddaughter to ride with us so that we wouldn’t stray too far.
On the short drive, she showed us the rubble of her house, and her brother’s, and then, casually, she pointed out this donkey. “This donkey ran across the buffer zone to Israel and escaped the bombing that killed its owner. After the ceasefire, she came back, but the family who owned her never will.”
We relieved the stress of the day, which happened to be Palestinian Land Day, by taking pictures of ourselves and one another among the beautiful wild daisies. We must have taken hundreds of pictures. We were a raucous group of women! This picture of Haneen shows what a good time we had.
Back in Gaza city, Haneen took me to an inspiring voluntary initiative where, tucked away in a nondescript location, a group of women collect used clothes and furniture and make them available for free to other women in difficult circumstances.
While I visited, various items were donated and various women came to shop for things they needed. The whole operation oozes with respect and gratitude and mutual help.
No sense of desperation or hopelessness there — Gazan society is doing what they can to help themselves. It was a good way to end my visit. But then, driving towards Erez Checkpoint on my way home, I began to feel a bit desperate. Had I used my precious time in Gaza fully? I started to snap photos indiscriminately to try to hold on to Gaza, to my gratitude for getting to visit this special place.
Reviewing my pictures at home, I laughed out loud to see I had taken a short video of a generator, an almost identical clip to one I shared in a 4-minute video I made about my April 2013 visit to Gaza — three years ago! Generators run Gaza, which has electricity for only 4 or 6 hours at a time. Like caravans, generators are tangible evidence of the way we are dealing with the #InhumanIllegalIsraeliBlockade — with expensive, environmentally damaging, inadequate, short-term responses to pacify 1.8 million Palestinians who are locked in the Gaza Strip.
Shame on everyone who doesn’t speak out for accountability.
This article first appeared on Counterpunch.
Fluorescent lights burn in the homes of Palestinian activists 24 hours a day now. Ambiguity is evaporating. Options lie on the rock-strewn tarmac near the physical and figurative checkpoints – more stark, more risky, yet more promising than in the last 20 years.
“Is this good?” some ask, motioning to the TV.
“Is this bad?” others ask, pointing at the smartphone.
“We don’t know yet.”
1936-1948-1967-1973-1982-1987-1993-2000-2008-2012-2014
Will 2015 also have a section in undergraduate Middle East textbooks? Will the sub-title read: “End of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict”?
The status quo was temporary—that was understood. So why are newscasters surprised that the rubble it was built on has shifted, eroded, dissolved? Although the world knew the status quo was unsustainable, a viable Plan B never coalesced. So now, after decades of evidence that Palestinians would not surrender, it is happening. Label it whatever you wish.
Between the stabbing and lynching and stoning and demolishing, some people are appealing for calm. But sadly, when things are calm the most we can hope for is more talk about more talk. Death and injury are tragic, but they have propelled us to this crossroads. Now, good people who have for decades signed petitions for peace have to commit more. We have to run forward through the metaphorical tear gas to reach the future that awaits us on the other side – even if we have not yet envisaged it. If we hesitate we may miss this moment of possibility.
Possibility? Yes, for it may be, I contend, a “perfect storm” of possibility.
None of this would matter, though, without the youth. As in the first Intifada, young Palestinians acting out of conscience and desperation are not waiting for political parties or responding to wrinkled leadership. They leave home, school and work and flock to flashpoints to taunt soldiers, an ostensibly doomed strategy, and yet, it has impact. For now, again, the world is looking at Palestine and Israel, and more than ever before, they are seeing the truth: The Israeli occupation must end.
But what will happen if the Israeli occupation ends? Do we—Palestinians and global allies—know what we are fighting for? Or do we only know what we are fighting against?
In Egypt, Algeria, Iran and other places where inspiration turned into disappointment, smart and fearless heroes and sheroes sought to reclaim history for the people. But good did not come from bad, just more bad. How can we learn from the past, avoid a power vacuum, and finally (finally!) enable Palestinians to unite their people on their land and build a society with dignity?
It depends:
Surprisingly, I am hopeful. For we have tried every process and arrangement and mechanism and have learned that stopgap measures and temporary agreements are impotent. It will take guts to permanently end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but not more guts than we have shown in generations of fighting. It is time – right now – to try the only option not yet tried – true justice and genuine peace.
This article first appeared in Huffington Post.
One year after the August 26, 2014 ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, Abu Fathi Abu Jammous, his 8-month pregnant wife, and four children are living in a sweltering prefabricated caravan.
Abu Fathi’s house was totally destroyed in the brutal attack on Khuzaa in the southern Gaza Strip, and he was forced to move his family into an UNRWA school. “When Human Appeal UK offered the caravan, I felt lucky. Winter was coming. They said it would be temporary.” But one year later, Abu Fathi is still waiting for his home to be fixed.
The Gaza Strip is among the most densely populated areas in the world and the 1.8 million Palestinian residents suffer from economy-crippling mobility restrictions. They survived an exceptionally cold winter, in which at least four babies died of exposure in temporary shelters, and are now enduring a summer of record-breaking heat.
During the day, Abu Fathi’s wife takes the children to her mother’s house; there is no money for air conditioning, and, in any case, electricity in most parts of the Gaza Strip is only supplied on an intermittent basis for 6-8 hours per day.
An estimated 28% of the population of the Gaza Strip was displaced at the height of the 50-day attack. Ten months later, the last UNRWA collective shelters were emptied, but displacement is still widespread. No one knows exactly how many people still live in the ruined remains of their homes, but according to the Shelter Cluster, a UN coordination body, well over 100,000 families (over half a million people) are still without adequate housing—including the 500 families residing in caravans.
Abu Fathi says his house reaches 55 degrees Celsius during the day. “My three-year old isn’t moving. I took her to the hospital and they said she’s sick from the heat. They gave her oxygen and provided pills and told me to keep her next to the refrigerator. She’s going to die,” he says frantically. “My six-year old is sick too. He suffers from an enlarged liver and soft bones. We’re all going to die and nobody cares.”
An aid worker who didn’t want to be quoted said that caravans in Khuzaa had been built hastily and poorly “as a public relations measure.” He added most caravan dwellers in Khuzaa had since abandoned them and moved in with relatives or any place they could. “Anyone still living in a caravan in Khuzaa today is truly in crisis.”
A big cause of the problem is that most of the funding for the Gaza Strip is restricted to humanitarian emergencies and cannot be used for permanent solutions. The same pattern happens after earthquakes and tsunamis – donors quickly move on to other emergencies, leaving long-term development needs unaddressed. The situation in the Gaza Strip is even more complex because the causes are political and chronic. One aid worker in Gaza confessed, “As far as I know, no one is planning what to do for these people when winter comes. It is a failure of the system. ”
The shortcomings of these forms of shelter are widely acknowledged globally: caravans are expensive, inadequate and often culturally unacceptable. Prefabricated shelters are therefore only intended to bridge the gap between emergency relief and durable solutions after natural disasters or conflict, but if durable solutions never arrive, then it’s not so much of a “gap” as it is a precipice. In disaster after disaster, “temporary solutions” end up lasting much longer than anticipated. Beneficiaries and aid organizations spend additional funds to fix or modify temporary structures, thereby depleting resources that could be allocated to durable solutions. Abu Fathi, an unemployed laborer, has invested over $1,000 in his caravan and it is still unlivable. Experience shows that extended reliance on temporary solutions can make aid beneficiaries vulnerable to new humanitarian crises.
Abu Fathi’s caravan is one of 50 provided by Human Appeal UK. Their spokesperson explained, “Due to pressures of time, volume, and availability of materials, we needed to provide shelter for as many people as possible, as quickly as possible and caravans were thought to provide better shelter than canvas. We have made some adjustments to make the caravans more comfortable, but they were only ever intended to be temporary structures so do have their limitations.”
Many parties share responsibility for the near-total absence of permanent reconstruction in the Gaza Strip. Whether the cause is donors who have not fulfilled their financial pledges (perhaps fearing their projects will be demolished by future assaults); the Israeli blockade and restrictions on imports of construction materials; or the internal Palestinian conflict between Fatah and Hamas, caravan dwellers do not know where to turn. Abu Fathi said, “The caravan seemed like a blessing at the time, but if I had known how hard life would be, I would have refused it. I don’t know what I would have done instead. I don’t know. I don’t know.”
Beneficiaries in the Gaza Strip are in a conundrum and so are aid actors. The Qatar Red Crescent Society (QRCS) was among several Arab donors who provided caravans conforming to the standards established by the Palestinian Authority’s Ministry of Public Works and Housing Asked if QRCS planned to work further with the beneficiaries who received caravans, a QRCS staff person replied: “It doesn’t make any sense to throw more money at temporary solutions.” So, would QRCS help those in caravans to find permanent solutions? “Sadly, as long as Israel maintains its blockade on the Gaza Strip, there are no permanent solutions.”
For its part, Human Appeal UK said they were “exploring further options for improving the caravans to make them more comfortable,” but Abu Fathi fears it will not come in time.
One year ago I celebrated my 50th birthday with the launch of a new Gaza Fund at Dalia Association. At the time I wrote that we should strengthen local leaders and local organizations before bad things happen. I suggested that we not only give money, time and raise our voices during wars, but that we take advantage of the periods of calm to invest, work preventively, focus on the long-term.
Of course I didn’t know that just a few months later Gaza would succumb to a terrible war, nor did I know that 8 months later things would be even worse. I didn’t know then that I would be compelled to put aside my novel to work on a new initiative – Aid Watch Palestine – to bring people together to re-envision aid so that it’s accountable to Palestinians and actually helps people.
Now, on the cusp of turning 51, my “profound” words are spoken out and my energy has dispersed. I work day and night to try to make a difference, but without much hope that I can. All around me are friends who are severely depressed, and with good reason.
So what do I want for my 51st birthday? I’m not going to say “peace on earth” or even “an end to the blockade on Gaza.” I’m going to ask for something every personal: I want to learn to find beauty in this ugly world and to find hope against all the evidence that there is none. But lest you say my wish is selfish, I wish this for us all. I wish for humanity to rise to our best selves. That would be a truly happy birthday.