Gaza Diary, Day Two: The Beautiful Beach
I sat on the Gaza beach with a friend. I don’t like the beach, truth be told. But I filled with gratitude for the chance to sit on the Gazan sand– because it is the place of so much history, so much bravery, all the way from the Mavi Marmara to the fishermen who risk being shot so that we can eat shrimp. And because it is a strip of beauty in this very tragic place.
As we spoke I picked out the pretty shells, the multicolored ones, the unbroken ones, and stashed them away for my daughters, or maybe for me.
Twice, my friend jumped in fright when the metal from a truck bed clanged open to unload dirt. I pretended not to notice, not to notice her vulnerability, to memories, of powerlessness.
We chatted about organizations and women and opportunities. We could imagine so many ways to work together, now that we had seen each other for the first time. Now that we could see, not just hear, the sincerity in each other’s eyes.
And when there was a lull, she sighed, a deep sigh, and wished that I could come again, and wished that she could visit Jerusalem, and wished that life wasn’t so hard. Don’t they know that what they deny grows more and more valuable in the hearts of people?
Nora, the notes and photos of your trip to Gaza capture such a mixture of emotions: yearning, sadness, anger, endurance, generosity, to list a few. It is wonderful that you had the opportunity to capture that day–those moments and share them. When U.S.politicians nauseatingly talk about “facts on the ground” they reveal their prejudice by choosing not to see the inhumane and deplorable facts on the ground which Israel has created and perpetuates in Gaza.
That’s exactly how I felt–a mixture of feelings in response to so many different realities, most of them different from what I expected. I’m so glad that came through. I feel more strongly than I ever did that re-connecting Gaza and the West Bank are key to any solution. The strengths and needs of the two parts of the community are different, and together I believe they’ll have lots of possibilities. I guess that’s exactly why Israel works so hard to keep them separated.