ساعيد نشر هذه المقالة التي بعت لي برابطها سعادة النائب راوية الشوا.... أما الكاتبة فهي السيدة ندى الشوا التي تعيش الان في سكوتلاندة: My Distant War By Nada Shawa The recent bombings in Gaza have reverberations across the world which are personal as well as political, writes Nada Shawa. “You forgot to pay,” said the checkout lady politely, after she had kindly helped me pack my shopping bags. I was whizzing down the aisle , half way out of the shop on my little scooter. Embarrassed but looking straight into her eyes, I said, “You have no idea what is going on in my mind!” At that moment, I could not share the full extent of the anguish consuming me. The people waiting in the queue would not have appreciated the delay and I did not want to wait. I needed to rush back home as fast as possible to look for news updates – Gaza was under attack again. I left Gaza when I was eight years old to come to Scotland to be educated and have physiotherapy for my disability. I visit my family whenever possible. Throughout my time in Scotland, I have been constantly watching one Israeli attack after another on the West Bank and Gaza. Palestinians have been brutally oppressed by the state of Israel since its creation in 1948 and they have been enduring a fierce Israeli military occupation in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip since 1967. There is a history to all this entrenched and unjust war. During the collapse of the Turkish Ottoman Empire, which encompassed Palestine, the biggest colonial powers of the time, Britain and France, decided to divide the disintegrated empire between them. The Sykes-Picot Agreement was drawn up and signed in 1916. Palestine was left under British administration which became the British Mandate Palestine (1920-1948). Meanwhile, in Britain in 1917, a declaration was issued by Arthur James Balfour the Foreign Secretary at the time, to Baron Rothschild, head of the Jewish community in Britain. This declaration expressed Britain’s desire to establish in Palestine a homeland for the Jewish people. It contained one cautionary point about the rights of the existing population. It was “clearly understood” that “nothing should be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine”. Nada at a recent protest march. This important point seems to have been conveniently dropped out of any policies of the established Israeli state, even to the extent of a gross denial that a population ever existed. On June 15th, 1969, the Israeli Prime Minister at the time, Golda Meir told London’s The Sunday Times: “There is no such thing as a Palestinian people… It is not as if we came and threw them out and took their country. They didn’t exist.” Could ethnic cleansing be what she had in mind? This irresponsible statement gave permission to crush the Palestinian population. Today there are seven million Palestinian refugees. The Palestinians existed long before any notion of an Israeli state. There are Palestinians who can trace their family trees back for centuries. Denying the Palestinians their rights and brutally oppressing them has only created hatred. Perhaps an answer to why there is so much anger towards the West is that this background to the “conflict” or “war” or “oppressive military occupation”, call it what you will, is often missed out of news sound-bites and headlines in the Western media. The historical tragedy of the Palestinian people is the denial of this reality – through a style of reporting that implies the current conflict only began with rockets being fired into Israel by resistance movements such as Hamas. It is a style of reporting which also suggests that Israel is only defending itself against these rockets. In July 2014 Gaza was bombarded by the Israeli military once again. In among the 1.8 million Palestinians enduring this onslaught are my family. It is not the first time they have been showered with tons of missiles. Each assault on Gaza seems more destructive than the previous one. Gaza is one of the most highly populated pieces of land in the world and the casualty rate is heartbreakingly high whenever bombardment by the Israeli military occurs. So, you can see why, with my shopping, I had to rush to get back for all the news updates I could find. I try to connect with the news through online media sources, Twitter, and also Skype contact with my family when Gaza’s rare and sporadic electricity supply is available. Each time the Israeli military bombards Gaza, and one huge explosion follows another, the death toll of the innocent is rising every day, I become more and more anxious about my family’s safety. Gaza will always have a special place in my heart. It is where I spent my childhood, a childhood filled with good times despite the Israeli military occupation. My family and their place in Palestine’s history have established beliefs within me of human rights and justice. For generations they played a big part in making life better for the Palestinian people, politically and culturally. I am left with sorrow when I think of what their thoughts would be now, if they were to hear of how Gaza has become. My Grandfather and great Grandfather had invested in building institutions and organisations to help Palestinians live in a more ‘civil’ society. Gaza has become far from civil. A population under siege, starved of basic rights. During the recent Israeli military attack on Gaza the destruction was immense. The death toll is more than 2,000 – 80% of these people civilians (UN July 2014). At the time of writing, 40,000 homes had been destroyed and 500,000 people had been made homeless. The Gaza Strip, measuring 40km by 10km, is made of 70% refugees – refugees driven from their homes in 1948 and 1967. In 2014, there are people who were made homeless during the Israeli bombardment of Gaza in 2008/2009 and in 2012 now finding themselves without a home again. My family’s home was first bombed by the Israeli military in 2009, forcing them to find somewhere new to live. On July 20th 2014, the Israeli military bombarded the district of Sajayyah in Gaza, killing 70 civilians. Our family home was situated in that part of Gaza, and was destroyed completely by the Israeli bombardment. Any hope of restoring it in the future to something closer to what it was in my childhood is gone. The building where my family currently live was also struck by an Israeli drone missile on August 5th, 2014. Thankfully, they sustained no physical injuries, but their nerves, after four weeks of terrifying Israeli bombardment, were shattered. I really would like to ask the Israeli government some questions. 1. For what final solution are you destroying the Gaza I know and love? 2. Your so-called collateral damage is killing the innocent, destroying homes, hospitals and schools. What does your sense of “morally appropriate retaliation” say to this? 3. Why destroy power stations leaving Palestinians in the dark? Do you not think they are terrified enough? 4. Why did you destroy my family home? I can tell you stories of the people who lived there quite peacefully. My late father built this home with my mother. He was part the first ever Palestinian delegation to participate in the first peace negotiations with the Israeli government. He extended his hand in peace. Why bomb his house? 5. More important. Why did you reject that offer of peace? 6. Maybe the Israeli government has no recollection of this but my mother, who is an elected member of the Palestinian Legislative Council is an Independent, belonging to no faction. She runs a charity helping the people of Gaza, following in the footsteps of her father. Why bomb her house? The bombardment of my family home seems like an attempt to wipe away my history. The rubble is scattered where I have memories of family gatherings, sitting in the garden, barbeques, drinking mint tea under a jasmine tree, weddings and parties, playing childhood games, watching the stars, hearing the crickets and the hiss of night insects, playing with our pet dog, watching films as a family. In summer evenings when it is cooler, my father would water the fruit trees, and we would help to pick the ripe fruits. The Israeli military has destroyed a cultured family’s history with its sophisticated missiles. On previous visits to Gaza, I heard a wise man say: “I have always believed that no matter how much you try to destroy the Palestinian people, they will always find a way of living” The recent bombing campaign in Gaza completely destroyed the home of Nada’s family. I strongly believe this. I don’t think the Palestinians will give up on their rights any time soon. There is a power inside the heart of every Palestinian, a strength of survival. The more they endure the full force of the Israeli state, and are deprived of their basic human rights, the more defiant they will become. I do not know where this recent assault on Gaza will lead and I continue to watch from a distance with horror. But my view is that, as Israel tries to destroy Palestine so, inevitably, it is morally destroying itself. Although this recent assault on Gaza was distant from me geographically, it was never far from my mind and my heart. Populations of the world are protesting more and more against the disproportionate Israeli bombardment of Gaza. Going out there with the protesters gave me an enormous amount of support during a distressing time. It meant I was not alone and demonstrates there are thousands of British people against the unjust treatment of the Palestinians. I am deeply grateful for that. © Nada Shawa, 2014. Since Nada wrote this article in mid-August, a long term ceasefire has been agreed, effective from 5pm on 26 August, 2014 . This is to be followed up by negotiations after one month. The last days before the ceasefire –24th and 25th August – were, says Nada, the most dramatic for her family. Her sister’s apartment tower block, consisting of 11 floors, was threatened by the Israeli military and its occupants given fifteen minutes to evacuate. Forty four families had to leave. The tower block was not bombed in the end, but three other high rise apartment towers were flattened. The first was a block consisting of 12 floors and 48 apartments. Its residents evacuated before the bomb struck. The second was another high rise block, consisting of 10 floors, and 44 apartments. Again, all the residents were evacuated before the building was flattened. The third was high rise block consisting of 12 floors, and 48 apartments. This was also evacuated before being destroyed. Nada’s sister and her husband stayed at her mother’s apartment, also a high rise block at risk from bombardment. Nada describes the end to most recent bombing as a huge relief which she has spent the past few weeks recovering from.
Posted on: Fri, 19 Sep 2014 17:52:22 +0000
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