Tafa el Kale

One of my friends recently wrote to ask recently to ask why he has not heard from me lately.    Indeed, I have not written a reflection for some time.  What can I say or write anymore when the brutality is so glaring and the war on Gaza has been headlines in all the media.  Nobody can claim ignorance of the facts anymore, especially after all the protests of the university students in the USA and other countries.  Yet the attack of the American police looked very familiar and not much different from the brutality of the Israeli police against Palestinians demanding their rights in their homeland. 

In our Sabeel weekly prayer Zoom meeting, I often ask: I often ask: “Until when dear Lord, until when?” And I even shared the concern of a friend of mine who had challenged my faith by saying: “If there was a God, how can He allow so much suffering to take place?”  But after the recent rounds of negotiations regarding the release of hostages and the invasion of Rafah, and the intransigence of the Israeli PM despite Mr. Biden’s threat regarding the shipment of bombs, I felt that the situation was becoming more hopeless than ever and as we say in Arabic “Tafah el Kale” meaning literally "The vessel is full to the brim and has overflowed, or that, matters have gone too far," an expression which we use when we are at the end of our tethers.  How many more people, mainly children, women, journalists, medical staff and others need to be killed   before the USA, the UK and most of the European countries dare say to Israel “Enough is enough.”

This coming week Israel will be celebrating its Independence Day, while we, the Palestinians, will be commemorating the seventy sixth anniversary of our dispossession, “Nakba.”  And while the European Jews mainly of German origin continue to be compensated for their losses during the holocaust, Israel refuses restitution and our right of return, or even to acknowledge the rights of the Palestinians in their historic homeland, despite the fact that many of those Palestinians are still in the land and live very close to their original homes.  In fact, many of the victims of the Gaza Strip are refugees or descendants of refugees who ended up in Gaza after they were evicted from their homes in 1948.  And ironically, whoever criticizes this double standard is labeled as antisemitic. And woe to him or her who gets stuck with such a label.  Thanks to Norman Finkelstein, a descendent of Holocaust survivors himself, as well as many other Jews:  historians like Ilan Pappe, writers like Miko Peled and his sister Nurit Peled E-Hanan and so many others, including Jewish Voice for Peace who continue to raise their voice for justice and Peace.  But it seems that this war is the war of survival for the PM and his right-wing government with a Samson mentality who is willing to take down the whole country with him, including the Israeli hostages rather than appear to have lost the war.  

Just as I was finishing my reflection the vote at the UN regarding the upgrading of the observer-member status  of the State of Palestine took place.    It was indeed encouraging to see the number of countries voting for Palestine.  Yet not surprising to see that the US continues to lead the vote against that membership, let alone its upgrading.    I  call it the hypocrisy of  democracy, especially after Mr. Biden himself had announced during the war on Gaza that the two-state solution is the  only way to  guarantee peace in the region.   I rest my case.