Gaza

(Written 11/06/2010)

My good friend Zeina is a Palestinian who lives in Jerusalem. She has a fairly hard time of it, even living in Israel, but her family have a harder time, as they live in Gaza. At least, so she tells me, but I have no reason to think that she's lying. I plan to visit her sometime - soon, I hope - and I'm looking forward to a guided tour of Jerusalem when I do.

I won't be meeting her parents, though, because while it's easy for me to travel across the border after a few minutes chat with the border guards, it's much more difficult for her to do so. The interview at the border lasts for a minimum of three hours, sometimes longer, both on the way out and on the way in. The guards can refuse passage one day, allow it another, seemingly on a whim. So a day in Gaza isn't really an option. Yet she's employed by the British Government, and has a letter from the British Ambassador, countersigned by the head of the Department for Iinternational Development in Jerusalem, that not only confirms this, but also confirms that she has been security cleared to a reasonably high level by HMG. In fact, her travel is so restricted that when we went to Indonesia, those nice chaps in the Jordanian Government were persuaded to issue her with a Jordanian passport in a slightly different name, just so that she could fly to other countries easily, yet not face detention on her return to Israel. (They do the odd favour for HMG.)

Every interaction she has with the Israeli local and national government takes at least five times longer than an Israeli national, while stringent checks are made on her background, who her friends are, what hobbies she has, when she last crossed the border, and so on. She's picked up by the police while out on a regular basis, and expected to prove her identity time after time. She gets the stop and search treatment at least once a week, just because she looks Arabic.

And yet, she's much better off than if she were living in Gaza, where unemployment is running at 44% and there's a lack of most things, but especially water. The river Jordan used to run through Palestine, but now it trickles. All the fresh water that it used to bring is now harvested off by Israel, to irrigate their crops. That would be understandable if Israel was short of food, but the crops being watered are mainly destined for export. Something to consider next time you fancy a Jaffa orange.

It's true that rockets are fired from Gaza into Israel, and that's regrettable, especially when they kill and injure people. Property damage, at least, can be repaired or rebuilt. When counter strikes are launched from Israel, though, no such simple solution is available to the people who live in Gaza, as Israel forbids them importing steel, bricks, roof tiles or cement, on the basis that such materials could be made into bombs and stealth fighters.

Without trawling through the very extensive list of other items that cannot be imported, I'll focus on one aspect of human development and try to illustrate how difficult life is in Gaza. The decision to have a child is not one that is taken lightly, and in Gaza, that's doubly, triply so. To start with, there's a shortage of medical staff, so most births are home births, unattended by a midwife. (I have nothing against home births, indeed, I'm in favour of them in the case of a healthy mother and healthy child, but it's a good idea to have someone else there who can tell if something is going wrong.)

There's a shortage of drugs, if labour proves difficult, and if a pain-killer is required, there is absolutely no nitrous oxide and no bottled oxygen. Rockets can be fuelled with that, apparently.

Assuming the child is born safely, there are no Pampers (banned) or pre-formed terry nappies (not banned, but few ever get through, as they can be used as wicks for Molotov cocktails.) So you have to make your own. Oh, and once the child is weaned, there is no baby food. It's banned.

Now, I'm a fairly enthusiastic Christian, and Zeina is a keen Muslim. Up above us, the Archbishop of Canterbury does his best to keep the Anglican communion together while keeping some sort of relationship going with the Pope, and various Mufti and Qadi argue about whether the Sunni or Shia interpretation of the faith is the correct one - but Zeina and I are just two people who go to a church and a mosque, thank our god for what we have, and try to do what our god asks of us, which is mostly to love one another, to try to be good, and to believe that god exists. If, when I depart this place, I find myself standing in front of Allah, I have no doubt that he will say "Hey, Mark - you did your best..." and I daresay the same will happen if Zeina finds herself in front of the Christian God.

She worships Jesus as a prophet, you see. While I think there's much sense in what Mohammed said.

So I asked Zeina why the democratically elected government of Gaza, Hamas, would allow rockets to be fired into Isreal? After all, doesn't it perpetuate the struggle, and doesn't the random civilian killing that an unguided rocket delivers also perpetuate the Muslim/terrorist witch hunt that the West too often subscribes to? Her answer was given in rather heated tones, but it boiled down to a fairly simple argument. When people's homes are demolished by Israeli bulldozers and they can't rebuild them, when there are shortages of everything from baby food to water, when nearly half the population can't get work, there's not much of a welfare state, and the only way that supplies can be brought in is through an Isreali border where Israeli sanctions are rigourously applied - well, that's when the hawks in Government are supported far more than the doves are.

Starve any group of humans, lock them up in inadequate facilities, and kick them every day. Then have someone smuggle a gun into their facilities. Now, there might be some of those humans who will say "Offer him the nice gun in exchange for talks about peace, it's shiny and he might go for it", but they'll be drowned out by the shouts of "Shoot him dead!"

So I'm declaring an interest, and I'm on the side of the Palestinians, especially those who live in Gaza. If the sanctions were lifted, and the Palestinians tried to oppress the Israelis in the same way, I reserve the right to change sides.

See, Zeina and I both worship religions that have, at their very heart, peace, tolerance, understanding and love for one another. It is, perhaps, a pity that those above us, who struggle with interpretations, sanctions and treaties, don't hear that call.