I Shall Not Hate: A Gaza Doctor's Journey (17 page)

The Israeli patients I treat don’t care that I’m a Palestinian doctor; they care about having someone to help them with their medical problem. The Gazans don’t care that I work in Israel; they care about finding security in their lives and getting treatment for their children. And yet I continue to meet people who are shocked that a Palestinian doctor treats Jewish patients. There is a presumption that we hate each other, that each side wants the other side dead. I’m sure those sentiments exist among some of the people, but in my experience it’s not nearly the number of people the rhetoric suggests.

The important thing about bridging the divide is admitting the truth, the facts around people’s lives today. For example, “the right of return”—the topic everyone knows about but no one wants to discuss. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were deported when Israel became a state. Everyone knows this fact. The BBC program
Panorama
aired a documentary about the people who live close to my ancestral village today. You can hear individuals in the film saying, “This is Abuelaish land.” It’s important for the Israelis to admit their moral and political responsibility and start building trust, which is the only way to arrive at an acceptable solution in which both sides can live in partnership and collaboration. We cannot continue to ignore the issue; there have to be solutions. It’s all about building ties, knowing each other, finding the way together. Of course it can be done. It’s all a matter of will. But every time we seem to be approaching a level of trust that could bring us together, there’s a new outbreak of violence and hopes are dashed again.

I’m not alone in my belief in bridging the divide. There are peace camps and summer schools and “surfers for peace” and hip hop rappers beating out peace messages. There are endless school projects and websites devoted to peace, and there’s even a peace phone line. There are examples of coexistence throughout Gaza
and the West Bank and Israel. You can find midwives on both sides of the line promoting peaceful coexistence. Look at the website of the Circle of Health International: Coexistence in the Middle East. The Palestinian Project Coordinator, Aisha Saifi, says, “I have been volunteering and working with COHI for the past three years and the experience has completely changed me. As a Palestinian woman, a mother, and a midwife, not only has this organization allowed me to help the women and children of my country, but it has also enabled me to deliver my message of peace and harmony.” The Israeli coordinator, Gomer Ben Moshe, says, “Belonging to a group of midwives who are willing to volunteer, being part of a mutual dialogue with Palestinian midwives fills me with energy and motivation. I believe women should take part in brokering peace and midwifery is an international language that can be spoken by all women in the world.”

There are even basketball leagues for Arab-Israeli and Jewish teenagers who believe in promoting coexistence and tolerance, and an industrial project on the northern border between Israel and the West Bank whose raison d’être is coexistence. There are conferences all over the world devoted to finding a way to bring Palestinians and Israelis together. And yet harmony eludes us.

One of the ways to alter the status quo is to look to the women and girls. It’s easy to find a thousand men in favour of war; it’s difficult to find five women who are inclined that way. I feel it’s time to empower Palestinian women and girls, to give them respect and independence and let them take the lead. Too many girls cannot get an education because of financial and cultural considerations. Too many families with limited resources give chances only to their sons even though their daughters are also serious and committed. I can understand their reasoning: a son is expected to support his parents in their old age while a daughter usually moves away after marriage to live with her husband’s family. If a
father doesn’t have enough to educate all his children, he might decide it’s better to educate his son, believing that his daughters will be taken care of by the families they marry into. But the first phrase in the Quran speaks of the importance of education and it doesn’t differentiate between educating men and women.

We have a saying that goes like this: The mother is the school. If you prepare this school with the right equipment, the students will be smarter and more successful and so will the nation.

Consider the studies done by the World Bank and the North–South Institute that have found that if you pay attention to the health and education of the women in a community, the economy of the village will turn around. The World Bank has done these studies every five years since 1985; there is evidence beyond doubt that investing in women and girls is the way forward out of poverty and conflict.

I grew up watching the way women in Gaza raised their children. I saw the decision making and the perseverance, but I understood that the women weren’t being given the opportunity to bring their own expertise to the table. Women and girls are not able in Gaza to rise to their potential, and as a result they cannot participate to their fullest.

A healthy society needs wise and educated women. An educated and healthy woman will raise an educated and healthy family. We need to link education with health care, and the most effective way to do that is to make sure that education and health care are available to women. It’s an investment that can shift not only the thinking but power in the Middle East. Removing the barriers that confront our women and girls could very well lead us to peaceful coexistence.

These were the issues that were on my mind when I started my job at the Gertner Institute, and they stayed with me as my research
work continued throughout the winter and spring of 2008. I enjoyed my work, but being away from home from Sunday to Thursday took the its toll. Each Monday morning I would begin counting the days until I could go home to be with my family. I tried to make the three-day weekend feel like a five-day week. Nadia had done most of the parenting by herself through the years, but the kids were older now, and I worried about them in a way I never had before. Nadia needed me by her side and I wanted to be there.

One weekend night, I overheard Mayar saying to her sister, “The worst times are when Father is travelling.” That hit me hard. What was I doing, being away from them so much? Who knew how long I would live? My work was important, yes, but my family was everything to me.

And conditions in Gaza continued to deteriorate, and I continued to have to pass through excruciating, time-consuming security back and forth at the Erez Crossing, or the Rafah Crossing between Gaza and Egypt. Yes at least I was allowed to cross, but the frustration and the humiliation were a constant burden. For any human being, freedom is essential, crucial, to our dignity and our ability to be fully human. I was so happy to hear Mayar say she thought their worst times were when I was away, because I sometimes believed the worst times were when I brought my anger and humiliation home.

Anger and violence in Gaza and among Gazans is completely predictable. In a situation like ours, the absence of violence and anger would be abnormal. All of us feel angry at least occasionally. Most of the time when I get angry, I get over it quickly, but to my regret usually only after I have upset others. Controlling one’s anger is the right way to cope but this is easier to say than do. Whenever I lash out, I almost immediately am full of regret. Why didn’t I control myself? Why did I allow
myself to hurt my loved ones? Why did I do this to my wife and children?

All I can say is that frustrations build up. When I arrive home I am physically exhausted from the crossing. My children need me yet it feels like I am helpless to go to them, there are so many hurdles in the way. I’ve watched someone else be humiliated by the guards. I’ve seen a patient tired and weak from cancer arbitrarily barred from crossing for treatment they should have received two weeks ago. I can do nothing. I have no control over the situation.

And then I walk in the door and my beloved wife, Nadia, greets me with all the problems of the day, problems I care deeply about. Mohammed didn’t do his homework.
(He must do his homework. He must study. Education is the only possible avenue out of a life of hopelessness.)
Abdullah didn’t listen to his mother and was playing with his cousins in the street again.
(Abdullah must not play on the street. Why doesn’t he listen? Why can’t Nadia control him? Why isn’t there a park where children can play safely? Recently, he was hit by a car and went to hospital. He could have been killed. Why are the drivers so reckless with all the children playing on the street. The driver had no insurance. I had to cover the hospital bills myself.)
Dalal said she was going to visit her Aunt Yousra for a few hours but she stayed overnight, returning the next day nonchalantly. How can she stay overnight without asking us or even informing us?
(This is unacceptable. She is part of this family. We are linked together and we must know where she is. Something could have happened to her.)

I listen restlessly. I go to my desk to respond to some emails and answer phone messages. There is one message written down, which is apparently important “Mohammed wants you to call him back.” I ask, “Mohammed Who?” But no one knows.
(The name Mohammed is like “John” in North America—there are a
thousand Johns. What can I do with this information? It’s useless.)
I go to make a note about something I need to do and discover that the notepad by my desk is missing
(yet again).
No one takes responsibility. I go to the refrigerator to check out what we need so I can make a shopping list and discover rotten food. It’s the last straw: I explode, throwing the rotten food on the floor. I shout at my wife, “I didn’t inherit this money nor did I steal it—I sweat for it. You open the refrigerator at least ten times a day, yet you don’t have the time to throw out the rotten food. How many times does this have to happen? Why can’t you be more careful?”

The children cower and Nadia goes to her brother’s house she’s so upset by my yelling. She also knows it’s better to leave me alone to calm down. I go off by myself to try to do just that. Why do I lose my temper? Why can’t I control myself with my loved ones? Why must I hurt my wife and children?

I realize it’s because home is safe. I can’t explode in front of the officials. It would be utterly disastrous. I’d lose everything. I would be detained further. I wouldn’t be able to leave Gaza for work, for study or for medical reasons. If I were trying to get back into Palestine, I wouldn’t be able to come home.

The drums of discontent on both sides were beating like early warning signals in the summer of 2008. I could see no hope for change in the short term. I decided I owed it to my children and to Nadia to find a job in a place where we could be together, where there wouldn’t be such blatant restrictions on us as our border demanded, where the kids could be safe to go to school, to play on the street and be themselves. I wanted to take them away from the tension that infects everyone like a virus in the Middle East. Not forever: this is still my homeland. But for a while—just to give the family a chance to grow up, to be together. So in August 2008, when I received a notice from an international organization
about health policy jobs in Kenya and Uganda and another one through the European Union in Brussels, I decided to book a ticket and find out if there was something out there in the wide world for me and mine.

Me at twenty-two.

Deep in my medical studies in Cairo.