Would-Be Peacocks and Tiny Red Poppies

Israeli politicians and spokespersons sound like roosters who think they are peacocks when they boast of “the most moral army in the world,” its “surgical strikes,” their wonderful “Iron Dome” (paid for by the U.S.), and their status as “the only democracy in the Middle East.” From that lofty spot, they spew contempt for “the Palestinian culture of death and hatred” and claim that “Palestinians use their children as human shields.” (In this writer’s profession, such a statement is known as projection.) The day after ISIS shocked the world with its video of American journalist James Foley being beheaded in cold blood, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu linked Hamas to ISIS—claiming Hamas to be “the enemies of peace; they are the enemies of all civilized countries and I believe they are the enemies of the Palestinians themselves.”

Western leaders dutifully parrot whatever the Israeli rooster says. “Hamas has unilaterally and grossly violated the humanitarian cease-fire,” intone John Kerry and Ban Ki-moon, who described as “outrageous” and “barbaric” the alleged capture of an Israeli soldier on his way to kill in Gaza. No equivalent words were used to describe the deaths of more than a hundred Palestinians every day during Israel’s 50-day assault. But Kerry’s words were not enough to satisfy Netanyahu, who warned the secretary of state, “Don’t ever second guess me again on Hamas!”

Nor is it only in time of war that the arrogance and entitlement of Israeli politicians are on display: it can be found when they try to intimidate critics with the accusation of anti-Semitism, when they censor mention of the occupation, when they monopolize human suffering through the industrialization of the Holocaust, and when they blur the reality of profound inequalities with the falsehood of rigged “peace talks.”

Emulating their political leaders are a growing number of Israelis, whose bragging and incitement to violence have now reached unprecedented levels:

David D. Ovadia, an Israel Defense Forces sniper, boasts of murdering 13 Gazan children in one day and promises to kill more. In pro-war demonstrations, Israelis adopted a vicious new racist chant mocking the killing of children: “tomorrow there is no school in Gaza, they don’t have any children left.” Israelis wear T-shirts with the image of a veiled pregnant woman who has a sniper target on her abdomen, with the words, “One shot, two kills.”

Rabbi Dov Lior from the illegal Kiryat Arba settlement issues a statement endorsing the killing of children and other civilians: “During war we are allowed to punish the enemy population by any punishment we find worthy, such as denying supplies or electricity and also bombing the whole area.”

In an Internet post Knesset member Ayelet Shaked called for the slaughter of Palestinian mothers who give birth to “little snakes” and the demolition of their homes. “They have to die and their houses should be demolished so that they cannot bear any more terrorists,” said Shaked, adding, “They are all our enemies and their blood should be on our hands. This also applies to the mothers of the dead terrorists who send them to hell with flowers and kisses. They should go, as should the physical homes in which they raised the snakes. Otherwise, more little snakes will be raised there.”

On the Israeli radio program “Hakol Deburim,” Prof. Mordechai Kedar of Bar-Ilan University maintained that “The only thing that deters a suicide bomber is the knowledge that if he pulls the trigger or blows himself up, his sister will be raped.”

Yochanan Gordon posted a column on the Times of Israel website titled, “When Genocide is Permissible.” In it he articulated the difference in the Palestinian and Israeli regard for life, and asked, “What other way is there to deal with enemies of this kind, other than to obliterate them completely?”

These statements are not mere rhetoric; they are consistent with the practices of the Israeli occupation forces, especially during the latest war on Gaza.

We Palestinians are like red poppies with their brief and fragile lives. The “international community” has not been impressed with our beauty, however, and has failed to flatter us. On the contrary, we are often told that our reach for liberation is senseless and cannot flower. Nonetheless, we have faith in our collective ability to beautify the bare mountainside and inspire a revolutionary spring among the oppressed of the earth.

The world may call this romanticism, but it is wrong. Palestinians are pursuing justice realistically, aware of the risks involved and the sacrifices demanded. We realize that our lives are irreplaceable and that past wrongs cannot be made right in such a way that returns everything to normal, as if nothing had happened. The people of Gaza seek to meet their basic human needs, to lift the siege, to expand the fishing zone, to live, to farm, to travel abroad, to have access to education and medical care without exposing themselves to oppression and humiliation. For the right to live in dignity, the people of Gaza are willing to risk death. Is it so strange that, for some, death itself is more acceptable than oppression and humiliation? Is it so hard to imagine that, for some, bleeding in the service of attaining dignity is more important than life-giving blood itself? In their yearning for liberation, Palestinians are prepared to make many sacrifices, in keeping with their faith in a just and peaceful afterlife.

In Palestine today, there is grief but not despair, disappointment but not bitterness at a world whose ignorance and moral numbness has permitted so much cruelty to befall us. We realize that the gates of freedom are often opened by injured hands. We have seen that nonviolent and violent resistance alike are met by Israeli violence, making both tactics equally costly in human lives. We have learned that whatever route we seek to liberation, we will not be spared the brutality of the occupation. Palestinians are not following the principle of “An eye for an eye,” but of “For the sake of the roses, we bear the thorns.” The resistance does not seek revenge, even given the destruction and casualties Israel has visited upon us. The Israeli army has killed and injured thousands of our women and children; our resistance has killed a few dozen of its invading soldiers in order to push them away and obtain freedom.

As a psychiatrist, I provided treatment to injured Gazans admitted to hospitals in Jerusalem and the West Bank. Their most frequent reaction to the enormity of the destruction that has laid waste to their lives was, “Allah is sufficient for us and He is the best disposer of affairs.” Betrayed by the “international community,” these people have placed their trust in a power that they believe to be higher than that of Israel, the United Nations and the government of the United States. Their profound faith is stronger than Israeli “smart” missiles and the techniques of professional psychiatrists. This is one of the secrets of the short lives and long memories of beautiful red poppies.

Palestinians were once peaceful farmers, until they were displaced and transformed into refugees. When they gathered in peaceful demonstrations, such as on Land Day, the Israelis shot them like hunted birds. When Palestinians threw stones during the first intifada, Yitzhak Rabin instituted a policy of breaking their bones. When some blew themselves and their enemies up to protest Israel’s excessive brutality, Israel used the pretext to erect a wall. When Palestinians held free and fair elections to choose their leaders, Israel and the U.S. turned Gaza into a ghetto and an “Island of the Despised.” Then Palestinians began to manufacture rockets and dig tunnels in response to the siege (the resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto had tunnels too!).

A Pretext for War

Almost every non-Arab Israeli family has a member who is actively involved in killing our children. Instead of assuming responsibility for the death and cruelty they inflict on us, “enlightened” Israelis want us to listen to their “fear of Palestinian terrorism.” But this war cannot be viewed as an isolated event. Gaza’s rockets and tunnels are simply the latest pretext, since Israel was founded upon and has been living all along on war crimes. It has destroyed our villages and committed horrific massacres for more than six decades—long before our resistance groups were born.

Israel’s ongoing aggression and destruction are meant to bury our hopes alive and force us to acquiesce to the status quo. But even though it is easier to remain oppressed than to aspire to liberation, we Palestinians will not surrender. We will never relinquish our resistance to our oppressors. The Palestinians are not a dead people; we, too, have a “self” to defend in the face of Israel’s unremitting dehumanization and aggression. As its Arabic meaning implies, Gaza will remain a thorn in the gorge of the occupation until a free and liberated Palestine is resurrected.

But the fight of the Palestinian resistance to lift Israel’s siege is not only a story of pain and agony, despite the horrendous destruction and loss, and despite the world’s complacent silence and perfidy. It is also an epic, a saga, a narrative of the courageous acts of heroic and legendary figures who are in truth simply ordinary people: medical and civil defense personnel who worked ceaselessly, journalists who risked grave danger, families who took in the needy and dispossessed to share with them their homes and limited resources.

The Palestinians are holding up despite all. The damage done to Gaza will not dampen our morale or weaken our resolve. There will always be red poppies growing on the tunnel roofs, amid the ruins, in the scorched earth. We will stand in solidarity and protect our poppies from being uprooted. We know that what we must do to be treated as humans is to treat ourselves as well as others in a humane way.

Palestinians are proud to have survived Israel’s latest attacks without submitting to a humiliating surrender. Indeed, we look forward to the future, and to many seasons when the beautiful red poppies will fill the mountains and valleys of our beloved land. 

Samah Jabr is a Jerusalemite psychiatrist and psychotherapist who cares about the wellbeing of her community—beyond issues of mental health. This article was first published on wrmea.org

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.