The New York Times reported on an Arab Israeli who experienced pain twice
Israel feels the pain twice: the exceptional acts of rescue that occurred on Oct. 7 during the Hamas air raid on Israel’s border communities
In the last half century, I have seen Palestinians and Israelis do terrible things to each other. But this episode that began with the barbaric Hamas attack on Israelis, including women, little kids and soldiers in communities alongside Gaza, and the Israeli retaliation against Hamas fighters embedded in Gaza that has also killed, wounded and displaced so many thousands of Palestinian civilians — from newborns to the elderly — is surely the worst since the 1947 U.N. partition days.
They aren’t thinking about the Jewish mother in Jerusalem who told me in one breath how she just got a gun license to protect her kids from Hamas, and in the next about how much she trusted her kids’ Palestinian Arab teacher, who rushed her children to the school bomb shelter during a recent Hamas air raid. The Israeli Arabs who donated 50 bicycles to Jewish children who survived the Hamas attack on their border communities in October are not being paid attention to.
But those on all sides who read this column know that I am not one for keeping score. I am always focused on how to get out of this nightmare before anyone is left blind and toothless.
So, this Thanksgiving week, I ask you to spare a few moments with me to reflect on some of these people, including some of the extraordinary acts of rescue that they committed on Oct. 7. They will help you believe in humanity more than the headlines would have you believe.
Abbas, Walter Mondale, and the Hamas attack: Where is your home? How does your heart feel? How Israel feels the pain?
A friend once said that my views were a little bit like those of Thomas Hobbes and Walter Mondale. For several days on my trip, I let out my inner Mondale to chase some rays of hope shooting through the darkness.
The first thing Abbas said to me was: “No one can accept what happened on that day.” We cannot condemn it and say that it has become immoral. (Recent polls show overwhelming Israeli Arab condemnation of the Hamas attack.)
“One of the hardest things today is to be an Israeli Arab,” Abbas said to me. “The Arab Israeli feels the pain twice — once as an Arab and once as an Israeli.”
She told us that she has been in Jordan for 46 years. When we ask her where home is, she points – right around the corner. She says that her heart is in Gaza.
Tuning into a camp for Palestinians and heard despair for Gaza — and anger at America: An Arabic woman tells us that she didn’t sleep
She says she doesn’t sleep. “You know what my children did? They intentionally broke my TV so I don’t watch what is happening there. I’m on the phone all the time.
I don’t cook anymore. I don’t eat anymore because of what is happening in Gaza,” she says through an interpreter. There are two of her daughters at the United Nations school in Gaza.
She wants us to identify herself as Um Mohammed because she is worried about the security of her daughters, who are living in Gaza. She came to this camp when she got married, but is from Gaza.
An older woman sits on the cushions while we talk. Eventually we realize that she doesn’t know anyone in the room – she just saw us walking the camp, wanted to speak to us, and followed us right into a stranger’s home.
Rashaideh and Musri: Israelis, Arabs, Palestinians: a Conversation with a Hamas Veteran in Gaza
Rashaideh says when he does manage to get a call through, his questions and message are simple: “I told them, ‘How are you? Are you living? Take care of yourselves and your sisters.'”
His family, his children, are all inside Gaza. His biggest priority is trying to get to them. Internet and cell phone service has been slashed in Gaza over the past few weeks. Israel, which maintains a blockade on Gaza, hasn’t said if it’s trying to cut off communications.
The man next to Ghawanmeh is from Gaza and was in the camp for a few months. The war has made it impossible for him to get home.
“I never imagined in my life that a democratic country would be against a cease-fire — to stop killing civilians, despite any political motive or objective,” Ghawanmeh says. What is a Humanitarian Pause? It’s a way the Israeli military can regroup.
A young boy in a room offers us small cups of arabica coffee and plump dates on a plate. He tells us he wants a cease-fire and not a pause in the fighting. His wife is a Gazan and her family lives there.
Several other people follow us into his house. We were sitting on the brown cushions and removing our shoes. In the middle of the room, a TV is turning on, and the US Secretary of State is speaking on the war in Gaza.
Al Din goes on to say he despises Biden, but he understands there is a difference between people and their government – a sentiment shared by many of the people we spoke to in Jordan. Al Din was born in Gaza. When his family was forced out during the Nakba, he was three.
Abu Emad Al Din tells us that America is the enemy, but he agrees to talk to us. The United States government, with the strong support of President Biden, offered 14 billion in military aid for Israel’s response to the attacks by Hamas.
As we walk with Musri, we’re approached by an older man wearing a traditional red and white keffiyeh. As we introduce ourselves, he stops and asks, “American?” We confirm.
Source: We visited a camp for Palestinians and heard despair for Gaza — and anger at America
On the tragedy of the Hitten camp in Jordan – a question of people’s anger and their choice of location for their birth or their education
Many of the residents were born in this camp, and some arrived in Jordan at other moments of conflict, like the Nakba, Arabic for “catastrophe” – the mass displacement of 1948.
“Where’s home for you?” can be asked of a person with a choice of where they were born, or where they spent their formative years. The Hitten camp, one of 10 refugee camps in Jordan that the UN provides services for, is fraught with this question. Jordan has the most registered Palestinians of all the countries.
“Of course we’re angry, because children are being massacred,” he says through an interpreter. “Hospitals were bombed. So yes, it is a massacre, and people are very angry in the camp.”
We came here earlier in November to ask what’s on their minds, as war and violence unfold in places that may be miles away, but that feel central to their identities.
