Reflections on Gaza

(A photo I took there in 2015)

 In 2015, I was part of a delegation to Palestine, with stops in Israel in Tel Aviv and Jaffa.

We visited Ramallah, Nablus, Hebron, Bethlehem, and East and West Jerusalem. And Gaza. That sounds like a lot, but everything is close there in terms of geography. In terms of Palestinian people’s ability to freely move around and between the West Bank and Gaza, not so much.

Obviously, that doesn’t make me an expert, but I saw things I wish I hadn’t seen and learned things I wish I didn’t know. Sometimes knowledge brings no joy. 

I’m not interested in picking any fights, justifying any atrocities, minimizing anyone’s suffering, or valuing some lives and deaths over others. But I can say some things about Gaza or what Gaza was with some confidence.

One, it has often been called an open-air prison. Don’t take my word for it—just google the term. In my experience that wasn’t far off the mark.

Two, it’s tiny. For comparison, one of our smaller counties is Wirt with around 235 square miles and a little over 5,000 people. Gaza is more than 1/3 smaller, at around 140 square miles, but it has—or had—2.3 million people, one of the world’s densest populations. In parts of it, you’d have a hard time shaking a stick without hitting someone. 

Three, it’s been under military blockade for 15 or so years. Everything was scarce, including safe drinking water, food, power, sanitation, and all the basics. At the time, people were trying to rebuild after the last conflict. Around then, the UN said it wouldn’t be livable by 2020. As for the accuracy of that prediction, I guess it’s a matter of definition. It’s definitely true now.

Four, the unemployment rate was around 50 percent before the war. I saw lots of people sitting at tables and hoping to sell things nobody would ever buy. Before this crisis, around 80 percent relied on aid from the UN.

Five, about half the population consists of children under 18 living in very adverse conditions. There’s lots of science about how adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) can lead to all kinds of problems down the road. 

Six, it wasn’t easy to get into and almost impossible for most residents to leave. I found the sense of claustrophobia overwhelming. 

Seven, I’m sure most people there were not connected with those wielding power. That’s true everywhere in the world and is especially true of the women and children who have made up the bulk of casualties.  A pre-war poll found that 44 percent of Gazans had no trust at all in the government and 23 percent had “not a lot of trust.” 

Eight, there are Christians there, representing Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant traditions, although church buildings have been damaged or demolished by bombings from recent or previous conflicts. Gaza’s only Christian hospital, once connected with Southern Baptists, was bombed in mid-October. It was the only that treated cancer.

Nine, it has one of the world’s highest literacy rates for men and women, above 97 percent, higher than ours. Gazans value higher education, although resources were slim and are now nonexistent. I remember talking with men and women university students about their love for English language writers like Dickens, Twain, and Hemingway. Reading and writing were their ways of dealing with the feeling of isolation from the world.

Ten, most people there are or are descended from people displaced from Israel. Many are or were still  living in refugee camps.

As a thought experiment, try closing your eyes and imagining a situation like this happening anywhere in the world.

One of the most striking things about the people was their refusal to be defined by their situation. More than once, members of the delegation teared up when seeing the conditions. “Why are you crying? We’re living our lives” was their typical response.

I’m sure many of the people I saw have been killed or injured and all have been displaced and are dealing with horrible conditions  of hunger, thirst, disease, lack of medical care, and trauma.

Watching this reminds me of the aftermath of 9/11, when people were understandably afraid and outraged. Unfortunately, the response by US leaders had disastrous consequences, including invading Iraq, which wasn’t involved in the attacks. The result was around 4,500 US military fatalities and 32,000 wounded. Well over 30,000 US veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan have committed suicide, a number that grows every day. The death toll for Iraqis is impossible to calculate, although it’s in the hundreds of thousands. The long-term cost will be around $2 trillion. And the situation in that part of the world still isn’t rosy.

The use of force is always unpredictable, with unintended consequences for all parties, as any glance at history shows from the days of the Iliad to our time. Violence tends to lead to more of a growing spiral than a cycle, with each act leading to a more severe reprisal. Who knows how many seeds of spiraling violence have been sown over the last few months- or who will reap that whirlwind?

No wonder that public opinion polls in the US and across the world show overwhelming support for de-escalation, massive humanitarian aid, and a ceasefire.

One thing seems clear to me: the longer this situation lasts, the worse the long-term outcomes are going to be. For everyone concerned.

(This ran as an op-ed in the Charleston Gazette-Mail.)