The Middle-East Conflict:

Most people are aware of the horrendous events which have been happening in Gaza over the past few months and the seemingly intractable hard line stance taken by both sides in this seemingly never ending conflict. I am not going to go through the rights and wrongs of either side here. The Genesis of this article is that despite wall-to-wall media coverage, nothing brings a story, particularly one of conflict, closer than an account of someone’s first-hand experience. Last week, I met a Palestinian and heard their personal story.

We all know the background; after the holocaust in World War Two, there was worldwide sympathy for the Jewish people and they were finally given their own homeland, which they called Israel. Unfortunately there was already a country occupying that land and it was called Palestine, and it had been there for thousands of years. So, it is important to realise that this dispute isn’t about two warring nations; it’s basically about civil rights in a country that is shared by two peoples. Yes, there are enclaves like the Gaza strip and the west bank but it is important to realise that Palestinians and Israelis live side-by-side in many places throughout Israel. The salient fact though is that Israel are the rulers and Palestinians are supplicants.

This is where the story begins. Selma is a Palestinian woman who has effectively been forced to live in exile in order to support her family. She was born in the west bank and while very much aware of the tensions within the country, her family never had issues with their Israeli neighbours; until a year ago that is. The house where she grew up had been in her family for generations; apparently her father, grandfather and great-grandfather had been born in the house. It was an old dwelling, a bit ramshackle but it was their home. It was sited close to some of the ultra-modern new settlements which had been erected by Israeli settlers in the previous twenty years. One fine morning, completely out of the blue, some officials came to the house and told the family to vacate it as they had rights to the site. Needless to say, her father and mother were shocked and dumbstruck; despite hearing of similar seizures, neither had ever thought their little house would be threatened. Like any law abiding citizen faced with such a situation, Selma’s father called the police. He wasn’t ignored and a senior Israeli police officer visited the house within an hour. While he was sympathetic, he said there was nothing he could do. In the event, all he managed was to broker an agreement with the Israeli settlers to give the family twenty four hours to collect their belongings and move elsewhere.

Despite their shock, the family complied as the alternative was that their house containing a lifetime of memories and personal effects would have been bulldozed there and then. They managed to gather what they could within the time allowed and moved their belongings to a neighbour’s house. The following day, they watched in tears as their home was bulldozed and the debris removed. Within days, foundations for a new house had been dug and now there is a modern split-level dwelling on the site occupied by Israeli settlers. All traces of the previous house have been removed and the generations of memories have been erased forever.

Despite their trauma, Selma’s family accepted their fate and through a cousin, found accommodation in Gaza. Selma had to quit her job as a nurse and subsequently left the country in order to earn a living to support her family. None of them could obtain employment in Gaza. She now works for MSF and has played a role in bringing aid during the current conflict. When I met her, she had just returned from visiting her father, mother and younger sister. They have already had to move three times within Gaza as the Israeli offensive moves from place to place. Mercifully, none of them have been injured, but in a short space of time, they’ve gone from being a respectable, reasonably well off family to having absolutely nothing and effectively becoming refugees. They have had to move within Gaza at short notice and effectively could only bring the clothes they were wearing and one or two keepsakes.

What does she feel about what has happened? Amazingly, she smiles and is still hopeful. She acknowledges that Israel has a historical right to some of the territory but is quick to point out that so has Palestine. She also acknowledges that the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7th was wrong, horrendous and obscene and she cannot condone people who commit such acts in her name. Yet she says she understands the frustration that led to the attacks. She says her family has suffered but it is as nothing to the deprivation and cruelty others have endured on an almost daily basis. She is obviously well read and knowledgeable and she draws comparisons between the treatment of her people and that formerly suffered by black people in South Africa and the previous denial of rights to the minority in Northern Ireland. She sees a light in the (relatively) peaceful settlements of both conflicts and is hopeful of a similar outcome in Palestine.

I can only nod because I am in awe of someone whose people have endured so much but can still find hope among the ashes. I tell her that I cannot imagine what I would do in similar circumstances. Can any of us, in all honesty? I do mention that the conflict in Northern Ireland lasted thirty years and cost three thousand lives, whereas in Palestine, thirty thousand have been killed within a few months and I have no idea of how many lost their lives over the past seventy years. But she dismisses comparisons and says that all lives are sacred and all should be treated equally.

There is no point in me conducting an analysis of the conflict here. I don’t know enough about it and I firmly believe that to find a solution to a problem, you have to be a part of it but most of all, you have to be a reasonable person and have the ability to rise above it. Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King would understand. There are others of similar stature and I’d include Irishman John Hume in this context but isn’t it amazing that when you think of peaceful, reasonable people, who became giants, two of them are black and one is coloured. I wonder if this says something about the way we have governed our world over the past few centuries? I firmly believe it does. Meanwhile in Israel and Palestine, we are waiting for a Mandela or a Gandhi. I doubt they will emerge from the current leaderships on both sides but we live in hope. Incidentally, I checked it out and the name Selma means peaceful. I wish her and her people well.