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Once again, nearly every day we are seeing fresh news of the violence in Jerusalem.
While experts are debating whether or not this is a new intifada, while politicians such as John Kerry underscore Israel’s commitment to allow freedom of worship at the holiest sites in the capital, more mothers from each side of the chasm-like divide are mourning their lost sons and daughters.
This new wave of violence seems more powerless and more pitiful than those that preceded it. Suicide bombers attack from a position of strength. But knife attacks are different. Stabbing is a more individually targeted crime leading to fewer casualties and the knife-wielder is much more vulnerable than many other forms of attackers, as has been shown by the number of these youths being shot by defense forces. Watching helplessly, we are left with the feeling of “what a waste.”
Amid the debate over this current wave of violence, ordinary Israelis are having to decide what their reaction to this threat should be. Many peace-loving citizens are equally abhorred by the risk of being fatally stabbed as they go about their daily business, and the fearful response to this risk that can lead to a lynch-mob reaction. Few could watch footage of an innocent victim being violently kicked by the crowd in a bus station who mistakenly thought he was an accomplice of the killer without worrying about the risks of summary justice.
It seems inevitable that, in order to stop angry young Palestinian men from attacking Israeli citizens, authorities will clamp down on the borders. Once more this will create a different set of victims: the sick who need to travel from East Jerusalem to visit a hospital in West Jerusalem for vital treatment and the father who cannot get to his job as a laborer and therefore can no longer feed his family.
For those more closely linked to the attacks, the results are even more devastating and life-changing. Israeli forces can invoke old laws and demolish the homes of the extended families of those perpetrators of the knife-crimes. They may have begged their sons, nephews or cousins to think again; they may have tried to stop them, but they are mourning his loss and added to this is the shock of losing their homes and all they possess.
Before we shake our heads at one more example of the problems in the Middle East, we have to accept that we share at least some portion of the blame for contributing to the current mess. I may think that this punishing of parents and siblings for the actions of a family member offends my British sensibilities of fairness and justice. But I need to think again: The Israelis are only carrying out a legal form of punishment that they inherited from the legislation in force at the time when we British had a mandate over Palestine.
And so the cycle of violence is fueled by animosity and reaction to personal tragedy: Israelis who suffer loss become more hardline; Palestinians who suffer loss become more hardline.
“War changes people. It create[s] cowardice and bravery and produce[s] legends.” So writes Palestinian-American activist Susan Abulhawa in her second novel, “The Blue Between Sky and Water.”
This is a passionate and spirited tale of four generations of a Palestinian family struggling to hold on to their family values and dignity during and after the creation of the State of Israel. Abulhawa is a human rights activist and the founder of a charity that provides playgrounds for children in Palestine and Palestinian refugee camps. As one would expect from an author with this perspective, the novel clearly presents the emotions and worldview of the Palestinian nation. “We were used to being the losers.”
The tragedy of the Palestinians is skillfully told through the eyes of four strong women who have each lost the menfolk in their lives. Their experiences of relocation and separation reverberate across the globe anywhere where women’s lives are turned upside down by the effects of war. Abulhawa’s descriptions of the decision to leave their village in Palestine in 1948 after a day when 50 women and children had been killed by Israeli fire are poignant. Her depiction of the long walk to Gaza that tests them to their limits finds and echoes in the faces of the migrants we see crossing Europe: “The air was heavy, almost unbreathable, and people moved in fitful motions as if unsure that one leg should follow the other. Women hurried with bundles balanced on heads and children hoisted on hips, pausing occasionally to adjust each. … Bewilderment carved lines in every face.”
This determination to tell the story we hardly ever hear — the story from the Palestinian viewpoint — is laudable. But it is marred somewhat by the portrayal of all Israelis as exploitative colonialists. A more balanced approach, with even just one sympathetic Israeli main character, would give this book the wider appeal it deserves.
The beauty of this story lies in the attention to detail and to the emphasis given to the mystical worldview held by the protagonists. Abulhawa chooses to demonstrate the effects of the blockade on Gaza through a child’s eyes, where Kinder Eggs first become scarce and then non-existent. Some of her adult characters can speak to djinns and have special powers. The souls of each of the characters fascinate us as they can move back and forwards in time, meeting earlier or later generations in that blue place between the sky and the water.
This juxtaposition of West and East is heightened in the second half of the story when we meet a granddaughter Nur who was brought up in America. As we begin to understand Nur and watch her travel to her roots in Gaza, we see hints of “The Blue Between Sky and Water” wanting to be for Palestine what “The Kite Runner” is for Afghanistan.
It begins to live up to this promise as we see the reaction of her long-lost family expressed by the narration of Khaled who is comatose — an inspired literary device that enables Abulhawa to insert commentary at every stage of the story — “[Nur’s] mouth [is] full of Arabic words that were sawed off and sanded at the edges with the curly accent of a foreigner. She came with all that American do-gooder enthusiasm that thinks it can fix broken people like me and heal wounded places like Gaza.”
There are many beautiful but broken characters in this tale. Nazmiyeh had been abused by the Israelis and became stronger, filled with confidence and a humor that encouraged those around her. Nur was abused by a dysfunctional family Stateside and became weaker, filled with self-loathing and bulimia. But it is just at this point in the story when we expect so much that Susan Abulhawa dissatisfies, giving us a heroine who adjusts too easily to the Gazan way of life. Nur experiences no culture shock but rapidly embraces everything Gazan, even to the point of being instantly cured of her bulimia even though she should be experiencing great stress.
Disappointingly falling short of potential greatness, this tale is still a good one. Life, love, death and freewill are packed closely together in this sparkling novel. Unlike the rest of her family Nur is free to travel, but she is bound by her own emotional cage. Returning to her roots, her process to healing owes much to the words of her grandfather, uttered over her when she was a child: “Stories matter. We are composed of our stories. The human heart is made of the words we put in it.”
“The Blue Between Sky and Water” by Susan Abulhawa is published by Bloomsbury. 13 pounds in paperback. ISBN: 978-140886511-8 Rating: four stars out of five
Source: www.todayszaman.com