I have thought about that quote much in recent months, weeks and especially the last few days as we have witnessed the deteriorating horror of Gaza; when we think it can’t get any worse, it does, in multiples of ten. The physical devastation of a landscape flattened to dirt and rubble, the wanton destruction of a people and a culture, the enforced migration of hundreds of thousands if not millions, and now increasingly the starvation of a population is unjustified carnage and a morally bankrupt action on the part of Israel which cannot, and must not, be allowed to go unquestioned and unpunished by the rest of the world.
It is a damning verdict on the rest of the world, that our governments have allowed this to continue unchecked for so long and it is an awful indictment upon us, the electorate of Britain, that we have allowed our government to be so wilfully ignorant and tardy about taking action. Our Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary tell us that they are “appalled” and are doing what they can in this “difficult and complicated situation”; they wring their hands and say the words but do nothing. I am reminded of the quote by Albert Einstein about those who would make war: “He who joyfully marches in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would suffice” – in the case of our government’s responses to the Gaza situation one might happily suggest that our politicians need to grow a spinal cord and stand up to be counted; to do the right thing. Our Home Secretary covers her eyes to the Gaza situation and proscribes organisations that offend her sensibilities; she is wrong. The only “difficult and complicated situation” in this horror story is a strong pro-Israel lobby combined with the fear by our politicians of being branded anti-Semitic; it seems that our government prefers offend whole swathes of the British electorate by not to offending Israel – and preferring instead to watch genocide taking place.
We should, for both moral and political reasons, be making clear to Israel that they are out of order on every front; for any democratic and humane government not to do this is an abdication of its moral, humanitarian and political responsibilities and imperatives. We should, too, be spelling out in words loud and clear, that Israel has not only lost any moral high ground it previously held but has also, in the minds of millions forfeited any moral rights based however loosely on memories of the Holocaust. They can no longer be considered exceptional, an untouchable "special case", absolved of all criticism and sanction, playing the Zionist, the Balfour Declaration, the arrant and arrogant nonsense that is the self-proclaiming "we are God's chosen people” occupying the land that God gave us, and the antisemitic cards whenever it suits them. They are not “God’s chosen people” nor do they have a God given right to the land they occupy – they are, like the rest of us, and importantly the Palestinian people, a grubby little race trying to live a life on a few thousand square metres of this little rock that we call Earth; no more no less.
But to return to Maya Angelou. As I have read the newspaper reports, watched the TV streams and seen the horrific pictures from Gaza of the shooting, the destruction, the starvation and all the rest, something else has worried me.
Once the war is over, once Gaza is rebuilt, once the dead are buried, and some kind of peace is brokered, and flowers grow again where now there is rubble and death, then what then? Maybe, over time physical wounds will heal – that's the easy bit. Maybe Palestinian children will play happily with Israeli children - but I won't hold my breath on that one. Maybe Benjamin Netanyahu will languish in some cell convicted of war crimes. Maybe there will be a two state solution. Maybe, maybe , maybe……. Yes, treaties might be signed, Gaza might be rebuilt, children might again thrive in Palestine a solution to the Israeli/Palestinian problem might be found. So why do I concern myself with this? – for one simple reason.
As I have watched the TV films and seen the pictures in the newspapers I have seen thousands of pleading faces, holding out begging bowls to men and women aid workers who dole out measures of basic food - feeding the hungry, giving a small chance of life to the weak and the vulnerable – and I have looked at the faces and wondered what it must feel like to be in that position. To have nothing but a battered bowl to hold out as you scream and howl for food to feed your family. To not have the very basic requirements to live, to not know if you or your children will be alive tomorrow. I have wondered about the women, the wives and mothers unable to give their child what it needs – even in the smallest measure. And I have wondered, too, about the men – like beggars, completely dependent upon the goodwill of someone else and a system that they have no part in. Like the women, unable to feel pride and maternal satisfaction in bringing up a healthy happy child, the men losing all pride and dignity, unable to be what I might call “the bread winner” – redundant, lost, dehumanised, tossed around like flotsam in the maelstrom that is Palestine. These are feelings that injure our very core, our soul.
And, I wonder, as Maya Angelou's poem suggests, is this going to be the terrible and lasting legacy of the situation? The hurt, the destroyed feelings are the injuries that cannot be repaired with a bandage or a full belly or a roof over one’s head. Is this what they will remember. Is this what Palestinians will, understandably, carry deep within them – and if so what will it mean? I cannot begin to conceive what it must be like to beg for food as Palestinians are forced to do. I cannot comprehend what it must feel like as a parent to know that you cannot provide a meal, shelter and safety for your family. But I do know that it would make me angry and fill me with rage and hate for those who had allowed this to happen – whoever they might be. Would I feel grateful to the aid workers who pour the flour into my battered bowl? Of course I would – but simmering beneath that shallow gratitude would be resentment and, I think, feelings of revenge. As Maya Angelou said “At the end of the day people won't remember what you said or did, but they will remember how you made them feel.”
In Shakespeare’s great play “The Merchant of Venice” Shylock, the Jew, demands that the Judge find in his favour – give him his “pound of flesh” – against Antonio who has defaulted on his debt of 3000 ducats to Shylock. Shylock is a deeply oppressed man, corrupted by the discrimination he has faced all his life as a Jew. All the injustice he has been subjected to has culminated in this climactic moment: he has been ostracised, lost his daughter and now offended by Antonio reneging on his debt. Shylock is angry, resentful, his pride and dignity in tatters; he doesn't just want his 3000 ducats, he wants revenge for all the hurt he believes he has suffered and he challenges the court and asks if not all humans are created equal:
“…..If it will feed nothing else, it will feed my revenge. He hath disgraced me, and hindered me half a million; laughed at my losses, mocked at my gains, scorned my nation, thwarted my bargains, cooled my friends, heated mine enemies, and what’s his reason? I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by Christian example? Why, revenge. The villainy you teach me, I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction.”
It is a terrible and dreadful irony that these few words are spoken by a Jew who, like the rest of his people, has suffered greatly. Jewish people, surely, know more than anyone else what it is to be vilified, murdered in huge quantities by a State, demeaned, humiliated, shamed in the eyes of the world and in being so must understand its impact upon others - their Palestinian neighbours - when they too are shamed and demeaned and humiliated and murdered.
Shylock’s words for me have such resonance when I think of the Palestinian people and what they must be feeling - and, almost certainly like Shylock, be seeking revenge. Hath not a Palestinian eyes, do Palestinians not suffer the same diseases, bleed when pricked, laugh when tickled, die when poisoned……….the Palestinian father or mother or teenage son might reasonably ask. I do not believe that if peace comes to Palestine everyone will forgive and forget. To use the analogy of Shakespeare’s play, the stage has been set.
Our government might, if the population of Palestine are lucky, decide to do something about this “difficult and complicated situation”. Our Prime Minister, Foreign Secretary, Home Secretary and the rest might grow backbones and say to Benjamin Netanyahu, the pro-Israel lobby, the Zionists, the “God's chosen people” believers and those that play the antisemitic card “You are dreadfully and terribly in the wrong. This shall not be”. But that will not, I fear, be the end of it and we will not all be able to go back to our slumbers and live happily every after.
A terrible and difficult situation has now been manufactured with inevitable and dire consequences for us all. Do we expect those holding out the begging bowls, those burying their children in the rubble, those who have lost everything and more, those who have been made to feel worthless, less than human, of little consequence, flotsam, with no pride or dignity, just inconvenient blots on the Israeli horizon to simply smile and forget it, like a holiday where unfortunately it rained every day? Do we expect them to shrug their shoulders and say, "Oh, it is what it is, just part of life's rich tapestry"? The answer to that has to be a resounding “No”. The Palestinian men and women and children have not just suffered physical injuries that with time. money, goodwill and care can perhaps be rectified. They have been demeaned, humiliated and shamed. What they have been subjected to and made to feel will not be neatly tucked away in some drawer to gather dust and be forgotten about; these will be the things that they remember, every day, every week, every year, and be passed down to the next generation; the things that will gnaw at their very souls. We, and our political class, have let them down and ourselves down and created a situation where long-standing hatred and revenge will be high on the agenda. Israel will not be forgiven easily, nor will we who have allowed it to happen; we will have to learn to live with the consequences, and they may well be painful. For as Shylock told the court revenge is the result of disgrace, of being hindered and of being mocked, of being demeaned, considered worthless, shamed and humiliated - and whether we like it or not revenge will feature in the hearts and minds of the next generations of Palestinians - it cannot fail to be so.
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