There are many opinions on what is happening in Gaza right now.
As the death toll in Gaza passes 40,000 and hopes of a ceasefire seem dim, many of us are feel impotent, some of us enraged, most of us feel impotent in the face of this unfolding tragedy.
These past few month have been utterly tragic for both Palestinians and Israeli people.
The Hamas attack which killed 1400 Israelis on October 7th was widely condemned, but Israel’s response, which will likely claim ten times that number in Palestinian lives has been sickening and disproportionate, and the nightly images of carpet-bombed homes and destroyed hospitals is near impossible to watch.
A number of years ago, I started to take an intense interest in Israel and the Palestinians.
The history is too fraught and complex to be easily understood.
I started reading all I could find about a guy who comes from Gaza.
His name is Izzledin Abuelaish – he’s a Palestinian medical specialist and founder of the Daughters for Life Foundation.
Dr Abuelaish was the first Palestinian doctor to receive a staff position at an Israeli hospital.
He’s a highly skilled obstetrician and gynaecologist. Israeli doctors greatly admired his work as he saved the lives of many Israeli woman and babies.
One evening in in January 2009 , during a conflict, an Israeli tank shell landed squarely in Dr Abuelaish’s Gaza house killing his three daughters and a niece. He was live on Israeli TV as it happened, and his anguish was profound.
This horrific tragedy did not harden Abuelaish’s heart; neither did it weaken his resolve to act for humanity. He continued to live up the description bestowed upon him by an Israeli colleague, as ‘a magical, secret bridge between Israelis and Palestinians.’
I had the honour of meeting this man a few years ago.
I visited him in his office in a University in Toronto where he now works, advancing his message of peace and reconciliation.
We ate dates and drank strong coffee and talked about the dreams his daughters had had for a better world.
“Hate,” Dr Abuelaish told me, “is a poison, and we must not let it rule our lives. We must be strong mentally, physically, and emotionally if we are to succeed.”
I wondered, shaking my head as I bid him farewell, whether the deaths of my nearest and dearest would lead me to write a book with anything like the title ‘I shall not hate.’
What might happen, if we sat at the feet of such men and learned?