Displaced Palestinians and other Arabs on Trump

by Helen Benedict

On February 5th, the very day Donald Trump announced to the world that he was going to evict every human being who has survived Israel's war on Gaza and turn the strip into his personal, profit-making Riviera –– imagine the disco music and cocktails, bikini-clad women and Speedo-clad men -- I happened to be picnicking with some 32 mothers and children who had been forced to flee Gaza.

The picnic, in a beautiful park of palm trees, lakes and marble pathways, was organized by an impressive group of young volunteers dedicated to helping Palestinians. I cannot identify this group by its nationality or name for its own safety, but these were the people who invited me, an American visitor, to come along and play with the children for the day.

The children were shy at first, as all children are when confronted with strangers, especially strangers who don’t dress like their mothers and whose faces look weirdly pale, but that didn’t last long. The kids quickly grew bold and wanted to practice the English they knew, which mostly consisted of “What is your name?” “Where are you from?” And, with much giggling, “I love you.” Soon, I and the other volunteers had them skipping rope, kicking footballs, running races, laughing, and playing tug of war.

Many of these children, some mere toddlers, had scars on their faces, stitches in their heads, pieces of their bodies gouged by shrapnel, bombs or bullets. Some had those big, startled eyes of the traumatized, eyes that have seen too much. But almost every one of them was able to forget all that for the time being and play.

Over 13,000 children have been killed in Gaza since the Hamas attack of Oct. 7, 2023, either by bombs and bullets or cold and starvation. Some 25,000 children have been injured, according to U.N. agencies, and 25,000 more orphaned. And that is probably an undercount. But numbers are numbers. Children sitting on your lap, holding your hand, looking up into your face and trying out, "I love you," are not numbers. They are very real.

Stumbling into Oz

At one point in the afternoon, two girls aged about eight and nine latched on to me, indicating they needed the bathroom in the park. I don't speak Arabic, aside from a few words, but body language works well with children. So we set off, holding hands, and soon passed a candy kiosk on the way. These are children who have lost their homes, their siblings, their grandparents, and who may have gone through months of starvation. As soon as I offered, they made a beeline to the kiosk, chose a bagful of candy, not forgetting to buy some for the sisters and brothers who were back at the picnic, and as I paid, I thought about how, on the one hand, these two little girls were just like any kids who find a grownup sucker enough to buy them as much candy as they want, while on the other hand, these are children who haven’t seen such abundance for so long it was as if they had stumbled into Oz.

While the children were sucking on candy or playing, their mothers and grandmothers sat on the grass, talking and sharing the tea and snacks we brought them. Most never normally leave their homes, I was told, because they live in poor, dangerous neighborhoods, know nobody, and lack the money to go anywhere. So to sit in a pretty park all day like this, meet other Palestinians who share their fate, watch their children run and laugh and play under the sun... it wasn't much, but for that day, it was everything.

Still, even amidst this unusual moment of joy, the women were checking their phones, discussing the news, talking of Trump with horror. Biden and his American bombs were unforgivable, they were saying, but this proposition to steal our land and keep us out forever? That struck a new fear even in these people who had lived with fear for so long.

There were no fathers at the picnic, save one. Some of the men were still in Gaza. Some had been killed or arrested. Some stayed at home, unable to afford the bus fare to the park for both themselves and their children and wives. But the women, many of whom were meeting one another for the first time -- well, let me just say their faces held it all: stoicism and humor, bravery and resilience, sorrow, suffering and despair.

How does one bear the pain?

One woman told us about losing her son, and how a bomb had torn off the arm and leg of one of her two daughters and broken the back of the other, leaving her paralyzed. Another said her husband and eldest son were still in Gaza, living in a tent, and that she and her toddler both needed surgery for their wounds. But a few minutes later, these same women were laughing and joking, as if they had used up their tears long ago.

How does one bear the pain of a dead child? Of a maimed and paralyzed daughter? Of a husband and son starving in a winter tent under the bombs? Yet bear it they must.

As the day wore on, a cold wind picked up from the valley below and I began to shiver. Then a kind young father, the only father present, who clearly loves his little son with such passion it's as if he gave birth to the child himself, unwrapped his Palestinian keffiyeh from the baby’s neck and brought it to me. He put it over my head and wrapped it around me. The keffiyeh was warm and soft and welcoming. "Keep it," he told me.

What did I, an American, think?

Two days later, I was at another event at which Gaza came up, this one a literary salon. Some 30 people were present, among them writers, editors, critics and journalists from all over the Middle East. Everyone crowded into a bare, dingy room, and squeezed onto couches or metal chairs, the harsh LED lights overhead casting a ghostly glare over our faces.

Most of the people there, women and men, were middle-aged or younger, all but five of the women in hijab and long skirts or pants, the men in trousers and jackets or jellabiyas. I, the only Westerner in the room, wore black pants and a leather jacket, but I was shivering again, for the night was cold and the room colder. "Wear this," someone said, plucking up the keffiyeh that young Palestinian father had given me. I draped it over my shoulders and everyone nodded in approval, clearly tickled at seeing an American wearing a symbol of Palestine.

These writers and critics had come that night to discuss literature. But before long the topic turned to Trump's vow to take over Gaza. Then someone asked me what I, an American, thought.

It took no time at all for all of us to agree that Trump's proposition was inhumanly cruel, outrageous and illegal. No Arab country and no Arab leader will countenance the idea of evicting all Palestinians from their land, these writers and professors told me with confidence. This is not only because these countries don't want to be flooded with refugees, they insisted, but because such a violation of Palestinian autonomy and Arab dignity will never be tolerated by any Arab leader, anywhere.

Indeed, Arab leaders are already discussing alternatives that do not involve evicting Palestinians or violating their rights, but rather propose rebuilding Gaza, and enabling a coalition of non-Hamas Palestinians to rule the land. More discussions about Gaza's future took place at the Arab League Summit on March 4, although how Israel and the United States will react remains to be seen. The main point of contention will be, as always, who will govern the strip once the war is over, and whether any Palestinians at all will be able to stay in the West Bank.

"Americans are not good people," one woman at the salon said in the middle of this discussion, shaking her head.

"No, no!" the crowd hastily objected. "People are different from their leaders, we know that." Not even all Israelis agree with this war, others added. And, they hastened to assure me, they understand very well that the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians is not about Jews versus Muslims, either, but about land, power and autonomy, and the tragic cycle of trauma on both sides.

No Other Land

A week later, back in New York, I had another encounter with Palestine. This came in the form of watching the documentary No Other Land by Palestinian journalist Basel Afra and his Israeli counterpart, Yuval Abraham. Here is a summary for anyone who hasn't managed to see this film - - and many won't because even though it has just won the Oscar for Best documentary, so far no U.S. film company will distribute it:

Basel Afra, who is 28, grew up in the Masafer Yatta community of the occupied West Bank, and has been filming the systematic destruction of his and nearby villages by Israeli soldiers and settlers since he was a teenager. Yuvel Abraham, also an anti-occupation activist and journalist, joined him five years ago. From then on, the two filmed scene after scene of Israeli bulldozers tearing down houses, chicken shacks, animal shelters, playgrounds, even a school, and then the settlers coming in with scarves over their faces and rifles in their hands to loot, attack, terrorize and sometimes kill the people who remained. These two young journalists came close to being shot many times, but were determined to keep going. Since they finished the film in 2023, the violence has grown even worse.

Afra and Abraham accomplished something else in this film, as well, something few if any critics are talking about. They filmed not only the Palestinians being robbed, evicted, beaten, arrested and shot, they filmed the soldiers who were doing this to them: the young Israeli women and men in their masks and goggles, behind their uniforms and weapons, faces hard and blank. It made me wonder about these soldiers' state of mind, their moral injury, their PTSD. No matter how much they may have been persuaded that Palestinians are their enemy, that the land belongs only to Israelis, that if they don't do this another Holocaust might come, that never the two peoples shall meet -- how do they feel about forcing little children and old people to live in caves? About bulldozing schools and homes and farms that civilian families spent years of sweat, labor and savings to build? How do they reconcile shooting unarmed fathers and sons trying to protect their homes? And how do they live with the barefaced lies the military tells to cover these acts?

I've interviewed dozens of soldiers who did similar things in Iraq and Afghanistan and they knew they were attacking civilians unfairly, or at least they knew it once they got home and had a chance to clear their minds of the fog of war. They knew they had targeted innocents and they suffered over it. Some even killed themselves because of the self-loathing such cruelty creates.

Perhaps, I thought, these Israeli soldiers will become as disgusted with their actions as they should, renounce the army and join Combatants for Peace instead. Combatants for Peace was founded in 2006 by former fighters on both sides, Israelis and Palestinians, and claims to be the only such joint organization in the world. The organization was even nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize -- twice. This rejection of violence seems to me the only hope left for everyone in this endless conflict; the only way to end this self-perpetuating cycle of revenge.

Be that as it may, I left the film shattered. I thought of the faces of those children at the picnic, their delight at the candy, their stringy limbs flying as they jumped rope, their haunted eyes and big smiles. I thought of the mothers looking after those surviving children, even as they mourned other children, husbands, their own mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers. I thought of the need we all have for safety, a family, a sense of belonging, a home.

And I thought of how Trump and Netanyahu, these two ruthless, power-hungry and heartless men, are determined to take it all away.

Helen Benedict is a professor of journalism at Columbia University and the author of nine novels and six books of nonfiction. Her latest novel, The Good Deed, about Syrian and Sudanese refugees in Greece, was just translated into Arabic. www.helenbenedict.com