I Shall Not Hate: A Gaza Doctor's Journey on the Road to Peace and Human Dignity [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

I read this book, which I heard about during a recent CBC radio (The Current) interview with the author and two of his daughters, as a person relatively ignorant about the ongoing issues between Palestinians and Israelis. After finishing it, I feel a bit better informed, having learned such things about Gaza as its size, population density, poverty rate, unemployment rate and living conditions of its inhabitants as well as significant historical and political events and agreements affecting the region, though purely from the Palestinian perspective. I'd certainly be interested to know what Israelis think about Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish, a multi-lingual (Arabic, Hebrew, English) fertility specialist, described by an Israeli colleague as, (p x) "forward-looking and full of hope," and his efforts towards a peaceful solution to the problem. In January of 2009, the recently widowed father of eight lost three daughters and a niece near the end of the several-week-long Gaza War when an Israeli tank shelled his home. An Israeli journalist he'd been updating regularly about the situation on the ground in Gaza took a call from the doctor moments after the attack that was broadcast on live television. The station continued airing the heart-wrenching conversation for several minutes (available for viewing at YouTube under the title, "Gaza Doctor - Israel," along with successive interviews and Israeli finger pointing, shedding further light on the situation), after which information provided by its staff helped rescue workers locate and transport survivors to the hospital. The incident put the doctor smack dab in the middle of the spotlight, and now, just over a year later, he shares his story in print form.

This short (under 200 pages) pricey ($35) book is broken up into seven chapters (several quite lengthy) that provide information about Abuelaish's ancestors, upbringing as part of a large family living in primitive conditions in a refuge camp, education and training as a doctor, marriage and family life, and significant events in the region. He repeatedly details the logistics of and difficulties involved in obtaining passage through Israeli checkpoints, a sometimes harrowing, often time-consuming and always frustrating process that he endured daily while working at an Israeli hospital as a fertility specialist and recounts events leading up to his loved ones' deaths. But the story's most amazing aspect is this family's decision to forgo talk that might incite further violence, forgive, and speak overwhelmingly in support of peace, a task made easier, at least for his daughters, by knowledge they gained at Creativity for Peace, a camp in New Mexico whose mission, according to their site, is to "...nurture understanding and leadership in Palestinian and Israeli adolescent girls and women so that they aspire to and take on significant roles in their families, communities, and countries that advance peaceful coexistence," in spite of its suffering. Dr. Abuelaish has come to the conclusion that that (p 6), "...medicine can bridge the divide between people and that doctors can be messengers of peace," (p 167), "Hatred is an illness. It prevents healing and peace," and, in closing, shares Martin Luther King, Junior's wise words, (p 193), `"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter. In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends."' The surviving children reside in Toronto, where Dr. Abuelaish is employed as an associate professor at the University of Toronto. Also good: Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder and The Bookseller of Kabul by Asne Seierstad.

Such horrific tragedy has been bestowed upon this family living in the Gaza Strip. Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish lost his wife to leukemia, three of his daughters and a neice in a bombing of his home and suffered irreparable grief.

The story is heartbreaking is asad and full of struggle and pain. However, it is Dr. Abuelaish's response to the loss of his children that made news and headlines around the world as well as winning him humanitarian awards. Most people would seek revenge in this instance but not Dr. Abuelaish, instead he called for the people of the Middle East to begin talking to each other, to learn to settle things and treat each other as they are, brothers in humanity. Palestinian, Israeli, Egyptian, Jewish or whatever does not matter, we are all human with the same feelings and emotions.

Dr. Abuelaish's biggest wish is that his daughters will be the LAST sacrifice on the road to peace between Palestinians and Israelis.

This is a book that we can ALL learn something from. If YOU think YOU have a hard life, read this book and see how deeply ashamed you feel for complaining. My wish is for Dr. Abuelaish's wishes to come true, that peace will be restored in the Middle East and with that the knowledge that his daughter's did not die in vain.

The first 13 years of Izzadeen Abulaish's life were spent in extreme poverty under Egyptian rule. Like other camps in Arab countries Gaza was used as a pen for Palestinian refugees to prevent them from mixing in with and becoming citizens of the nations to which they fled. There is an interesting segue (pp 39) where, at age 11 he goes on trading trip with a cousin to Cairo selling socks and gets to see big city lights for the first time.

After 1967 under Israeli occupation things improved. Unlike the situation with Egyptian administration (odd that Egyptian military control, reputedly much harsher is described differently) Israelis were interested in coming as tourists to the Gaza strip and in development and Izzadeen was able to earn some money for the family selling fruit. At 15 he found work one summer on a farm in Israel and became friends with his Israeli hosts, renewing the acquaintance many years later. One of the things that stands out, common to many people who are well centred in later in life, is that he experienced a good teacher (Grade 7 English, among others) who encouraged him to stay in school and continue learning.

As a young adult he was able to go to medical school in Cairo, then later in 1988 to study obstetrics and gynecology in Saudi Arabia, capped with a few months study at the University of London. Dr. Abulaish decided to specialize in fertility; anticipating the reader's surprise in this, he relates he found that Gaza also had high infertility rates with couples desiring to have children. Whether this is his personal conviction as a Muslim or a desire not to be controversial with his associates he does not give a position on birth control which is pretty close to being haram in Islam. IMV encouragment of family planning and giving women control of their bodies would be an essential step to improving life in the Gaza strip as UN stats show that standards of living and longevity increase as average family size decreases.

I have a couple of disagreements here and there. For example, early on he repeats the meme that Gaza has the highest population density on earth - according to the CIA Factbook it's actually 6th, behind Macau, Monaco, Singapore, Hong Kong and Gibraltar and about the same as the Tel-Aviv/Haifa corridor. And when he tries to get back into Israel via Jordan to be with his dying wife his name comes up twice and he meets up with the bureaucracy of the occupation. (Israeli clerks in the military are no better than bureaucrats elsewhere I'm afraid, except they do take the issue of security to heart. Izzaidin is able to pull some influence to get him through - others who might be less connected or less diplomatic would have more problems.)

Overall though this a remarkable story of tragedy and hope, opportunity and loss. At 15 his family lost his home to Israeli bulldozers as part of Ariel Sharon's ill-designed attempt to physically divide Gaza in order to control insurgency, yet using the money he earned at the aforementioned Israeli farm he was able to pay for a new home. He was able to study abroad and send some of his children to a peace camp in the United States where Israeli and Palestinian children could meet and learn about each other. He was able to learn his residency in the Soroka hospital of Beersheva, the first Palestinian to do so, and work as a senior researcher at the Gertner Institute of Genetics in Israel and own a two story home in Gaza. In 2005 he entered politics and ran under the Fatah party and was tapped for becoming the Minister of Health, however he developed a distaste for having to follow a script of the party line. (He lost to the Hamas sweep.). He has had to suffer the indignity of both Israeli and Palestinian checkpoints. And then there are the two ultimate tragedies - in 2008 he lost his wife to leukemia (she was transferred to an Israeli hospital), and in the 2009 war in Gaza he lost 3 of his children, Aya, Bessan and Mayar when an Israeli tank mistakenly fired on the 2nd floor of his house.

The book reads well and there are parallels that can be drawn from the book of Job. Like Job Dr. Abulaish maintains his faith in human possibilities and refrains from generalizing from individual incidents or indulging in condemnation. The message here is that because the need is great it is more important to work together towards a better future than to focus on a bitter past. His faith is in people not political demagogues. In that goal I wish him well.

Dr. Abulaish is currently living in Toronto he was able to work on this book and his remaining children are going to school. He works as an associate Professor of Health at the University of Toronto but this is just a hiatus and he hopes at some point to return to work on improving the system of health care for women and children in Gaza.