The Curse of Gaza And a Palestinian Geography | Critical Analysis |Axisoflogic.com

It was obvious the unrolled map that showed only a Palestinian State made my colleagues nervous. And yet, as our guest speaker from the Gaza Strip explained, any experienced geographer who spends time along disputed borders knows that maps don’t tell the truth. Nor do they reveal the ethnicities or histories and cultures that’s survived for centuries, let alone the changing demographics always in flux. But least of all, they never show how those living among historically confusing borders are always, always he repeated, a result of what they‘ve been told and acquired. Boundaries are therefore seen differently due to various contexts, contexts that are sometimes conflictive and cursed, and paid in blood.

Curse of Ignoring Others
Forty dead and 5,511 wounded - 250 of them children - is what the Reuters headlines read the other day. The article, titled “Israeli Gunfire Kills Palestinian as Border Protest Builds to Climax,” told of how the six-week protest at the Gaza-Israeli border is building to a climax on May 15, the day Palestinians call the “Nakba” or Catastrophe. It’s a cursed catastrophe, marking the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in the conflict surrounding Israel’s creation in 1948. Calling it the “Great March of Return,” Hamas members, who’ve vowed to die, are expecting more Gazans to join them to end Israel’s decade-old blockade of the territory. May 15, however, has come and gone.

The curse of a Palestinian geography will likely continue to haunt those living in Gaza. Some, like our guest speaker, see a State of Palestine in the region, something that’s currently recognized by 136 UN members in the United Nations.(1) Others see it only as a geographical and historical region in the Middle East that’s changed hands several times. And then there are those who call places like the Gaza Strip and West Bank Palestinian territories-either occupied or otherwise under the control of Israel. However one refers to the elusive political borders of this region will, once again, be dependent on their contexts and what they’ve come to believe-or ignore.

Curse of Mapping the Un-Mappable
Boundaries also depends on a narrow spectrum of debate if “might makes right” or if it’s divinely sanctioned. If society thinks right and wrong is determined by those currently in power, knowing that power doesn’t also make good leaders, then years from now a Gaza Strip, or even an Israeli state, may no longer exist. Before Hebrew conquests and the Kingdom of Israel, prehistorical tribes had lived there thousands of years. Other kingdoms and empires then conquered the region, like Assyria, Babylon, Rome and Islamic Dynasties. The Ottomans, who initially called the region Filistana, later changed it to Palestine and Mutasarrifate of Jerusalem. The British called it Mandatory Palestine(2), and then attached a curse of inaction.

With the creation of Israel, which was a half-kept promise of the Balfour Declaration, and recent recognition of Jerusalem as its capital by the U.S. and others, the battle for the future of the Israeli-Arab struggle in a smaller context of Israel/Palestine has revived. Driven by Israeli hardliners and corrupt and compromised Arab governments that prop themselves up with pious wards in defense of the Palestinians, along with outliers who know very little, the Israeli/Palestinian joint tragedy continues. Such is the obsession with this tiny piece of land that many predict has an uneasy destiny. A destiny where another conflict is not only bound to occur but followed by trying to map the un-mappable.

Curse of “The Drone Eats With Me”
In “The Drone Eats With Me, A Gaza Diary” by Atef Abu Saif, he tells of what it’s like to try and comfort his children who’ve seen children in hospital beds-blood everywhere, screams, tears, the violent measures doctors and nursed have to take to try to save them. He also tried to explain to his children why ships were sometimes firing at their home which is close to the beach. Consequently, his children can’t understand why no one can’t tell them to stop, or why anyone can’t put an end to the bloodshed. Still, and despite the many people that have and will continue to die, he tries to instill the human capacity to cope with war and loss. It’s the curse of Gaza and a Palestinian geography.

A curse that Gaza has lived through for decades, perhaps the last century. To be sure, the last hundred years could almost be seen as one long continuous war for Gaza, interrupted only by temporary cease-fires. With the British Mandate in Palestine, from 1917 to 1948, and the haphazard drawn lines of the Sykes–Picot Agreement, Gaza City, like any other Palestinian city-Jaffa, Haifa, and Jerusalem-as some see it-was a battleground for the national struggle for liberation. After the creation of Israel, strikes and uprisings gave way to war, and more war, and more war, including hundreds of thousands of refugees. War after war has in effect been the tale of this territory, a dozen in the last ten years alone.(3)

Curse of Geography
Just as key features of nations change with war, so has Gaza’s. It’s another geographical curse. A curse that’s at the crossroads of three continents and significant meaning to three monotheistic faiths: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. It’s also had to endure the political maneuverings of the Cold War and Global War On Terrorism, along with beliefs about End Time scenarios and apocalyptic battles. As our guest speaker and Saif knows, whole parts of Gaza’s city have been removed, even devoured. Both Saraya Compound and Abu Khadra were eliminated through scores of F16 attacks. So too has land along the Israeli-Gaza border.(4) Nothing is ever permanent in this region, not even political borders.

For now, in a speech to hundreds of Gazan youths, Yehiyeh Sinwar said Hamas has rejected international proposals to stop the weekly, sometimes violent gatherings met by even more violence at the hands of Israeli froces. Whether the Hamas-led demonstrations will cripple the decade-long Israeli-Egyptian blockade, which was imposed after the group seized power in Gaza in 2007, isn’t known. Nor is it known if Palestinian demands to return to lost properties in what is now Israel will ever be realized. And then there’s the impact of Jewish settlements on the border’s regions, and Fatah and Hezbollah factions in Gaza with strong ties to Iran, and, again, the U.S. moving its embassy to Jerusalem.

The Other Curse: Decisions by People and nations
On Monday, Israeli fire killed 59 Palestinians during mass protests along the Gaza border, with another 900 wounded by fire. Thousands gathered in the center of Ramallah’s West Bank as well, while hundreds marched to the Qalandiya crossing where protesters threw stones at Israeli troops. According to Israeli troops, protesters tried to break through the border fence and plant a bomb.(5) The protests, in response to the new U.S. Embassy in contested Jerusalem, was the deadliest single day of protests since the demonstrations started. Consequently, Turkey’s president declared the U.S. has lost its role as mediator in the Middle East. Iran appealed to global resistance and al-Qaeda called for another jihad.

Although geography holds the key to the future, it can be a cursed key. This is true with regions and states like Palestine that have endured wars and cycles of imperial conquests. Meanwhile, competing contexts will continue to drive a cursed Palestinian geography, be it Rome’s Palestina(6), the Ottoman’s Vilayet called Palestine(7), Britain’s Mandatory Palestine, or Gazan’s dream of a Palestinian State. Though not yet a recognized state, there is an identified Palestinian region. Crossing borders as it does, it will be an area of ongoing threats. To ignore this, along with the histories or dreams and aspirations of others, is always a curse in and of itself.

And yet, as our guest from Gaza reminded us, the real curse of Gaza and a Palestinian geography may not be a curse but only decisions by people and nations, some which are paid for in blood. “After all,” he said, can there really be a border without a Palestinian State with a capitol in East Jerusalem?”

Dallas Darling is the author of Politics 501: An A-Z Reading on Conscientious Political Thought and Action, Some Nations Above God: 52 Weekly Reflections On Modern-Day Imperialism, Militarism, And Consumerism in the Context of John’s Apocalyptic Vision, and The Other Side Of Christianity: Reflections on Faith, Politics, Spirituality, History, and Peace. He is a correspondent for www.WN.com. You can read more of Dallas’ writings at www.beverlydarling.com and www.WN.com/dallasdarling.

(1) www.wikipedia.com. See Article on “Palestine.”
(2) www.wikipedia.com. See Article on “History of Palestine.”
(3)Saif, Atef Abu. The Drone Eats With me: A Gaza Diary. Boston Massachusetts, Comma Press, 2015-2016., p. 176-177.
(4) Ibid., p. 177.
(5) www.foxnews.com. “Israel Says Three ‘Armed Terrorists’ Among 37 Reported Dead in Gaza Border Clash,” by Greg Norman. May 14, 2013.
(6) www.wikipedia.com. See Article on “Syria Palestina.”
(7) Marshall, Tim. Prisoners of Geography. New York, New York: Scribner Publishers, 2015., p. 144.