letter from the desert
and
who is this "we":
reflections on the second lebanon war

rachel tzvia back

Letter from the Desert

First there were the bones
we buried at crossroads,
mapping our exile, markers
for our return.

Others we lost, and lost then
our way: wandering in our sleep
they rattled, enraged to be
scattered under foreign stones.

But the last bones of promised
last days we carried
like hope across this desert
until we were bent, as in a prayer

we could not pray, and with bone
anger, we shouted: Strike the rock!
No witnesses now, or ever.
We  must  have  water.

Not as you heard. 
The rock was dry. We were to die,
here: our ivory white words,
last bond, bare to the sun.

 

On August 10^th 2006—the 30^th day of the second Lebanon War—26-year-old Miriam Asadi and her 5 year old son Fatkhi were killed by a katyusha that fell on their house in the western Galilean village of Deir-el-Asad.  Miriam was in her kitchen preparing lunch when the missile came through the northern wall and killed her and Fatkhi at once.  Fatkhi's 3-year-old brother was seriously wounded, as was their grandmother who had gone out to the garden to pick a lemon for the family's lunch. 

In the news reports immediately after the tragedy, two photos were attached.  One was of Miriam—an elegant and flawlessly made-up young woman—and the other was of her two sons.  In this photo, Fatkhi, the older boy, has his arm draped around the littler boy.  They are wearing identical shirts.  Their little-boy faces are sweet: half-smiling at the camera, clearly posing as they've been told to, in clothes and with neatly combed hair that someone has seen to (I imagine it was their proud mother).  This picture—enlarged to poster size and framed—hung in the now-destroyed family living room.

I live on a hilltop just south of Deir-el-Asad, in a small Jewish village.  For the month of the war, we too lived the missile barrage, listening for sirens that sent us indoors to the windowless "security" room.  We often saw smoke rising from the direct impacts on Carmiel.  One missile fell in the wadi outside our house, and the day after on the slope across the wadi.  We understood that we were not a target (our village is too small to be a target), just as Deir-el-Asad was certainly not a target.  However, within the context of the constant bombardment of Carmiel, it was possible that a missile could fall on us too, as it did on Deir-el-Asad.  So we stayed indoors, children and aduklts alike, and together we struggled to keep our sanity through an insane war.

On the 30^th day of the blood-letting, I heard on the morning news that 122 Israeli civilians and soldiers had been killed since the beginning of the war—this was a few hours before Miriam and Fatkhi were killed, and their numbers added to the toll.  (Of course the number of Lebanese civilians was never reported.)  I felt numb at the number. It sounded high, but over my mind and heart a fog had descend, a fog that prevented me from feeling the emotional reality of 122 destroyed families, 122 lost lives.  30 days into the horror, I realized I was becoming hard and hardened.  Until that moment, I had felt, primarily, anger at this war: how avoidable it was, how easily and quickly Israel embarked on it, how both sides exhibited a horrific disregard of civilian life, how what would be left in its aftermath would be terrible to see: hundreds of thousands of Lebanese refugees, destroyed Lebanese cities and towns, ravaged northern Israeli towns and cities, devastated economies in both countries, acres and acres of burnt forests and hillsides, entire populations with unquantifiable psychological scars—and the dead, so many dead.  In the face of such man-made destruction, anger seemed an appropriate response (particularly because when the anger recedes, despair sets in).  But beside the anger, I wanted also to feel sadness at the loss—to be a person who continues to feel sadness for her friends, for her neighbors and even for strangers, for their all losses.

On the 30^th day of this tragedy, I looked at the picture of two little boys, two Palestinian-Israeli boys, and I started to cry.  In a moment, my anger was pushed aside by raw emotion, which cut through the numbness generated by the month's ceaseless horrors.  Like Miriam, I too have two sons, and when they were younger, I too would pose them thus for photo-taking—the older one with his arm around the younger one, looking protective as older brothers often do.  I too would carefully pick out the right shirts for them to wear (then they would still let me), and comb back their hair.   I too would pour my love and pride into those photo sessions—my sons as beautiful and as sweet as Fatkhi and his brother.  Now, Fatkhi is dead, and his little brother (if he survives his wounds) is alone.

On the 30^th day of more middle-eastern devastation, my heart ached for the Asadi family.  My heart ached for us all. 

                            ____________________

Now, I return to Miriam Asadi—young woman, young mother, young teacher (she could have been my student)—and her sons. 

Throughout the war, I received emails from people near and far—friends, distant relatives, and long-ago acquaintances—all expressing their concern and prayers for us here in Israel.  For me, one of the strange and disturbing attributes of these emails was the fashion in which their writers used the pronouns "we" and "them.” A distant relative in Texas wrote that "we must show them how strong we are, we cannot fight a war with one hand tied behind our backs."  A family friend from the west coast of the United States wrote: "We are all with you in this time; we will not rest until they are defeated."  I pondered these messages and the many others like it—all sent with the best intentions—and every time I got stuck on the "we.”  I wonder, who is this "we" they are referring to?  Is it the "we" of Jews around the world, regardless of their politics, their customs, or their very different living circumstances?  Is it the alliance of Israel and America?  Is it everyone who thinks that war is the only option?  What does the "we" signify?

What I know is that I read these "we"s and felt—still feel—utterly alienated from them; they do not reflect me, my beliefs or how I identify myself.  The "we" I belong to is more complex, more multiple in nature, not drawn exclusively around religious, or nationalistic, lines.  I feel that Palestinian-Israeli Moslem Miriam Asadi from Deir-el-Asad who was killed by a Hezbollah missile together with her son Fatkhi is part of a "we" to which I belong—as a Galilean, as a woman, as an educator and, above all, as a mother of sons.  And Zahara and Mirna Ghazi of Tyre, Lebanon, who lost their sister when an Israeli missile struck their building and it crumbled to the ground, is part of a "we" to which I belong—as a woman who has sisters and fears always for their safety.  And the Jewish Yehudit Sela from the neighboring village of Koranit who buried her soldier son a few days before the ceasefire is part of a "we" to which I belong—as someone who sends her only somewhat younger children to the same school system and same afternoon activities, as a worried mother.  And there are other "we"s to which I belong, less personally defined but no less mine: the "we" of writers and activists who protest the crimes of this war, the wanton sacrifice of civilians on both sides of the border; and the "we" of individuals and organizations who insisted, from morning to night though no one seemed to be listening, that war is not the solution, that violence will certainly breed more violence, that only negotiations, compromises, concessions and acknowledgment of the other's humanity will bring an end to the terrible blood-shed and loss of life in this ravaged region.

Now, in these tenuous times of a tenuous ceasefire—a truce that is abundantly frail—I want to unsettle all assumptions about "we" and "them.”  I want to say that the borders separating "we" and "them" are not as the politicians and war-mongers (on both sides) would have us believe: they are more fluid, more permeable, more open to connections of the heart.  Now, as all of us in this region struggle to reclaim normalcy and regain a lost summer, I put aside tribal, religious, and nationalistic associations in order to affiliate myself, first and foremost, with the "we" that insists that the devastating bombing of Beirut was heinous and obscene, as was the daily lobbing of hundreds of missiles into Kiryat Shmona.  I affiliate myself with the "we" that still struggles to believe in the possibility of peace, and with the "we" that puts the sanctity of human life above all else.

In Memory of Miriam and Fatkhi Asadi

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