Mornings In Jenin · 10:59pm Nov 12th, 2023
Over the last month, I have struggled to write a journal regarding the Hamas-led attack upon Southern Israel on October 07th 2023, and all that has followed. In these past few years, I've posted a number of journals pertaining to current events, typically headlined by a title including the place and year.
But, could any such title possibly cover the full expanse of the story behind this? The story of Israel, or Palestine? How far back must one go before 2023, in order to understand where this cycle started?
I never went into a Fimfiction journal with the expectation of penning an in-depth history of the Israel-Palestine conflict; more scholarly people than I have devoted their lives to it, and I'm under no illusions as to the size of my audience. What took me longer to come to terms with was how exhaustive the range of what to talk about would be for this month alone; to give you perspective, I'd hoped to publish on November 11th, in synch with the pro-Palestine protests in London on Armistice Day.
I am neither Israeli nor Palestinian, and this is not my story. In many regards, I can only be considered an onlooker, catching glimpses of a story I cannot hope to ever fully understand. Maybe it is only proper that I be measured in what I say.
Yet when fire rains upon the innocent, isn't to be a silent bystander as good as looking away?
All I can offer, as a drop in this boundless ocean, is the recommendation of a book I read years ago, Susan Abulhawa's Mornings In Jenin. A tale told not without personal bias, being that of four generations of Palestinian tribulations as related by a Palestinian-American writer, yet no less an affecting portrait of trauma and its perpetuation.
~Vox
It sounds fascinating! I’ll have to pick up a copy when I get paid next.
Thanks, 5754721,
I believe you'll find it rewarding. The original title of the book was The Scar of David, which is both a metaphor for the Israelis' infliction of the same wounds which were done unto them upon the Palestinians, and an allusion to a literal scar on the face of one of the characters, a man who got separated from his Palestinian birth family as a boy and raised by a conflicted Israeli soldier.
Whereas in many stories, taking the child of an enemy and raising them as your own would serve a form of atonement, here it is only one more link in the chain of hurt.