Tuesday Mezze: Eid in Gaza: War Against Humanity + Nieman Reports: Deaths of Journalists + Phillips Exeter Academy + Detained Palestinians + I'm Jewish.. I've Covered Wars + We May Lose Palestine
Mezze - المزة - a wide selection of small dishes served as appetizers, including such delicacies as hummus, cheese, eggplant, brains, stuffed grape leaves, calamari, and much more
As-Salaam-Alaikum,
I sat outside yesterday for over an hour, watching the eclipse and chatting with dear friends. It was one of the few moments of calm I’ve experienced recently and as I watched the sun and moon slide past each other it was as though humanity was being invited into a place beyond - beyond an event horizon that promised beauty, love, and light beyond darkness.
It was one of the few calm moments I’ve experienced recently. This has been a long Ramadan - longer moments than just being constrained by crescent moons and defined by fasting and prayer. It continues to be fraught with considerations of privilege and scarcity, fear for those whom I love - those both near and far - and who are trying to survive under challenging circumstances - survive the violence of war and the violence of prejudice and being Othered.
Stand strong. Resist. Hold your keffiyeh close.
xo
Eid al-Fitr in Gaza: A War Against Humanity Itself
Today is the last day of Ramadan fasting. At sunset, around the world, believers will begin calling or sending 'Eid Mubarak' greetings to each other. I will receive some greetings through the day as, due to time zone differences, Eid - from Dhaka to Detroit, Kuala Lumpur to Exeter NH - unfolds and embraces its nearly two billion adherents in thankfulness and joy.
Eid al-Fitr, a three-day holiday, will start in earnest with communal prayers tomorrow morning, often held outdoors to accommodate the number of families who gather. Families will get together for festivities, visiting with relatives and friends and sharing large meals with traditional foods - among my favorites are muhammara and molokhia. People often wear new clothes and buy presents for children or give them cash gifts, 'eidiyah.'
Eid al Fitr is also known as 'sweet' Eid and many worshipers eat something sweet before the communal prayers, such as dates or my cookie of choice, ma'amoul.
Except in Gaza.
There will be nothing sweet about Eid al Fitr in Gaza this year.
There is nothing sweet in Gaza, where an extreme form of enforced fasting, clearly witnessed by a civilized word as genocide and enforced starvation and famine, has been imposed for months by the occupying power, the settler-colonial state of Israel.
Nothing sweet in Gaza, where the average caloric intake imposed upon its residents - enforced by troops bearing American-supplied arms - is 245, less than 12% of the average daily caloric needs of a healthy adult - fewer calories than in a small handful of M&M-coated peanuts, one of my favorites snacks.
If they're lucky tomorrow Gazans won't be bombed as they pray communally.
If they're lucky tomorrow they might even find a mosque with its qibla still intact to direct their prayers toward Mecca.
If they're lucky they might find some food.
If they are really lucky they might locate some surviving relatives with whom to share blessings and commiserations.
There was certainly no luck in Gaza last Easter Monday - a day some in the Christian tradition refer to as the "Monday of the Angel" to honor the angel who appeared in the empty tomb and told Mary that Jesus wasn't there because he had 'Risen" - when Israel assassinated seven aid workers from World Central Kitchen (WCK) who were in Gaza to try to provide aid to needy and hungry Palestinians.
No angel was present to guide their convoy of three vehicles to safety.
In response to the murders of his colleagues, the founder of World Central Kitchen, chef José Andrés, accused Israel of targeting his aid workers “systematically, car by car” during strikes that left seven dead on the Monday of the Angel.
More angels, seven more shahids, 'martyrs,' murdered since October 7th to satisfy Israel's seemingly unquenchable thirst for vengeance.
"This it seems is a war against humanity itself," Andrés said, as world leaders expressed outrage and dismay. "And you can never win that war. Because humanity eventually will always prevail."
President Biden, for example, said that Israel had not done enough to protect civilians and noted that the [WCK] deaths were not a “stand-alone incident.” He said the conflict “has been one of the worst in recent memory in terms of how many aid workers have been killed.”
What about outrage over how many Palestinians have been killed, Mr, President?
What about outrage over starvation and famine?
What about outrage over the unknown 1,000s of Palestinians buried under Gazan rubble caused by American bombs, Mr President?
The swell of outrage after the targeted assassinations of six white people - Polish, Australian, British (and incidentally, a Palestinian) - was too much even for those white people complicit with Israeli war crimes.
Shocked.
Shocked! Shocked to find that assassinations are going on here.
Shocked that six white people were murdered - in a convoy, one car after another (and incidentally including a Palestinian driver/translator) - trying to provide humanitarian aid to non-white peoples.
Shocked.
It wasn't enough before that moment, it appears, for many of Israel's benefactors and supporters to be shocked by the over 33,000 deaths (including over 15,000 children) already documented with 1,000s more unaccounted for - Palestinians either missing, buried while under fire or duress, decomposing in inaccessible parts of Gaza, or perhaps even bulldozed amidst rubble by occupation troops.
No, white people had to die.
It took, to my mind, white people to be martyred in order to recognize the humanity of the Palestinian people and today, as my fast approaches its completion, I mourn how untouched far too many people are - some of whom I know well - who still fail to recognize the humanity of people unlike themselves.
There is little sweet for Muslims this year.
Yesterday I read that an olive-skinned Palestinian, Walid Daqqa, a novelist and children's book author and one of Israel's most prominent political prisoners, died in Israeli custody from cancer. He had completed a 37-year prison sentence a year ago but Israel refused to release him, even though it was believed that he had suffered from medical negligence and was in desperate need of medical attention. As he approached death both his wife and daughter were denied permission to visit him.
Shocked.
In response to his death,Israeli forces attacked mourners visiting the family home in the city of Baqa al-Gharbiya, a majority Palestinian town situated in Israel. The forces removed a funeral tent set up outside the family’s home in order to allow people to offer their condolences and arrested five people, including relatives.
HIs body has yet to be released to his family.
Amnesty International noted that attempts to have him released on health grounds were blocked by Israeli courts, which argued that his illness "wasn’t serious enough."
"It is heart-wrenching that Walid Daqqa has died in Israeli custody despite the many calls for his urgent release on humanitarian grounds following," said Erika Guevara-Rosas, Amnesty's Senior Director for Research, Advocacy, Policy and Campaigns.
"This it seems is a war against humanity itself."
There is little sweet for Muslims this year.
Little sweet indeed.
Suggested Readings:
I don’t necessarily endorse or agree with all that is written below but I believe that the perspectives offered are important to consider. I’m going to take the rest of the day off …
Nieman Reports: ‘Unparalleled and Unprecedented’
“In Gaza and Israel alone, since Hamas’ deadly Oct. 7 attack on Israeli settlements and a music festival, some 95 journalists and media workers were confirmed dead by late March, among them 90 Palestinians, two Israelis and three Lebanese, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. That is more journalist fatalities in one conflict zone in six months than have occurred in one year worldwide since CPJ started keeping the data in 1992.”
Phillips Exeter Academy: Palestinian-Black Solidarity Workshop Denied Permission To Narrate
< NB I have been recently asked by some students to repost this column, originally published February 18, 2024.>
“Recently, in an action mirroring dozens of other academic and institutional actions across the America where the voices of the Other have been cancelled and erased - particularly voices supporting Palestinian Liberation and Freedom - PEA canceled, on the eve of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., holiday, a student workshop entitled “Reflections on Palestinian-Black Solidarity for Liberation."
https://robertazzitheother.substack.com/p/phillips-exeter-academy-palestinian
What We Know About Palestinians Detained in Israel
“Since Oct. 7, Israel has detained thousands of Palestinians suspected of militant activity. Rights groups allege that Israel has abused some detainees or held them without charges.”
I’m Jewish, and I’ve covered wars. I know war crimes when I see them.
“My Jewish identity was always a bit vague because my ancestors were German Jews who assimilated at the speed of cultural sound; when I was growing up, we even had a Christmas tree. (They donated and spent their money at the same pace; the fortune was mostly gone by the time I came of age.) I began to feel more Jewish while covering the genocide of Bosnia’s Muslims. What Levin points to — the defense of Palestinians increasingly being an act of Jewish identity, particularly for younger Jews — feels right for me, too.”
After Six Months Of War, I Fear We May Lose Palestine Completely
“While the monstrous war rages in Gaza, another sort of war is taking place in the West Bank. After the 57-year-long Israeli occupation of the territory, Palestinian farmers have been mainly deprived of their land and water. There has been a transformation from agriculture to a service economy with strong reliance on employment in Israel. But since the start of the war most Palestinian labourers have been prevented from returning to work there, except for those working in Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Many have become impoverished from having no work.”
More tomorrow, Insha’Allah
Salamaat,
Robert
theother.azzi@gmail.com
Thank you, as ever, Robert. Please let your first card-sender know that I borrowed the image to congratulate our Muslim neighbors on this Eid!