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Anna Baltzer writing from
the West Bank
The
Electronic Intifada
 Five years ago,
nine-month-old Mohammed and his grandmother were in their West Bank
home when it began to fill with nerve gas from a nearby Israeli
Occupation Forces military base. The army had moved in on a hill
near their home in the Skan Abu Absa suburb of Ramallah, and would
frequently shoot all over the surrounding area, often retaliating
against Palestinian gunfire from a hill away from the suburb. As the
gas seeped into his living room, the baby Mohammed began to shake
violently before suffering a stroke causing extensive paralysis. His
grandmother ran to pick him up and also inhaled the gas, causing an
intense burning sensation all over her body. When she realized her
grandson had stopped moving, she pleaded with the soldiers outside
to open the road out of her town and raced Mohammed to the hospital,
where he was diagnosed with severe neurological deterioration
resulting in a vegetative state. The Palestinian Ministry of Health
and UNRWA conducted extensive tests on Mohammed and his parents to
determine with certainty the cause of his condition. After a full
genetic investigation, doctors confirmed that Mohammed's state was
neither hereditary nor due to a chromosomal abnormality, but a
result of the poisonous gas.
I met Mohammed's father
Sami waiting at a checkpoint near Haris. He'd hesitated to publicize
his son's story for fear of harassment from the army. He said his
family was suffering enough -- their personal tragedy only began
with the gassing. After Mohammed's injury, Sami's father went from
being a strong healthy 47-year-old to an emotional and physical
wreck, and died one year later from stress and heart problems.
Mohammed, now six, continues to suffer from severe neuro-developmental
delay, poorly controlled seizure disorder, the loss of sight, and
inability to eat normally. He eats via a G-tube (poking directly
into his stomach) and is fed a special formula "Pediasure" that is
not available in Israel/Palestine, so Sami travels to Jordan every
three months to bring the formula and anticonvulsants that Mohammad
requires. Each time Sami crosses back to the West Bank, he is forced
to pay Israeli customs taxes on the formula, totaling hundreds of
dollars a year. This is in addition to countless other expenses:
land travel, adult diapers, maintaining his customized bed (to
prevent bed sores), medicine, and round-the-clock care. Sami and his
wife spend so much money taking care of Mohammed that they lack the
remaining funds to take legal action against the Israeli Army for
poisoning their son.
Tragic stories of
Occupation-induced paralysis are common in the West Bank, so even if
Mohammed's family had the money for a lawsuit there's little reason
to believe it would be remarkable enough to bring the Israeli Army
to justice. I recently interviewed Moussa, a young paraplegic who
lost the use of his legs five years ago at the age of 19 when the
army shot him in the colon. One Monday in February, Moussa began
experiencing severe pain from an infection in his wound, which a Red
Crescent doctor warned could become systemic if not treated
immediately. The infection risked reaching the bones in Moussa's
back, developing gangrene, and poisoning his blood, but even the
best West Bank hospitals had sent him home because they were
ill-equipped to treat such a serious condition. On Tuesday, Moussa's
doctor referred him to a hospital in Jordan, and in two days the
family renewed Moussa's passport and obtained a transfer from the
Palestinian Ministry of Health to receive treatment in Amman. Then
on Thursday, as the family was preparing to leave, Israel refused
the sick wheelchair-bound young man permission to leave the West
Bank for unspecified "security reasons." When Moussa's doctor
explained that waiting could mean the difference between life and
death, the Israeli DCO invited the family to appeal the decision,
but only three days later, after the Jewish Sabbath.
We put Moussa's family in
touch with Physicians for Human Rights, who were successful in
getting him to Jordan before his infection could become fatal. But
Moussa will still never walk again, nor will my neighbor and friend
Issa, who shot by soldiers outside his home in May 2001 as he
ushered children in from the streets during an army invasion. In
spite of his handicap, Issa remains committed to working
nonviolently against the Occupation. Last time we spoke, he quoted
an Arabic saying: "You can't clap with one hand." He said Jews,
Palestinians, and the world must work together to end injustice and
oppression everywhere.
Almost three years ago,
Issa wrote an open letter to the two anonymous soldiers who shot and
paralyzed him. It was published in Haaretz and elsewhere, and I've
copied it below. It is worth reading:
I remember you. I remember
your confused face when you stood above my head and wouldn't let
people come to my aid. I remember how my voice grew weaker, when I
said to you: 'Be humane and let my parents help me.' I keep all
those pictures in my head. How I lay on the ground, trying to get up
but unable. How I fought my shortness of breath, which was caused by
the blood that was collecting in my lungs, and the voice that was
weakened because my diaphragm was hurt. I won't hide from you that
despite this, I had pity for them. I felt that I was strong, because
I had powers I didn't know about before.
That was exactly three
years ago. I rushed out of the house in order to distance the
village children from the danger of the teargas. They were used to
playing their simple games on the dusty streets of the village while
the pregnant women watched over them and chatted. I didn't believe
that your weapons contained live bullets or dum-dum bullets, which
are prohibited under international law. I was able to protect the
children and get them away from your fire, and I don't regret that.
 I pity you for having
become murderers. Since I was a boy, I have hated killing, hated
weapons and hated the color red, just as I hate injustice and fight
against it. That is how I have understood life since I was a boy,
and that, in the same spirit, is what I have taught others. I gave
all my strength for the sake of peace and justice and for reducing
the suffering that is caused by injustice, whatever its origin. Yes,
I pitied you, because you are sick. Sick with hate and loathing,
sick with causing injustice, sick with egoism, with the death of the
conscience and the allure of power. Recovery and rehabilitation from
those illnesses, just as from paralysis, is very long, but possible.
I pitied you, I pitied your children and your wives and I ask myself
how they can live with you when you are murderers. I pitied you for
having shed your humanity and your values and the precepts of your
religion and even your military laws, which forbid breaking into
homes and beating civilians, because that undermines the soldier's
morale, his strength and his manhood.
I pitied you for saying
that you are the victims of the Nazis of yesterday, and I don't
understand how yesterday's victim can become today's criminal. That
worries me in connection with today's victim -- my people are those
victims -- and I am afraid that they too will become tomorrow's
criminals. I pity you for having fallen victim to a culture that
understands life as though it is based on killing, destruction,
sowing fear and terror, and lording it over others. Despite all
that, I believe that there is a chance for atonement and forgiveness
and a possibility that you will restore to yourselves something of
your lost humanity and morality. You can recover from the illnesses
of hatred and the lust for revenge, and if we should meet one day,
even in my house, you can be certain that you won't find me holding
an explosive belt or concealing a knife in my pocket or in the
wheels of my chair. But you will find someone who will help you get
back what you lost.
You will find a soft and
delicate infant here, whose age is the same as the second in which
you pulled the trigger and who will never see his father standing on
his feet but who is full of pride and power, even if he has to push
his father's chair, having no other choice. Even though I have
reasons to hate you, I don't feel that way and I have no regrets.
-Issa Suf, 15 May 2004; the
third anniversary of my being wounded
Issa is Arabic for Jesus,
who is also revered as a prophet in the Muslim faith. Some would say
it's a suitable name for a man who believes in responding to
injustice with passionate nonviolence and forgiveness. Mohammed and
Moussa (which means Moses, also a prophet in Islam) never wrote a
letter like Issa's, but they and their families welcomed me, a
Jewish American, into their omes with gentle kindness and openness.
Struggling for peace and survival in spite of great personal
tragedies, the three prophets' namesakes and their families, like so
many Palestinians paralyzed physically (as well as emotionally,
spiritually, and economically) by the Occupation, are some of the
true -- albeit often forgotten -- heroes of Palestine.
Anna Baltzer
is a volunteer with the International Women's Peace Service in the
West Bank and author of the book, Witness in Palestine: Journal of a
Jewish American Woman in the Occupied Territories. For information
about her writing, photography, DVD, and speaking tours, visit her
website at
www.AnnaInTheMiddleEast.comm
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