Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish - Appearance on This Week in Palestine (2009)

Speaker 1: All around the world, and especially here in the United States, there has been a shattering conspiracy of silence around the immense suffering of Palestinians. Today, we break that silence with a person bigger than life. Dr. Ezzedine Aboulaish is a Palestinian gynecologist, obstetrician, and fertility expert. A native of the Jabalia refugee camp in Gaza, he is well-known and much respected in Israel, where he has practiced medicine for many years and has been a tireless advocate of peace with equality and justice for all. He joins us now by telephone from California, where it is 6 a.m. in the morning. Good morning, Dr. Azildina Baez.

Izzeldin Abuelaish: Good morning.

Speaker 1: Thank you for being our guest at such an early hour.

Izzeldin Abuelaish: Thank you so much.

Speaker 1: You have devoted your life to advocating for a reconciliation between the Israeli and the Palestinian people. In Israel, where you mostly practice medicine, as in Gaza, you have emphasized the similarities between Palestinians and Israelis and called for peaceful coexistence with mutual respect for each other. Yet, on the evening of January 16th, in the midst of Israel's military assault against Gaza, And in spite of your reputation in Israel, the Israeli soldiers inflicted a terrible tragedy upon you. I know it must be very hard for you to relive once again what happened that evening. Please tell us about it.

Izzeldin Abuelaish: During the three weeks of this war, or this invasion, this craziness, which is not war, What happened, I was at home with my children because I returned from my war 25th of December, 2008. And then the war started, 27th. I stayed there to be with them and to keep them. It was the first week when they arrived. Then what is called the ground operation started. I was stuck in my home with my children. We can't leave. without any vital needs, without anything, but at least I am with my children. But the people even started to leave their homes and to escape. I said to myself, where can we escape? And why to escape? And where? No place in Gaza was secure to leave our homes. And even my children, they said, we don't want to leave our homes. All of the two weeks, shilling from all sides, from all directions, we can't sleep. No electricity, no water, no gas. But it looks for me, I am in paradise that I am with my children, to be with them, that I miss them so long. On 14th of January, a tank approached my house, just 10 meters from the main gate. And my house is well known to everyone there. Immediately, I felt that the death is in front of us. I started to call, and they called me from the hospital, from other places, and they helped in moving the tank. After that, I felt we are secure. And I got many calls from my friends in Israel who were asking what is going on in Gaza. They don't know. It was a blind war. Covered by the media. No one is coming. No one is hearing or listening what is going on in Gaza. It looks like a secret. Still, I think that's what happened. 16th of January, this secret should be disclosed. And it needs someone to disclose this secret. And I fully believe with deep faith as a Muslim that nothing is for bad. Everything is for good. This responsibility should be carried. and why Izz al-Din was selected and his daughters to disclose this secret and to show the world and to open the eyes of the Israeli public about the size of the tragedy the Gazans were facing under the witness of the whole world. Just sitting with my children, building their future, their dreams, I told them that I got two offers to join Haifa University or Toronto University. One of my daughters said, I want to go to Toronto. And just after 4.30 p.m., I left the room. Seconds after I left, And that's what, as I said, as a believer, it was a plan by God to save my life, to carry the responsibility, and to disclose the secret. The first shell is coming. I heard, I felt, I am slapped out of space. I went inside the room to see the bodies of my daughters. Mayar, her body was disconnected from the head. Noor, my niece, I am I. daughter, Bissani, this daughter who was 21 years old and about to graduate this June from the Islamic University and to be the first in the history of the university who graduates from that school, business administration, in three years. Then my brothers came down from their apartments. The second shell is coming to injure my niece and two of my brothers. I saw my daughter, Shada, who was 17. Her eyes coming out. Her fingers were torn. What can you do at that time? I started to scream, to cry. And as I said, it was supposed to be interviewed in Channel 10 in issues related to infertility and women's health. So instead of calling me, I called him. While I am down, screaming for help, and no one was in the area. All of the people have left the area. And we stayed there. I said, we will never leave our home. Why to leave and where to leave? My son, I think the first message of passion from God. My son was 12 years old. I started to think of him. What is he going to do after he lost his daughter, his sister, his son, who was the mother and everything in his life? After he lost his mom just four months before, what can he do? He said to me, why are you crying? Why are you screaming? You must be happy. My sisters are with their mom, and they are happy now. I said, at least he's giving me the passion and support.

Speaker 1: And that's the message.

Izzeldin Abuelaish: It opened the eyes of the international community about the size of of the Gazans people who are facing these three weeks. And still they are suffering. They are suffering and no one can do anything for them. They speak a lot, but no action. It's a matter of action. It's time of action to take out this prejudice, which is a practice against the Gazans.

Speaker 1: As you said, it was not a war. What happened in Gaza was not a war. A war implies that there are two sides fighting each other. Palestine does not have an army. And this was an attack, a military attack.

Izzeldin Abuelaish: I said, you know, this, whatever military weapons, whatever the way, This is not the right way between Palestinians and Israelis. They should find another way. That's what I said even to my Israeli colleagues. This war, this invasion, whatever the name, I am looking by the result. The end result of this craziness was more than 1,500 killed. The number of casualties, more than 5,500 casualties, the number of destruction, and also, which is painful, succeeded in one thing, to strengthen the animosity, the hatredness, and the bloodshed. And the gap between Palestinians and Israelis is widened. And how can we rehabilitate this animosity and hatredness among the Palestinians? only to understand the Palestinians, to respect the Palestinians, and that the dignity of the Palestinians equals the dignity of the Israelis. Yes.

Speaker 1: I believe you called, when you said that you called the television station where you were to be interviewed, and you called them in the middle of the pain that you were feeling, having discovered your children lying there dead. And I believe that many Israelis heard you live speaking on the television. Is that correct?

Izzeldin Abuelaish: Yes. That's what I said, really. It was, we need to open the eyes of others and the international community. That's what I say. Because the international community were witnessing what is going on in Gaza without saying anything. It took three weeks A war against civilians for three weeks and no one can stop it. They were in marathons just condemning and speaking about it. It's a matter of urgency. The Gazans were killed on a daily basis, hundreds of times. And it needs someone to say, no, stop it. And no one said that. And that's what Palestinians and what Gazans are waiting for, to stop this war. We had to find other courses, even what you said about peace. I am not thinking of that. I am saving lives as a medical doctor who practices and is trained. My mission in life is to save lives and to help and to deal with patients in humanity. And what do we need? Even our leaders, our people on both sides to change course, not to speak about peace. We had to listen to each other. We have to understand each other, to respect each other, and as I said, we need to be equal. Equality is the most important, and to look to each other eye to eye. This is the only way. It is not to deal with each other in superiority, to deal with each other in equality, and to live in collaboration and partnership, to share, to share equally. This is the right way, and this is the right that we are looking. We don't need to live in peace, but we live in equality.

Speaker 1: We, as human beings, kill when we hate someone. We also kill people we love, but we never kill someone we respect. And that is, I think you've touched upon the a major point here, when you regard others as your equals and respect them, then killing doesn't enter into it at all.

Izzeldin Abuelaish: And that's what do we need, to think of saving lives. Once you respect someone, you will save his life. Humanity is larger than ethnicity, religion, or nationality. Humanity brings all of us together When someone in any place defending excellence, he's not defending a Palestinian or a Gazan. He's defending himself. He's defending humanity that he belongs to. This human being in Gaza or any place in this world, when you defend anyone there, you defend yourself.

Speaker 1: Your wife passed away a little over two years ago, and you've been raising your children by yourself. How do you manage that? A doctor's life is very busy. And children have a way of being born in the early hours of the morning. Certainly, your devotion to the children is very commendable. And I wonder how you can manage all that.

Izzeldin Abuelaish: Thanks God I have 80 children before I lost the three. I lost my wife. 16th of September, 2008, four months before the tragedy, not two years.

Speaker 1: Oh, I'm sorry.

Izzeldin Abuelaish: It was quarter to five p.m., and I lost my daughters. 16th of January, 2009, quarter to five. And I think everything is planned by God. If my wife was alive, I don't know what will happen to her. To lose... And to see her daughter killed in front of her, something that I don't imagine that she can suffer. And that's why I lost her, and this is God's plan. And I fully believe that everything is good from God. Nothing bad from God. What is bad is man-made.

Speaker 1: And after all that happened, after the attack on Gaza, after all the destruction and killings, after the murder of your daughters and niece, you still believe that peaceful coexistence is possible?

Izzeldin Abuelaish: I don't speak about peace or coexistence. I speak about the humanity, about saving lives. Nothing impossible in life.

Speaker 1: What is impossible is to return my daughters back.

Izzeldin Abuelaish: I never, I will continue to work to save human beings because this is the only way and to fight for the equality that we practice in hospitals. Within the borders of the hospitals, we treat patients equally. With all of our hearts, our skills, we do our best to save the life of the patient. And that's what do we need to practice outside. To practice outside, what is the practice inside the hospital? That all are treated equally with the respect, with the privacy, with dignity.

Speaker 1: There is an innate goodness in each and every human being that is crying to manifest itself. How can we help it come out?

Izzeldin Abuelaish: We need to open the eyes in all. We don't want to be stereotyped. We have to think of the other that is a human being, and we have to meet, to listen, to understand each other. We may disagree, but at least it's our responsibility to to show that we are equal, we are human, and this comes through meeting. The mental barriers should be smashed, and also the physical barriers. It should be destroyed. We don't need these barriers that were created, and to close our eyes and to use our minds, and that this is a bliss from God which was given to us, not to close our eyes and to be blind, but to open our eyes and to use our minds.

Speaker 1: What can we do here in the United States?

Izzeldin Abuelaish: A lot of things. I think the United States, especially the new administration, what I found, and all of the world, his eyes are directed towards the White House. Not the Palestinians and the Israelis, but the whole world. And I think they are serious about the action that they are willing to take. Not... not to leave the Palestinian Israeli situation as it is, or to leave it as it has been used before to the end of the term of the president. He is serious, and he started dealing with it. He assigned Mr. Mitchell... Mrs. Hillary Clinton, who is not coming from nothing, she has her background about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and it depends upon them now to take serious and active steps. It's a matter of action. It's a matter of action, and that's what we need, to bring equality and justice, not to bring peace. To think of saving the Gazans who are suffering who are suffering and killed on daily basis. Even at this time, hundreds of times, Gaza is stigmatized by nothing to have there. The destruction, no life, no hope. They are human beings. 1.5 million Gazans are suffering on daily basis. We want their children to live as others and to enjoy their childhood in an independent state equal to other states in this world. and then see how the Palestinians can invest their life for the humanity and to share in improving the human life.

Speaker 1: That is an excellent message to the Obama administration and the government. Is there a message you would like to give the American people?

Izzeldin Abuelaish: And also the American people, we want from them, as I said, we don't want someone to be pro-Palestinian or pro-Israeli. We need someone. to mediate and to bring them to discover the human aspect in both of them, and that they are equal and similar, and they deserve to live equally in this holy land.

Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Dr. Ezel Dina Baish, for being our guest today. It was a privilege and honor to have you with us.

Izzeldin Abuelaish: Thank you so much. Have a nice day.

Speaker 1: We'd like to express to you our sincere condolences for the passing of of your children and your niece. And I'm sure our listeners join me in wishing you a long life and every success in your quest for equality and justice. Thank you. Thank you.

Izzeldin Abuelaish: Have a nice day.

Speaker 1: You too.