Frances Madeson
The very day the Trump Administration perturbed the world with its designation of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and announcement that the United States would soon move its embassy there, Dr. Mona El-Farra, a physician from Gaza City and director of Gaza Projects for the Middle Eastern Children’s Alliance (MECA), spoke to a packed hall in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
The event had long been scheduled by Santa Feans for Justice in Palestine, a group which has adopted as its sister city the Gazan town of Khuza’a. In collaboration with MECA, it has provided humanitarian support to rebuild a kindergarten destroyed in Israel’s 2014 bombing attacks, and supplied water filtration systems in the schools. Though it had taken her six months to secure the travel visa—packing and unpacking her valise with clothes for summer, autumn and winter—the timing of her arrival was sublime.
Through the chaos, anger, and frustration provoked by the news that Jerusalem’s fate would be dictated by Washington, D.C., and not determined in a fairly negotiated settlement, Dr. Mona, as she is affectionately called by her many admirers in the movement for Palestinian liberation, remained unflappable. She remained calm even as members of Santa Fe Middle East Watch, a group that says it counters “anti-Israel propaganda,” caused a minor ruckus. As others quieted the intruders, she spoke softly of difficult things experienced firsthand—the demolition of her mother’s home, which felt like “a wiping out of her childhood memories” and an even more tragic family catastrophe that occurred during Israel’s 2014 Operation Protective Edge.
“On the first of August, nine members of my family were killed in a fraction of a second—my cousin, his two sons and daughter-in-law and five children in their pajamas,” El-Farra said. “All three generations destroyed, one of eighty-nine such families completely wiped out.”
Because of the ongoing air assault, she added, they could not be buried for days.
“I smelled the dead bodies. Every day I was expecting the next day I would be dead; I was pretending to be courageous,” she told the stricken crowd. “For my staff, and the children.”
I want the people here to work to change this government’s policies of supporting the Israeli occupation financially and military. Trump’s position is a matter of style, but the previous American administrations were more or less the same.
El-Farra has borne witness to the deterioration of the quality of life under the past ten years of Israel’s land, sea and air blockade of Gaza, which has locked in the people and kept out many necessary basic supplies, giving voice to the two million residents on the tiny overcrowded strip of land. She told the audience how the frequent and unpredictable interruptions of electricity mean she can rarely ride the elevator to her tenth-floor apartment. The once-serene view of the Mediterranean Sea has been replaced by the sight of raw sewage and daily reports of gunshots fired by Israeli soldiers to intimidate the fishermen from setting sail. Swimming in the water is now impossible, even walking on the beach a hazard.
Most painfully, she related in miserable detail the trauma of Gazan children, who if they’re twelve years old have already lived through three military attacks by Israel, the last of which in 2014 tallied 589 child fatalities. There are an estimated 200,000 Gazan children suffering from trauma.
“The children have an inability to sleep,” she explained. “They are always clinging to their parents for safety.”
Early the next morning, I spoke with El-Farra as the news of the new Jerusalem policy was still sinking in and spontaneous street demonstrations in the Middle East had already commenced.
Q: What are your thoughts on Trump’s unilateral designation of a city beloved by Jews, Christians, and Muslims as Israel’s new capital city?
Mona El-Farra: Trump has threatened this for a long time but we didn’t expect he would do it because it’s a big step with a lot of political implications. It means the end of the peace process, and he is putting his boot in front of the [United Nations] and ignoring all the resolutions. This is big blow for the international community.
I have visited Jerusalem many times, but since 1997 I have not been allowed to go to Jerusalem. I am not religious, I’m a socialist, but it has its symbolic meaning. In feeling it is similar to the demolition of my family’s house and the surrounding twenty-six neighboring houses, to ensure safe passage for a few illegal settlers. But this is national. This is deeper.
Q: How do you expect it will affect your work?
El-Farra: It will shift our attention to how we deal with the children, maybe in a positive way. On the ground we’ve been through many difficult things and we continue. Even through the 2014 siege, MECA distributed food and hygiene packs with towels, toothpaste and brushes, feminine pads, soap. There was a lot of overcrowding in the schools and homes as people sought safety—a friend of mine had thirty-five people staying in his house. Of course, no place was safe.
Q: MECA’s mission focuses on humanitarian aid for children but you seem to have a special concern for women too?
El-Farra: In any unsettled situation, a situation with violence, the most vulnerable are the women and children. Despite that, Palestinian women have showed resilience and steadfastness, to make life possible for the children.
There are social costs to the stress of occupation. The men put their aggression against the women; the numbers for battered women and divorce have increased, child sexual abuse too, though we don’t have good figures on that.
Q: Can you explain the effects of the curtailments on your mobility to travel abroad, and come and go in and out of Gaza freely?
El-Farra: I was in the United States when my mother died ten years ago. I couldn’t go to the funeral; she’d been ill for ten days, but I was stuck, the borders were closed. I am the youngest, and was very close to my mother. On the tenth day I received a call that I got the permit to cross, but two hours after I got the permit my mother died. It was one of the turning points of my life, that I was not next to her when she needed me.
We don’t lead a normal life, and I may not see justice in my lifetime, but the struggle for justice gives my life meaning.
Q: All of MECA’s messages and those of your own are about peace, peace with justice for Palestinians, including a right of return. But do you ever think about armed resistance as a tactic?
El-Farra: No and yes. If you are under occupation, as we are, you have the right of resistance. But in my own capacity I believe in strengthening resilience and steadfastness. I am not an armed woman.
Q: Through the decades of diplomacy more and more settlements were built encroaching on Palestinian land. What would you like Americans to do, what actions would be most helpful?
El-Farra: I want the people here to work to change this government’s policies of supporting the Israeli occupation financially and military. Trump’s position is a matter of style, but the previous American administrations were more or less the same. I believe in educating people in the universities and schools, and everyone can read The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, a scientific testimony by Israeli historian Ilan Pappe who went to the British archives to research the actual history. Another important book is Ali Abunimah’s The Battle for Justice in Palestine. Reading these two books will help people begin to reverse decades of brainwashing. And the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement to pressure Israel economically is very important. It is affecting more students, more artists. Also practical support. We Palestinians have our pride, but when I see the people suffering malnutrition or shivering with cold, please, you have a social responsibility. We don’t have resources.
Q: We’re sitting here in this lovely home with functional lights and clean water at the faucet, in peace, in security. Do you dread going back home?
El-Farra: (laughs) Quite the opposite. For sure we don’t lead a normal life, and I may not see justice in my lifetime, but the struggle for justice gives my life meaning. I have so much love in my life—from the children MECA serves, my friends, the people I work for. This gives me the strength and feeling of satisfaction.
I live day after day trying to empower myself and others, but I have my moments where I feel weak and overwhelmed by the size of the problems. People say I am a Superwoman, but I am no Superwoman. But I try . . . I try to be there for my people.
Frances Madeson is a Santa Fe-based freelance journalist and the author of the comic novel Cooperative Village.