IN 2009 HE LOST FOUR IN GAZA, THIS WEEK, 22 MORE.

A Beloved Palestinian/Canadian Professor at U of T Hears the Worst

Is this the story that breaks through? The one I heard in a stomach-churning call with a well-loved Palestinian doctor who is now a Canadian citizen? Perhaps because he lives here and not in Gaza where he was born, important people will care.

He has a big role at University of Toronto and speaks English well - maybe that will make it easier for those who are dehumanizing Palestinians to see what they have done. He has been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize and has become a beloved beacon of hope for people despairing over the Israeli-Palestinian nightmare. Is this enough to make his pain matter? That he is educated and more like us than the impoverished Palestinians he left behind in Gaza?

I met him some time ago and called him yesterday at his home in Toronto, worried, knowing he’d grown up in the Jabalia refugee camp, recently levelled by Israel. The shock in his voice when he answered suggested the worst - and then he said, twenty- two members of my family have just been killed.

These deaths are just the latest horror for Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish, who lost his wife from cancer and then three daughters and a niece in 2009, to an Israeli attack on his former home in Gaza. The girls were doing their homework at the time. Dr. Abuelaish, who speaks fluent Hebrew was the first Palestinian doctor to practice medicine at a hospital in Israel. He had been commentating for Israeli news on Operation Cast Lead and without knowing, the newsroom reached him moments after the tank shelling occurred. Please watch this all the way through.

Here is his description of what happened.

We are standing in the scene of the tragedy, in the place where four lovely girls were sitting, building their dreams and their hopes, and in seconds, these dreams were killed. These flowers were dead. Three of my daughters and one niece were killed in one second on the 16th of January at a quarter to five p.m. Just a few seconds, I left them, and they stayed in the room – two daughters here, one daughter here, one daughter here, and my niece with them.

The first shell came from the tank space, which is there, came to shell two daughters who were sitting here on their chairs. And when I heard this shell, I came inside the room to find, to look. I can’t recognize my daughters. Their heads were cut off their bodies. They were separated from their bodies, and I can’t recognize whose body is this. They were drowning in a pool of blood. This is the pool of blood. Even look here. This is their brain. These are parts of their brain. Aya was lying on the ground. Shatha was injured, and her eye is coming out. Her fingers were torn, just attached by a tag of skin. I felt dissolved, out of space, screaming, "What can I do?" They were not satisfied by the first shell and to leave my eldest daughter. But the second shell soon came to kill Aya, to injure my niece, who came down from the third floor, and to kill my eldest daughter Bessan, who was in the kitchen and came at that moment, screaming and jumping, "Dad! Dad! Aya is injured!"^[2]

Since then, he moved his surviving children to Toronto and has been a tireless advocate for peace and reconciliation; garnering support and accolades around the world for his simple message. He wrote a book called I Shall Not Hate and has given speeches and Ted Talks — an example of our higher selves — our best selves. Just surviving the grief and making a new life would be enough but it is his mission to exemplify what could be. If only the hatred would stop.

And now this. Twenty-two more gone, including siblings. How will he make sense of it? I don’t know because he was too distraught to continue our call. He has a piece under his byline in the Toronto Star that I suspect was written before he got the news. It was been updated with the new information about his family in Jabalia. But my feeling yesterday was that he needs time to think and reflect before he addresses the magnitude of what’s happened. Perhaps, we will do an interview.

In a seperate piece, he wrote these words, published two days before the attack on the refugee camp where his family died.

Traditional approaches involving military force have failed to make meaningful progress in resolving conflicts and alleviating suffering. Such approaches are futile, only fueling further bloodshed, hatred, and extremism, while continuously attracting new recruits. We should take lessons from our children. My daughter Bessan, who attended peace camps, once said, “Meeting violence with violence never solves the problem.” She also said, upon meeting Israeli girls, “I found out how similar we are.”

We need the courage to self-reflect, acknowledge our failures, and learn from them. Have we learned from the past and our previous mistakes?

Will we finally say “enough” to the suffering endured by Palestinians, Israelis, and victims worldwide?

Let’s heed the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.: “A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom.”

Here is an early short documentary about Dr. Abuelaish. It’s worth watching.

Note: I know that some of you are upset that I’m so obviously against what is happening in Gaza. But I am. Every day I take a few minutes and review my position and come back to the same conclusion. This does not mean I do not care about the loss of life on October 7 or the hostages. But this is ongoing and the hostages are also not safe. Historians will look back and ask very hard questions about how we let this happen.

Early supporters of the Israeli military action are peeling off. Piers Morgan hosted a sort-of chastened, self-justifying Jordan Peterson and Morgan himself launched a major clean-up on aisle three, including a re-interview of a guest he treated badly and Morgan has been posting a few declarative statements on Twitter. He lost his credibility over C-19 and clearly just goes where the elite’s wind blows him. He then readjusts when it’s not dangerous anymore to be truthful. Sadly. But a stopped clock……as they say.

His journalism is never courageous enough to stop a horror from happening. He collects his millions and then bandwagons when his earlier position is untenable and supporting the first mistake is about to hurt his brand. Look at the number of likes for this. He is bailing himself out.

Even Wolf Blitzer gave the IDF spokesman a hard time. Blitzer used to write the AIPAC newsletter — so, when you’ve lost Blitzer — you’ve lost the moral high ground. Link here and worth a watch.

This is who our so-called thought leaders and politicians are. They killed many with lockdowns and crappy vaccines. Ukraine death toll is sitting at five hundred thousand, no victory in sight and there never was. The best Zelensky can hope for now is a deal — which will represent the one Biden forced him to turn down a year ago. You might not see the connections yet, but one day you will. Your views and sympathies are being shaped by propaganda. Newsrooms are staffed by the stupid and corrupt — who couldn’t find Gaza on a map. There are a few exceptions — but hardly any from North America. Lindsey Hilsum for Channel Four is great. Old school, fair and brave. Even some of our own heroes have badly faltered.

Here is last week’s show with Ann Bauer, Jenin Younes and me — discussing how tough it is to navigate friendships, family and news. Ann is Jewish and Jenin’s father is Palestinian. Two bright lights of C-19 — both friends to me and each other — trying to figure it out. Please comment below.

Stay critical and think of Dr. Abuelaish today. I am.

As I write this, new reporting that Jabalia is being bombarded for the third day in a row.