Rabbi Alexandra Wright

Dear Mr Haniyeh, Dear Mr Olmert….
Shabbat Vayiggash – 3rd January, 2008


Dear Mr Haniyeh
I write to you because you are one of the heads of Hamas in Gaza. Of course, I know you only by reputation. By now, I imagine you are in hiding, fearing assassination by an Israeli Air Force bombing, one of the bombs that has killed over four hundred Palestinians in Gaza in the last week and injured over a thousand, including many of your own security forces, as well as police officers and innocent civilians who have been caught up in this aerial bombardment of the narrow strip of land that lies between Israel and Egypt. As I write this, the papers report the story of five young daughters in one family, all killed by Israel ’s Air Force. The mother’s tears course down her face stained with grief; a surviving infant sits bewildered on her lap, the lacerations of her face covered in a bandage. Are you going to come out of hiding and sit with this broken mother to demonstrate your compassion for her tragedy? Or are you going to remain holed-up in your bunker until this terrible episode comes to an end and then re-emerge to fuel the hatred of your population against what you call the ‘Zionist regime’? Your people have been through too much – one and a half million Palestinians live cheek by jowl in Gaza, families of six or seven in small, fragile structures which they call home. Gaza’s infrastructure – insofar as it exists – is crumbling. Fuel, water, sanitation services, medicine, provisions of food, money – none of this is available any longer to your people. They are trapped inside the closed borders of what they want to call their country. But in truth, your country, Gaza, is a pit. It is true that you were elected democratically by the people of Gaza– it was something of a surprise although it was no secret that many perceived the previous ruling party, Fatah, as corrupt and ineffective. And what did you hope to achieve for them, yes your people, the thousands upon thousands of impoverished families with no money, no food, no fuel, no water, no paper, no shoes, no teacups, by batting your rockets into southern Israel day after wretched day, and terrorising the inhabitants of the Western Negev? Did you think that would help your people? Did you think your party, Hamas, could match the strength of the Israeli Army – an army and Air Force that seems to have no limit to its strength? I think you must have known that Israel’s patience would come to an end at some point, that the voices of the Quartet crying for restraint and cease-fire would no longer be heeded. How long would your neighbour, the Samson of the Middle East restrain himself from war? Don’t you know how the story ends, or did you deliberately goad this eyeless hero to break out of his chains and bring down your temples in Gaza? Perhaps you were shocked that Israel let you have it on Shabbat morning – Shabbat Mikketz. Do you know what that word means in Hebrew? Mikketz - ‘At the end of…’ At the end of what? At the end of your aggressive taunting of Israel? At the end of those weeks of siege by your enemy, the Zionist regime? At the end of the so-called ceasefire which had been broken again and again on both sides?

Do you really think that you can obliterate the Israeli State by lobbing your bombs into schoolrooms and homes in Israel? What would it cost you to come to the table and talk? What would it take for you to think about recognising the simple fact that the Jewish people have as much right to a State as the Palestinians have? Think for a moment: if you were to take that step of declaring the truce you say you might entertain. Can you do that? Can you imagine what it would be like to stop hating Israel for just three seconds? Can you think about building up your own State with money from the European Union, from America, even from Israel? What about your so-called friends, the Arab League? What if they could dip into their treasuries and offer you something to help your people? Could you let go of your pride and your deep and searing contempt for Israel for one moment and so allow your people a glimpse of what their independence might be like? Why not think about giving them peace from the terrible, tragic, unnecessary ordeal that they are going through right now?
Yours in despair…

Rabbi Alexandra Wright