Tears of Gaza and Irredentism

William Vazquez

Professor Craig

World Politics 001H

Date of Submission: 29 October 2011

Merriam-Webster defines “irredenta” as “a territory historically or ethnically related to one political unit but under the political control of another.” (Merriam-Webster, Irredenta) It also defines “irredentism” as “a political principle or policy directed toward the incorporation of irredentas within the boundaries of their historically or ethnically related political unit.” (Merriam-Webster, Irredentism) The issue of who has the correct claim to land that has caused conflicts between Israelis and Palestinians is an ongoing example of this. In an effort to establish dominance in the territory, both sides have savagely attacked one another for centuries. Vibeke Løkkeberg’s Tears from Gaza attempted to capture the magnitude of this conflict through the eyes of some those left to deal with the consequences: the civilians. Actions taken by reporters and non-government organizations like Løkkeberg’s group seem to serve as more effective means of getting out the message of what is truly going on. The same can be said of the “Students for Justice in Palestine” group, who screened this documentary in order to raise awareness of the extremity of the violence that had been occurring in the Gaza Strip alone. Ultimately it served as a horrifying example of the price of irredentist military policy. Over the black screen a few sections of text were depicted, telling how an Israeli bombing campaign over the course of twenty days from December 2008 to January 2009 on the Gaza Strip had claimed the lives of nearly 1,387 people, 776 of which were women and children. Those left injured number in the tens of thousands. It was one thing to read about the destruction. It was another to see the faces of the families left behind.

The film starts off by focusing on the statements of three children in June 2009: Yahya, Rasmia, and Amira. Yahya states that he wants to become a doctor so that he can help those injured by the Israelis while Amira states that she wanted to become a lawyer to bring the perpetrators of the attacks to justice. As Yahya is shown talking about how he and his brothers would play with their father at the beach before his murder during the attacks, a battleship can be seen floating by menacingly. While he is at a religious ceremony in a bombed out mosque, drones can be overheard above the districts, watching and waiting. Despite all of the destruction and terrible living conditions they are left with, Yahya and his family still try to enjoy life, dancing to music in front of the camera, as well as celebrating the soon to be wedding of his older brother. As their wedding car strolls along and happy people passing by honk their horns, a helicopter flies low overhead. The older brother later explains how he not happy: he lost his father, a grandfather, and has only one uncle still alive. He has no way of paying off his debt. Meanwhile the children at home have no mattresses or comfort, only a television on which they frequently see commercials promoting the Israeli military, with machine guns bursting, tank cannons firing, and heavy metal music blasting. Even when Yahya goes out on a boat, the camera captures the naval guard firing at a boat that went past the three mile limit from the coast.

The film then jumps back to the events of January 2009, as fighter jets swoop in and bomb entire neighborhoods and homes. It is one thing to see the attack, but to see the crowds rushing to the rubble, digging through it to try and save the injured buried beneath as well as salvage the bodies, is heart breaking. Civilians rush to use garden hoses with low water pressure in an attempt to put out the fires. Clips of video captured by Palestinian people show the bodies being pulled out and any functioning cars being used as makeshift ambulances. Yahya’s mother states: “May God punish them.” She reminisces how Israeli soldiers closed her family into a house and would not let them out, instead shooting through the walls. Any people caught running at night were shot on sight, and traveling through the streets involved weaving through corpses. The dead were then put into body bags and the families who lost them would not get to see them.

Due to the lack of proper materials, cinder blocks are used as headstones for the dead. Rasmia is shown again after depictions of tanks rolling through the night to attack, soldiers being dropped off by helicopters, and phosphorous bombs exploding the set anything they touched instantly on fire. She states how she had to leave her dead parents behind and lead her little injured brother over the bodies in the street to safety. Even at the UNRWA camp, with its dozens of tents of refugees, where they went to be safe, bombs were dropped, killing her uncle and more of her family. She sleeps in a dilapidated home eating sandy food, with little or no water, and only a small black blanket as a bed. It is even stated that she goes into wild episodes of hallucinations, reliving the terrible events of that night and seeing the bodies as she climbed over them flash before her eyes.

Amira is finally shown with her new family after losing every member of her family during the attacks. They had been at home when a knock on the door drew her father to the front door. The door exploded due to a rocket, and when she and her siblings went to find their father, Amira was injured from behind in the legs by a rocket. Her siblings went to get help and never returned. She passed out and eventually came back to try and get to her father, only to be fired up by Israeli soldiers again and have her father completely destroyed by another rocket. She later learned her brothers were gunned down while seeking help, and she wishes that she had gone with them.

Intermittently the documentary cuts back to the events of January 2009, even showing the insides of hospitals, which are filled with so many injured and dying that unclean operating tables have to be used, with little time to even clean off the blood from the last patient. Little infants and toddlers are shown with blast injuries, bullet injuries, burns, and more. One man breaks down on camera, screaming how the soldiers were inhuman and murdered all of his children. At the morgue, children are brought before the camera, their lifeless bodies shown close so the people could explain how the bullet holes told a story: the size and depth of the injuries meant that these children had been shot at close range in a manner consistent with execution. One of the bodies is wrapped on a cloth and held above a crowd that cheers to the statement: “May God punish Israel.” The film closes with statements from the children once more before closing into the blackness that it started with.

The American University website gives a brief explanation of the movie, also stating that “The film depicts the ability of women and children to handle their everyday life after a traumatic war experience.” (AU Middle East Studies) This confirms that the actions taken during the course of that period of time were not simply attacks for no reason – they were an act of war. Throughout the film though, I must say that I never heard or saw who exactly the Israeli soldiers were fighting against. If it was any of the unarmed civilians who happened to be cut down and decimated by the bombs and bullets, then clearly the fight was in their favor. Whatever their mission directives were, the devastation they inflicted in order to promote their right to inhabit that land or be safe in their own was complete.

Due to their roots in the territory, the state of Israel’s location on where Palestine once stood has left each side with deep-seeded hatred for the other. There seems to be no way to truly delineate the lines where each state should be: a reason why the Palestinian bid for statehood has gone before the UN Security Council for some kind of confirmation. Long ago the Balfour Declaration had declared an international “establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people…” (mfa.gov) Since then the lines have been completely muddled, as violent conflicts between the militant factions of the remainder of Palestine and the Israeli military have torn the territory apart. Most of these conflicts are usually not directed at the military at all. As depicted in Tears of Gaza, the implementation of irredentist policies result in the destruction of entire families, lives, and homes. While this was not shown in the film, attacks were made on two UN schools during this assault. “The UN was particularly incensed over targeting of the schools, because Israeli forces knew they were packed with families as they had ordered them to get out of their homes with leaflet drops and loudspeakers. It said it had identified the schools as refugee centres to the Israeli military and provided GPS coordinates.” (Guardian) With what aim were these attacks perpetrated? By focusing less on the militant factions and more on civilians, I believe the drive was to break the spirits of the people in order to establish authority in the Gaza Strip and ultimately control that irredenta as Israel sees it. What did this accomplish though?

Tears of Gaza captures the true consequences of these irredentist attacks. Rather than gloss over the situation with a general statement of statewide response, it shows through eyewitness accounts that while some spirits are broken, many in their despair and loss turn to anger, wishing nothing but the worst upon all of Israel. Israel becomes one solid target of hatred for the crimes on the people depicted here, with no known reason for the attacks ever revealed. The Balfour Declaration also stated that Great Britain “…will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine.” Yet still those same people have been bombed and massacred in an attempt to completely control the territory rather than peacefully coexist. I am sure Amira’s family was not planning to fire a rocket into an Israeli home before their own was destroyed by several. Yet while implementing these attacks in order to establish territorial dominance, the people of the Gaza Strip are dehumanized and forced to cope with the aftermath. Does this justify retaliation, like today when rockets were fired into southern Israel, killing at least one man? (haaretz, Rocket Attacks) The cycle of carnage seems to know no end, as a response to this attack from the Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman stated: “If the rocket fire does not stop, there will be immediate consequences in the coming days.” (haaretz, Lieberman)

Ultimately I am still unsure of who has the truly correct irredentist claim to the overall territory of the former state of Palestine and its current broken segments of Israel, the Gaza Strip, and the West Bank. The military actions depicted just in Tears of Gaza and the subsequent outcries against these actions tell me that militant irredentism is no way to go about achieving peace. In a world struggling to achieve international peace and to win the “war on war,” conflicts like this over territorial control serve only to exacerbate the problem. Ultimately the irredentist claims must be silenced, weapons stowed, and some even establishment made if there is ever to be peace and if the lost souls and those lost behind are to ever find peace as well. Even if something is achieved though, the scars of this act of war and the many before and after it may never heal.

Works Cited

Balfour, Arthur J. "The Balfour Declaration." Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Web. 29 Oct. 2011. .

McGreal, Chris, and Hazem Balousha. "Gaza's Day of Carnage - 40 Dead as Israelis Bomb Two UN Schools | World News | The Guardian." Latest News, Sport and Comment from the Guardian | The Guardian. The Guardian, 6 Jan. 2009. Web. 29 Oct. 2011. .

Merriam-Webster. "Irredenta - Definition and More from the Free Merriam-Webster Dictionary." Dictionary and Thesaurus - Merriam-Webster Online. Web. 29 Oct. 2011. .

Merriam-Webster. "Irredentism - Definition and More from Merriam-Webster." Merriam-Webster. Web. 29 Oct. 2011. .

Ravid, Barak. "Lieberman: If Gaza Rocket Fire Does Not Stop, There Will Be Consequences - Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News." Israel News - Haaretz Israeli News Source. 29 Oct. 2011. Web. 29 Oct. 2011. .

"Tears of Gaza." American University Washington D.C. | Schools, Colleges, Undergraduate, Graduate, Admissions, Academics, Degrees, Faculty. Students for Justice in Palestine, 2 Oct. 2011. Web. 29 Oct. 2011. .

Yagna, Yanir, and Haaretz. "Israeli Killed as a Result of Rocket Barrage on Southern Israel - Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News." Israel News - Haaretz Israeli News Source. 29 Oct. 2011. Web. 29 Oct. 2011. .