Gaza Footnotes: Joe Sacco, my mom, and the 1956 Khanyounis/Rafah Massacres
I recently had the opportunity to interview cartoonist Joe Sacco about his latest work, Footnotes in Gaza, for Aljazeera English. The book is an investigation into two little-known massacres in the 1956 Gaza Strip. I say little-known because there is little record of these two tragedies outside of a short UN document and local eyewitness testimony.
Now, the subject war near and dear to my heart, as I disclose in my first question to him in the interview because my mother was a survivor and witness to those events in Khanyounis (her home town). She was eleven at the time, and I grew up with non sequitur details of what occurred that day-from the harrowing (mass executions) to the hilarious (my mother’s jokester of a cousin who-while awaiting imminent execution-asked his neighbor “what do you think they’re going to do to us??” (the reply: Make us dance-what do you think!!); My Aunt, who showed the soldiers about to execute her only son a coat she has purchased in Tel Aviv in hopes they would spare his life (it was, but only because a cease fire was declared)), never quite making sense of it all. ;Wasn’t 1948 was the really important date, I thought? And didn’t the Israelis occupy Gaza in 1967, so what were they doing there in 1956? And why haven’t I read about this anywhere?
“I can’t forget Ahmed Bitar-the newlywed they executed just outside the shelter we were staying in because he pleaded for mercy with his pregnant wife; or the bodies-all those bodies soaking in their own pools of blood along the castle wall in the town center; of my baby sister Mona, who couldn’t stop crying because she lost her pacifier,” she kept telling me.
And so when I came across Sacco’s book, I was thrilled-in whatever odd way one can be thrilled when reading about massacres…to discover that someone had finally bothered to investigate these incidents. I poured through the books pages one after another. I even showed some to my mother-she recognized many of the faces immediately.
“This is not something you can just forget or [say] ‘let’s move on’ [about]. It has to be acknowledged, it has to be talked about. History has to be written not just by the victors, but by the people being victimized” Joe said to me in the interview.
Afterward, he a request of me: that when the interview goes live, I re-link it here along with testimony from my mother. Well here it is that testimony, following by an exclusive excerpt from the book.
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01/23/2010 at 8:38 pm
As salaam alaikum –
Just and evening of surfing!
Ma’as salaama,
nuh ibn zbigniew
01/24/2010 at 1:31 pm
Thank you for sharing your mother’s testimony. History cannot be forgotten! As I am sure people on both sides of this conflict agree . . .
Your mother’s recount of the event is truly chilling. Murder is murder. No matter who the perpetrators are.
May your people find the peace that they so very much deserve.
01/24/2010 at 6:35 pm
Salaam Aleik,
It is sufficient in praise for Joe to acknowledge the high esteem in which the late Edward Said held his work. It is important to voice all the horrors our people have suffered, the greatest oppression is that our cries are robbed of sound by our oppressors. What is more important is that an ‘outsider’, as it were, provides the voice for the silenced, perhaps his voice can reach the ears of those who would otherwise be unwilling to listen.
Keep writing and drawing, Joe – your work is a treasure among the fields of history, journalism, and art.
And keep writing, Laila. Perhaps our pens will right the wrongs, succeed where the swords and guns have faltered. May Allah shower his fadhl and rahmah on you and your mother, who have gifted tears to my eyes after I had thought they were barren. And may Allah raise the rank of Imam Shafi, whose words spoken from an old mother’s lips stirred a wistful longing for Gaza in my heart, as if I were missing my very own home.
May Allah open our hearts, and make easy our tasks, and make our words and ink flow from pages and screens to hearts and minds.
best wishes and Salaams,
Omer.
01/25/2010 at 4:04 am
A 54-year-old memory of observations made at 11 years of age by a scared girl: not exactly the strongest proof.
She did not claim to have watched the massacre. She saw bodies, certainly a horrible experience, and her already great animosity for the yehud filled in the rest of the story. She does not know the whole story, yet the accusations of “massacre” ring out. What? There wasn’t any armed resistance? Give me a break.
She talks about bombs that manage to kill just two girls in a crowded basement. How can that be? Them’s some small bombs. Why would soldiers throw “bombs” in and then not finish the job? It makes no sense. It’s too random.
She talks about what others had told her as if it were fact. She claims that the men were to be killed, but the UN bus’s announcement of a ceasefire stopped the imminent slaughter. Sorry, but somehow I doubt that if the Israeli soldiers planned on killing the men after slaughtering hundreds of innocents in cold blood, they would have stopped immediately because of a UN announcement. They just weren’t the monstrous killers that you and your mother make them out to be.
War is hell, and horrible mistakes happen with soldiers getting carried away. Certainly innocent people died in both cities. However, even the UN, no friend ot Israel, does not call it a massacre.
You’re just posting more blood libel to incide hatred of the Jews and the one sliver of land in this world where they have self-determination.
01/26/2010 at 3:45 pm
In response to the ‘right honorable’ TMR, Laila’s mother’s account is not the single and exclusive recording or account of the event. Over the course of Sacco’s investigation he encounters a diversity of people in the area, who all remember the events of the massacres. As well as this, both events are recorded – even if only as ‘footnotes’ – in official UN documentation.
‘War is hell’. If you read the article you will notice that these events happened nearly a decade before 1967.
01/28/2010 at 6:27 pm
this is fabulous. shira robinson has done some work on kufr qassem, and sooner rather than later, we need to make stronger the effort to record all period in our history..
02/13/2010 at 10:00 pm
your mother is a very beautiful strong woman. give her my thanks for sharing the truth with us. as joe says
This is not something you can just forget or [say] ‘let’s move on’ [about]. It has to be acknowledged, it has to be talked about. History has to be written not just by the victors, but by the people being victimised.
03/22/2010 at 10:52 am
I’m glad to have stumbled across this blog.It will become part of my online regimen I think.Your POV is valuable,as I watch no TV and NPR is the closest thing to news out here,outside of the web,in central NH.Some college radio stations have a brief Pacifica feed,but I’m presently out of range. Keep the recipes coming as well,good stuff.
I found it “by accident”,wondering why Sacco hadn’t done anything lately. Happily mistaken,I read your interview w/him,and followed the link here. It’s pitiful that the only person I know who reads + likes Joe is the person who owns the bookstore I purchase his work at.There is only one other person I know who would even be interested,a history grad naturally. TV,video games,alcohol,and various chemicals and lethargy seem to keep everyone pretty well occupied here,that and unemployment. No one seems outraged by anything except “the queers”+”all the damn foreigners” up here. We’re under siege..a self-occupation of apocalyptic dimensions. It’s tough to relate to. All these guns and all we do is shoot wildlife,and the occasional cop,renegade,or suicide.Such discipline. I wish you and your family the best,the same for the people of Gaza + Palestine,and everywhere else under the boot.
04/27/2010 at 2:18 am
Morning, It’s nice to stumble upon a good website like this one. Do you mind if I use some of your information, and I’ll leave a link back to your site?
05/04/2010 at 9:02 am
by all means!