My father's "story"

Gaza is full of stories. My relative's neighbors- 3 young children- were all killed today while playing marbles outside their home. Another distant relative was killed in his home. All in the name of making Israel more safe and secure.

My father has been doing his part by sharing his individual story with the world.

Yesterday, he spoke with NPR's NC station, WUNC. He appeared on the Story with Dick Gordon. You can listen him share his gripping experience here, one not unlike my friend Laila Al-Arian's grandfather's own story, published today in the Nation.

Moussa El-Haddad lives in Gaza with his wife. The bombs have fallen as close as 100 meters from his home. Two nights he was sitting at his desk and the reverberations from a nearby bomb knocked him right out of his chair. He tells Dick Gordon about what life is like for him now that his city is under siege, and about the hope that a new U.S. administration might mean new policies in this troubled region.

LINK TO THE FULL BROADCAST , including images my father took of a bombed out mosque near his house and a bread line winding out from a bakery.



Note: after my father's interview, the host felt obliged to interview someone living in Sderot- because after all the "story" would not be complete without the other view. He ending up interview an American-Israeli woman who was a settler in Gush Qatif, and now lives in Sderot. She reminisces about her wonderful days in Gaza (in illegal, fortified paramilitary complexes) and is nostalgic about living once again next to her "Arab neighbors" there (???). She then goes on to complain about how they have little protection and its not really safe anywhere (try telling that to the Jabaliya residents, Anita). What really bothered me about this was that not once is she pressed about Israel's assault on Gaza, as well as the obvious moral and political equivalencies being implied. But I digress.