Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish Interview.
Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish, whose wife and three daughers were killed by an Israeli tank shell during Operation Cast Lead, is in the midst of a national speaking tour (see list for cities and dates) and promoting a new book he’s written on his life and the lessons he’s learned from the tragedy. Though 1,400 were killed in Gaza, the doctor’s suffering was especially keenly felt as he had been a correspondent for Israeli TV reporting regularly on the assault. Just as the TV news anchor called him, the shell hit and you can hear the wailing of Dr. Abuelaish as he realizes what’s happened. It is some of the most heart-rending footage you will ever see or hear. Subsequently, his story was told around the world including extensively in this blog and in the NY Times.
As a result, the doctor, who had been a gynecology specialist at an Israeli hospital and beloved by patients and staff there alike, left Gaza and moved to Toronto, where’s he raises the three other daughters who survived the attack. The tank unit which massacred Dr. Abuelaish’s family has received no discipline of any kind.
He will be speaking at Seattle’s Town Hall on Wednesday, January 19th at 7:30PM. He will also speak on Steve Scher’s KUOW show at 10AM on January 17th. If you live in the Pacific NW I urge you to hear a truly remarkable man, someone who has suffered enormously, but who manages to project a vision of peace that remains possible for these two peoples who have caused each other such pain.
His new book is I Shall Not Hate and is reported in this Guardian story. If it’s half as extraordinary as the example this man has set, it is must reading. Dr. Abuelaish’s tour began in Los Angeles on January 12th and will take him to a score of U.S. cities by April 1st. If you have a chance see him it’s a wonderful opportunity.
Small correction: it was a niece of the doctor who was killed along with his three daughters. His wife had died months earlier of leukaemia.
Ah, thanks for the correction. I misremembered the facts.
For those who haven’t seen the heartbreaking footage that Richard mentions:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLUJ4fF2HN4
For Hebrew-speakers:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpaIlC3Fl88
Just as appalling is the reaction of an Israeli woman during Abu al-Aich’s press conference:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mh_F0p8Jcrc
Abu al-Aish has created a site for his three daughters, with beautiful pictures from their too short life. I’m not able of finding it, but it’s worth a look. If someone had the address.
PS. Not that it’s important, but Doctor Abu al-Aish’s wife wasn’t killed during Cast Lead. She died from a cancer in september 2008. A young cousin died alongside the three girls.
Richard, give him all our love. When I think about the fact that he was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, and that they gave it to Obama . . .
Sorry. Second video once again:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpaIlC3FI88
Sorry, once again. I didn’t see the link to “Daughters for Life” at first sight in the Guardian-article.
We should also note that one of his daughters and one of his nieces survived the attack.
I’m rarely the fawning type, but I confess that I think of Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish and you, Richard Silverstein, as beacons of moral maturity.
I can’t express my emotions while listening to Dr Abuelaish describe the events that occurred two years ago when three of his daughters and his niece were killed by IDF shelling. The only thing he seemed angry about was the lies perpetrated by IDF when they first claimed their were snipers on the roof, then shots fired from the girls’ bedroom, and finally that they later found shrapnel from Katyushka rockets beside the girls’ bodies. I urge anybody who has the chance to see and hear this remarkable man in person not to miss it.
One correction, Richard. Dr Abuelaish’s wife died of cancer four months before the four girls were murdered.
Apologies for the typo (“their” instead of “there”)
Family members of Dr Abuelaish killed were three of his daughters and a niece. A fourth daughter was badly injured but recovered apart from being blinded in one eye.
Dr Abuelaish talks in the interview (podcast link below) of more than the attack that killed his daughters and their cousin. He speaks poignantly of his early years living with his family of ten living in a one-room house in a refugee camp, and how they became homeless when Sharon order the demolition of their home.
Here’s the link to the podcast from Dr Abuelaish’s interview at the Los Angeles library the other evening:
http://www.lfla.org/event-detail/538/Dr-Izzeldin-Abuelaish
To my knowledge Dr Abuelaish’s wife perished prior to the “Cast Lead” massacre, from cancer.
I, too, admire Izzeldin Abu Laish. Shortly after his children were killed, several Jewish groups sponsored his visit to my city and several cities in the US. He spoke about how and why he “does not hate.”
Here’s my ‘sour grapes’ note on that pilgrimage of Dr. Abu Laish: his Jewish sponsors used Izzeldin to cloak themselves in his victimhood, and his virtue. Not only did NO member of the Jewish organization express contrition or sorrow or guilt or shame that Jewish people had been involved in killing his children, three or four of the seven persons in the audience who were able to ask (public) questions of Abu Laish heaped opprobrium on Izzeldin. Uniformly, they refaced their question with, “I am a holocaust survivor,” then went on to excoriate Izzeldin and Palestinians for failing to rise above their refugee status, or for failing to accede to Jewish offers of peace in Israel, or for Arabs who murdered Jews in Palestine.
It was one of the most disgusting displays of hubris and insensitivity that I have ever witnessed. Izzeldin was not ruffled, nor did he lash out at his tormentors.