Light in Gaza Quotes

“Writing is a testimony, a memory that outlives any human experience, and an obligation to communicate with ourselves and the world. We lived for a reason, to tell the tales of loss, of survival, and of hope,”
― Jehad Abusalim, Light in Gaza: Writings Born of Fire

“By banning books, the Israeli occupation deprives Palestinians of seeing beyond Gaza to the outside world and learning about that world. So, not only have Palestinians been expelled from their homes and ancestral land, not only have they been thrown into prisons, not only have their trees been cut and burned, not only have they been subject to daily killing and humiliation, not only have they been denied the right to return to their homes, but they are also denied access to knowledge and literature, besieged even inside their homes during curfews and random air raids. They are not allowed to travel freely, even through books. If one doesn’t get killed by Israel, then life must be made unbearable.”
― Jehad Abusalim, Light in Gaza: Writings Born of Fire

“Regimes of oppression work tirelessly to render the historical context of oppressed people irrelevant and obscure. Their final goal is to portray oppressed people and their struggles for reclaiming their rights as irrational and, at worst, reduce them to a threat against those who built their privilege at the expense of others.”
― Jehad Abusalim, Light in Gaza: Writings Born of Fire

“There was no complete happiness without being followed with sorrow. We should be aware and ready for bad things to follow our happiness. Pessimism preceded any experience that I wished to have or any step I thought of taking, because my happiness was often incomplete. Such repeated disappointments made me hate my life and wish to die or blow myself up among Israelis, so that other Palestinians could live their life without more heartbreaking catastrophes. My fear and my feeling of injustice and hatred fused to create my desire for revenge against the source of that fear and injustice.”
― Jehad Abusalim, Light in Gaza: Writings Born of Fire

“Palestinians have the right to be part of the world. After decades of military occupation, they have not yet lost hope. Despite the challenges that continue to confront us, we act—in the words of the Palestinian novelist Ibrahim Nasrallah—as if “we live above occupation and not under it.”
― Jehad Abusalim, Light in Gaza: Writings Born of Fire

“Some people do not understand our language or our culture, but the expressions and the strength of the faces are enough to understand our suffering. The faces do not need an interpreter,”
― Jehad Abusalim, Light in Gaza: Writings Born of Fire

“The occupation took away the fundamental right of self-determination even for agriculture, to such an extent that I cannot imagine Gaza in the absence of Israeli occupation. No matter how hard I try to imagine that, I cannot; it is impossible. The realities of living under occupation are deeply engraved onto every little detail of our lives; no matter how many layers of occupation you peel away, more exist.”
― Jehad Abusalim, Light in Gaza: Writings Born of Fire

“The Oslo Accords and Israel’s “disengagement” from Gaza in 2005, when Israel unilaterally pulled out its troops and settlers, ending thirty-eight years of direct settlement and military rule over Gaza, may give the impression that Israel’s chokehold is waning, but the opposite is true. The “disengagement” is an expression of Israel’s dilemma, in which the Palestinians, who must not be granted equality but who cannot be removed or exterminated en masse, are marketed as necessary for Israel’s national security, in line with a long-standing strategy of “blaming the victim.”
― Jehad Abusalim, Light in Gaza: Writings Born of Fire

“We do injustice to Gaza when we turn it into a myth, because we will hate it when we discover that it is no more than a small poor city that resists. . . . If we had dignity, we would break all our mirrors and cry or curse it if we refuse to revolt against ourselves. We do injustice to Gaza if we glorify it, because being enchanted by it will take us to the edge of waiting and Gaza doesn’t come to us. Gaza does not liberate us. Gaza has no horses, airplanes, magic wands, or offices in capital cities. Gaza liberates itself from our attributes, language, and invaders at the same time.”
― Jehad Abusalim, Light in Gaza: Writings Born of Fire

“The basic right to live safely in your home and your homeland is meant to be universal, not exclusive to the powerful or the rich.”
― Jehad Abusalim, Light in Gaza: Writings Born of Fire

“On the shores of the Mediterranean,
I saw humanity drenched in salt,
Face down,
Dead,
Eyes gouged,
Hands up to the sky, praying,
Or trembling in fear.
I could not tell.
The sea, harsher than the heart of an Arab, Dances,
Soaked with blood.
Only the pebbles wept.
Only the pebbles.
“All the perfumes of Arabia will not”
grace the rot
Israel breeds.”
― Jehad Abusalim, Light in Gaza: Writings Born of Fire

“At the end of the day, nothing Palestinians or those who support Palestine do will please Israel or the Zionist lobby. And Israeli aggression will continue unabated. BDS. Armed Struggle. Peace talks. Protests. Tweets. Social media. Poetry. All are terror in Israel’s books.”
― Jehad Abusalim, Light in Gaza: Writings Born of Fire

“The wounds Israel inflicted in the hearts of Palestinians are not irreparable. We have no choice but to recover, stand up again, and continue the struggle. Submitting to the occupation is a betrayal to humanity and to all struggles around the world.”
― Jehad Abusalim, Light in Gaza: Writings Born of Fire

“Hath not a Palestinian eyes? Hath not a Palestinian hands, organs,
dimensions, senses, affections, passions; fed with
the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject
to the same diseases, heal’d by the same means,
warm’d and cool’d by the same winter and summer
as a Christian or a Jew is? If you prick us, do we not bleed?
If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us,
do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?”
― Jehad Abusalim, Light in Gaza: Writings Born of Fire

“While the blockade on Gaza is a physical one, ideas and visions for liberation cannot be limited by Israel’s fences and barriers. The dismissal and exclusion of Palestinian voices from debates and conversations about the past, present, and future are as destructive as the physical blockade itself.”
― Jehad Abusalim, Light in Gaza: Writings Born of Fire

“For Israeli Jews to realize their potential, enjoy self-determination, sovereignty, and access to rights, including the right to land, property, and safety, Palestinians were—and to varying degrees still are—deprived of these rights and privileges.”
― Jehad Abusalim, Light in Gaza: Writings Born of Fire