Creating my blog series “Dual Loyalty”

I devoted a week-long retreat at The Agape Community in central Massachusetts in frigid snowless February 2024 while the war on Gaza continued to explode. After Hamas viciously and without warning attacked Israel on October 7, Israel invaded Gaza three weeks later, beginning the slaughter of the innocents, and continuing to the date of writing this blog, April 13, 2024. Reflecting on those events, I waded into Agape’s rich prayer life and every day strolled joyfully to the nearby Quabbin Woods, twice to the sacred waters of Quabbin Reservoir.

This blog is about creating my 4 part series, “Dual Loyalty,” based on my personal connections with people in Palestine-Israel, and using my archive of 20 years of photography, movies, and writing about the violence over Gaza, Israel, the West Bank and Hamas. Agape published a form of it recently in their newsletter, Servant Song.

---

The Palestinian inner layers of psychology go around one single issue: the 1948 uprooting and the destruction of their homes. And what the Israelis are doing, by destroying all these homes every day, they are making the Palestinians relive the trauma, which is very deeply buried into our conscious and our unconscious.

—Ayad El Sarraj (long a Gaza resident, psychiatrist, founder of the Gaza Community Mental Health Program, and activist, died in 2013.  I dedicate this blog series to him.)

On October 7, 2023, I lunched with a close Jewish friend at the Burren Irish restaurant in Somerville as joyous Irish music played around us. Earlier that morning we’d learned that Hamas, a Palestinian resistance organization centered in Gaza (said by many to be a terrorist organization), had massacred some 1,200 human beings, mostly civilians, living in Israeli communities bordering Gaza. (Along with some military and security officers and agriculture workers from other countries.) Since that lunch, at her request, we’ve rarely discussed the unfolding events that trouble both of us deeply.  “Enough,” she would say to me. She needs to be silent, at least with me, about precisely what I need to discuss.

As the terror over Gaza unfolded, I thought about my photographs, movies, and writing about Gaza and the Israeli border communities and the West Bank. Heartsick, gut-sick, riven by nightmares and the news, in November I began assembling a series of blogs about Gaza, Kissufim (an Israeli kibbutz bordering Gaza) and the West Bank, drawing on my personal connections and archive. I profiled 4 friends to create specific personal stories that hopefully express realities beyond traditional news. I am determined to share what I know and feel about the war over Gaza, my love, my horror, my grief.

Dual Loyalty-part 1-introduction

In Gaza

Since 2004 I have volunteered as photographer and teacher of photography in Gaza (some of my students may have made photographs you’ve seen). I was inspired after I learned that the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) ran programs there. I contacted them to suggest a visit. After several earlier failed attempts, I finally entered Gaza —hesitantly. I worried about being killed, injured or abducted. Prior to my decision to enter Gaza I emailed my cyber support team to ask for their guidance. One suggested: sit with this opportunity awhile. If your worry decreases and you can think more clearly, you’ll make the correct decision.

Ibrahim Shatali, who eventually became a close friend (Is he alive? His family? Where are they?), arranged hospitality for me with 3 young Palestinian men. We guys slept shoulder to shoulder on thin mats on the floor in their small, filthy, messy flat, unwashed dishes piled high in the sink. All were college students with meager means, yet they treated me to some of the best shuwarma I’ve ever eaten. I heard Israeli bombardment daily and learned one morning that the Israeli army had invaded the southern portion of the Strip about 10 miles from our location in Gaza City. During my morning walks I heard the incessant buzz of Israeli surveillance drones overhead, all seeing buzzards. I worried that I might be attacked and killed.

I was able to work with AFSC staff for a few days. I began photographing and writing about their Popular Achievement Program for young adults. By organizing teams for service projects such as creating libraries and clearing debris for landscaping, the program used interactive games and other methods to teach democratic principles based in strategic nonviolence.

Meeting some Gaza Community Mental Health Program staff through the AFSC, I rode with psychiatrists examining children shot by Israeli snipers. I photographed a boy about 10 years old shot in the stomach as he rode his bike with friends, and a girl about 12, her wrist shattered by a 50 mm tank shell as she played with friends on the roof of her home.  While I photographed, tears surged behind my eyes, which felt as if they would explode from my head. I couldn’t weep while I photographed, so when I returned to our taxi, tears flooded.

Children assessed for trauma after shot by Israeli snipers, hospital, Khan Yunis, Gaza, 2004

On my second month-long visit one year later, I continued to photograph the AFSC’s programs and teach photography. With the help of the this Quaker-based international advocacy and humanitarian aid organization I had gained a long-term permit from Israel to enter. As I learned to navigate the small enclave—25 miles long, 3-5 miles wide, with now 2.3 million people, all suffering grievously—I happily with less and less anxiety photographed relatively freely: the sea, power plants, cemeteries, parks, refugee camps, the Rafah border and crossing point with Egypt, the Erez border with Israel, all sections of this small isolated beautiful land much loved by its residents who may soon disappear. I organized exhibits of my photography students which were widely attended. Gaza now felt like home to me.

The Beauty of Gaza Before the War

Call Out Their Names: Wesam Amer – Ibrahim Shatali – Amal Sabawi – Ban Al Ghussain – Islam Madhoun – Firas Ramlawi – Marwan Diab – Reem Abu Jaber – Hesham Mnana – Mona El Farra – Mosab Nour Abu Daqqa

Are you alive? Where are you? How are you and your families surviving? Can you find food, water, and protection?

Using Facebook, other social media and direct communication via email and phone I probe these questions. Wesam Amer, who I met in 2022 in my home city, Cambridge, while he was a Harvard Fulbright researcher in social media, posts on Facebook frequently. In October, I was able to reach him by phone.  He told me his entire neighborhood in Khan Yunis was under attack. Three families from the north were sheltering in his small flat. He tried and failed 6 times to leave Gaza thru the Rafah Crossing into Egypt.

Because he has a German passport from his earlier PhD studies, he and his family were finally able to leave Gaza in November and are now in Hamburg Germany in tough but improved conditions. And Ban Al Ghussain, for instance, a former photography student who I inadvertently helped meet her lifelong mate, Islam Madhoun, recently reposted a video of Gaza before the destruction, a Mecca of Beauty along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. So in February at least she was still alive.

In Gaza we say goodbye to each other. I bear witness that there is no god but Allah, and I bear witness that Muhammad is the messenger of Allah.

—Wesam Amer, October 29, 2023

Photo from Wesam’s Facebook page

Dual Loyalty-part 2-Wesam Amer

In the West Bank

Spring 2002: partly in response to Palestinian attacks on Israel using suicide operations during the Second Intifada or uprising, Israel’s Operation Defensive Shield besieges all the major cities in the West Bank.

March 16, 2003, one year later: driving a Caterpillar D9 bulldozer militarized by Israel, an Israeli soldier crushes Rachel Corrie to death as she attempts to prevent demolition of Palestinian homes on the southern border with Egypt.

Summer 2003: with nightmares about the demolition of my own home in Cambridge Massachusetts and sensing partnership with the martyred Rachel Corrie, I feel the strong urge to explore Palestine-Israel to photograph and write about the struggles for Palestinian sovereignty. I’m afraid. I’m uncertain about my abilities to express thru photography what I experience. I’d need to raise money. I have other pursuits which would be sidelined. I meet Tarek El-Heidy at a presentation about Palestine-Israel. He tells me he will co-lead a delegation thru the Fellowship of Reconciliation in the fall. I ponder and pray. I sign on.

On my second trip one year later for three months I hear about a Palestinian activist, journalist and farmer, Fareed Taamallah, and eventually meet him. He invites me to his ancestral home in Qira where I meet the rest of his family and explore the small town in the West Bank threatened by illegal settlement expansion.

In 2018, desperate to find colleagues to work with on my Nakba photographic project I learn that Fareed might be available and is eager.

Call Out Their Names: Jean Zaru, Abed Srour, Jalila Al Azraq, Ahmad Ali Dawoud, Rowaida Al Azzeh, Ayed Al Azzeh, Yousef Albaba, Fatima Al Khawja, Abed Abusrour, Abdel Majid Abusrour, Asaed Abusrour, Khalil Al Rashayda, Nabeel Al Kurd, Mohammed Sabagh, Asem Khalidi, Omar Hajhajla, Issa Younis Alazza,  Abdul Qader Hassan Monjid Al Lahham, Saeed Danadan Terwai, Um Ahmad Khdaish, Mahmoud Sharaya’a, Fatima Nakhli, Neama Zaid, Rajab Mustafa, Ghanem, Khadija Mohammad Al Azza, Shaker Issa Odeh, Mohammad Saleh Abu Habsa, Zakiyya Mohammad Hamad, Maryam Abdallah Abu Lateefa, Mustafa Mahmoud Abu Awwad, Omar Mohammad Amara, Fatima Ali Msaimi, Andrew Haddad, Qasem Ahmad Qasem Abu Qutnah with son and grandson, Adnan Torokman, Ibrahim Eid Nghnghia, Lahya Moneeb Al Sadi, Aziz Al Touri, Eman Wawi, Mohammed Al-Azzeh (Musa), Murad Matar, Inas Margieh, Mohammed Mouwia, Meras Al-Azza.

Have you survived? How’s your health? Aee you properly housed? How’s your family? Do you have sufficient nutrious food and medical care?

This begins a long-term friendship, enlivened by our cooperation on my Nakba project. Fareed helps me locate people, often in refugee camps, gains their permission for me to interview an photograph them, translates and helps with questions and background, and now—now: he continues his activism thru journalism and organic farming and I honor him for his crucial role in my project. Along with others like Nidal Al-Azraq, Ayed Al-Azzeh, Eman Wawi, Amos Gvirtz, Mohammed Al-Azzeh (Musa), Murad Matar, Angela Godfrey, Inas Margieh, Adnan Torokman, Mohammed Mouwia, Meras Al-Azza, Linda Dittmar and others.

Previously for other projects, he’d helped me find locations and people. His stories of living as a Palestinian with limited rights added depth to my experiences. He’s an active journalist, publishing on various international journals, like Middle East Eye, Middle East Monitor, Common Dreams, Palestine Chronicle and on his various social media accounts. He’s easy to track; I often wonder why he’s not more restricted by Israel. At latest word, he and his family are alive, healthy, active and planting for the summer. Not safe from settler attacks; they persist.

Israel is exploiting the war in Gaza to deny Palestinians access to their West Bank land, by Fareed Taamallah and photographed by his daughter, Lina, who I write about in my profile of Fareed. (December 18, 2023)

In my profile I tell the remarkable story of Lina the photographer of the photo above, surviving kidney disease as a very young child, medical care interrupted by Israel’s Matrix of Control. Thanks to a kidney donor from South Africa and coordination with the Israeli medical system, she survived and blossomed.

Interviewing Maryam Abdallah Abu Lateefa from Sara’a in the Kalandia refugee camp-with Fareed Taamallah

Fareed Taamallah with Mohammad Saleh Abu Habsa, Kalandia refugee camp

Zakiyya Mohammad Hamad with Fareed Taamallah-Kalandia Camp-Saress Village

Lina in middle with her family, 2018 (photo from the Internet)

Fareed driving me to a site to photograph, ancient olive tree in the background, 2007 c.

Water tower in Qira, Fareed’s home village, Salfit district-in the background the huge Ariel illegal settlement, 2007 c.

My profile of Fareed Taamallah

The Ongoing and Relentless Nakba, photographs by Skip Schiel

(This series will be on exhibit in the Newton Free Public Library near Boston May 2 – 30.)

In Israel

Before the Hamas attack on October 7, I had visited some of the now devastated communities, including the small city of Sderot, less than one-half mile from northern Gaza, and kibbutzim (cooperative agricultural communities) like Kissufim also within one-half mile of southern Gaza.

In 2018 I stayed with families while I made a movie about Other Voice, an Israeli organization that advocates diplomacy, compromise and negotiations rather than war. In earlier years I’d visited Sderot, resided overnight several times, and photographed and interviewed residents. I wished to experience the fears they described living so close to Gaza. Later I learned that Sderot, Kissufim and other border communities, (called by some, settlements, or colonies) are built on lands previously inhabited by Palestinians.

Call out their names: Nomika Zion – Yeela Raanan – Eric Yellin – Roni Keidar – Micha Ben Hillel

Have you survived? Were you injured? Was your home destroyed? What did you witness? Where are you now? When will you be able to return home?

Yeela Raanan writes regularly thru her Facebook page. I’ve learned about her condition since October 7, what happened on that day to her and her home in Kibbutz Kissufim. For an update and with follow up questions I wrote her directly. She explained:

Shani and i (my 12-year-old daughter) ran to the safe room when the attack started. an hour later, because the door handle broke, we had to escape this room, and ran into the second safe room we have in the house (it is an old house, and it was renovated from two very small living units, each came with its own safe room.). the Hamas came into our home, but after seeing that the safe room was empty did not search for a second safe room.… so we had what i call “the second safe room miracle”…

As Hamas ransacked the house, my daughter and i hugged and whispered to each other, hoping not to be killed. after a while they left, and did not return to the home. we stayed under fire in the safe room for 24 hours. 20 of those hours without electricity or any communication. Eventually at 6:30am we were rescued under fire by the Israeli military, and taken out of the kibbutz, to a bus, which took us to the Dead Sea hotels.

Where apparently she remains now, along with thousands of others from southern and northern Israel because of threats from Hamas still firing rockets into southern Israel and Hezbollah firing into northern Israel.

Yeela Raanan, 2015-still from a movie by Skip Schiel

Yeela’s Facebook page

Dual Loyalty-part 3-Yeela Raanan

Dual Loyalty

Call out her name: Sahar Vardi

Are you able to express your dissent from current Israeli policies? Are you endangered by your actions and words?

I worked with Sahar, a brave Jewish Israeli peace and justice advocate, formerly employed by the AFSC when it documented U.S. companies illegally based in Israeli settlements. I accessed her blog (republished in The Times of Israel) about Dual Loyalty—empathy for all the suffering parties, Jewish and Palestinian, in Gaza, the West Bank, and Israel.

A war resister, Sahar has been imprisoned multiple times, arrested while protesting (I’ve been with her during an arrest, photographing her). She speaks eloquently thru her multiple channels, and wrote me recently that contrary to expectation, she’d not been attacked by Israelis but supported by some.

Immersed in the widespread support in Israel against Gaza, she struggles to speak out and support Palestinian farmers harassed by settlers. For instance, a group of some 100 Israeli doctors published in Israeli media: “Attacking terrorist headquarters [mainly hospitals] is the right and the duty of the Israeli army.” This view, seconded by some Israeli officials and some leading rabbis, makes Sahar a rare Israeli. She is aware of the potential collapse of Israeli morality. And because the world watches without determined action to stop the carnage—in full view—international morality may be collapsing as well.

It’s that moment when you talk to a friend who doesn’t know whether their relatives are dead or kidnapped and what they should even hope for, and to see the helplessness, the fear, the deep pain. And a moment later, it’s talking to a friend from Gaza who can only say that every night is now the scariest night of his life; that he calculates his chances, and those of his daughters, of waking up alive the next morning.

“Dual loyalty” is feeling the heartbreak of this and of that.

—Sahar Vardi

Photo from the internet

Dual Loyalty-part 4-Sahar Vardi-Which Side Are You On, Boys, Which Side Are You On?

“Since October 7th it’s gotten much much much worse,” says 33 year old Israeli activist, Sahar Vardi, describing the increasing settler violence in the West Bank…

Call out my name: The Other Skip 

Inspired by Naomi Klein’s recent book, Doppelganger, I feel my double lives in Gaza. My double is a child wandering the streets, my family, mother, father, brothers and sisters, my extended family, all dead. My double has been abducted by Hamas and now barely survives in the tunnels. My double also lives miles from my home in kibbutz Kissufim, displaced to some hotel along the Dead Sea at the government’s expense but without my usual quotidian life—affirming materials, my favorite skillet, my books, my walking and biking routes. My double is unsure when I’ll be able to return home, rebuild it, and mourn the deaths of neighbors. My double has no idea whether Gaza will continue to exist.

The Other Skip—an incubus thrusts his way into my sleep, exacerbates my chronic insomnia—wonders when The Other Skip will be able to resume his normal life. All my doubles wonder whether they will survive, ever again be home, safe, secure, and living with dignity and justice.

Skip Schiel by David Legg, 2014

Photographs and movies by Skip Schiel

The dead, the dead, the dead—our dead—or South or North, ours all, (all, all, all, finally dear to me).

—Walt Whitman about the American Civil War

What To Do?

Pain and frustration in much of the world increases. Many of us desperately plead, what can we do to stop unrelenting violence and hold all parties—Israel and Hamas and the United States, the third partner—accountable?

I can utilize my tools and skills to express my perspectives.  Hopefully, my blog series might inspire useful responses by others. Campaigns by the AFSC and Jewish Voice for Peace advocate talking with one’s friends, families, and communities, and—most important—contacting our legislators and the White House.

I shout: create a long term ceasefire, expedite the entrance of humanitarian aid, free the hostages in Gaza, release Palestinian political prisoners in Israel, negotiate (talk with one’s adversaries, use mouths rather than fists), rebuild Gaza (those who destroy should rebuild), and create a long term political solution to finally end the occupation and siege and foster security for Israelis.

Freedom, equality and security, peace and justice for all residing between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.

Children mourn victims of an air strike

Palestinians react at al-Aqsa hospital in Deir el-Balah as people mourn the death of loved ones killed during Israeli bombardment, in the central Gaza Strip, on March 6, 2024.Credit- AFP

Yazan Kafarneh on his hospital bed in Rafah, southern Gaza, on Sunday. By Monday, he was dead. Credit Hatem Ali Associated Press

Shaymaa Shady, age 5-photo by Nariman El-Mofty

Shaymaa, in hospital with aunt-photo by Nariman El-Mofty

Abdel Rahman’s, age 5, skull was severely fractured during an Israeli bombardment in northern Gaza-by Nariman El-Mofty

All these images are from the New York Times. The last three are from “The First Flight of Their Lives: An Airlift After Agony in Gaza” (March 26, 2024)

I am frightened that…we (Israelis) are losing the human ability to see the other side, to feel, to be horrified, to show empathy.

—Nomika Zion, one of the founders of Other Voice

Imad Abu Shtayyah, Palestine, Follow We shall return, 2014

Light in Gaza, Writings Born of Fire, by Palestinians in or from Gaza, American Friends Service Committee, review by Skip Schiel

Suggested Palestine-Israel resources from New England Yearly Meeting of Quakers

TO BE CONTINUED