Reflections on Gaza: Exploring the Emotional and Humanitarian Landscape

Recalling a childhood squabble over a beloved toy, I couldn't help but see its reflection in the complex emotional landscape of the Gaza crisis. Through our stories, we confront the discomfort that arises when faced with others' suffering. I share how this has driven me to seek a deeper understanding of this region's historical and current anguish. The stark reality of life in Gaza challenges us to look past the narrative often presented and engage with the intricate web of ownership, emotion, and survival that defines this humanitarian emergency.

Amidst the shadows of conflict, there gleams a ray of hope in the form of organizations like Direct Relief and Doctors Without Borders, tirelessly providing medical aid to those caught in the crossfire. The episode brings you voices from the ground—creators and ordinary individuals who have become chroniclers of their own war-torn stories by the force of circumstance. Their accounts and the call to action for peace and support underscore the episode’s plea for empathy and involvement. We discuss how even the smallest acts of advocacy, education, and donation can stitch together a tapestry of relief for the people of Gaza. We invite you to join us in making a tangible difference.

Reference:

• Impactful Ninja's Article
• Bisan's IG @wizard_bisan1

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Oh, we could, we could fly. Welcome to this new season of the Habit Cup of Jahani podcast. So I want to title this new season that I'm embarking on with I'm growing, so this is going to be the season of growth and that's what I'm going to share with you throughout the season. So I thank you for coming over here and sitting with me and I hope you enjoy. Imagine the land we call Israel. Imagine that as being that favorite toy. That means a lot. It's just one toy, one toy, and it means a lot to both me and to my sister, and we both claim that the toy is ours. So I say the toy is mine. My sister says no, the toy is mine. And both of us want to play with this toy at the same time. And, of course, us being kids, we have a hard time sharing and we both feel that we have a strong argument that this is my toy.

Speaker 1: 1:22

Hello everyone, welcome to the first episode of March 2024 for this season four of Habit Cup of Jahani podcast. And we ended last time with me wondering what is going to be the theme for this month, for March, and I figured it out, folks, I figured it out. So last month, february, we delve into self love, self care, just this rebellious joy of finding love and respect in self. Now, for this month, we got to look outside of ourselves and we got to look into the world and we're going to dive deeper into some things that you may have seen on the headlines, or you may have not seen on the headlines, but that are still going on in the world. And I feel like sometimes we, for the sake of comfort, we put our heads in the sand and try to look away so we don't feel uncomfortable or so that way we don't feel those emotions that are so hard to digest and to feel. For example, whenever I see those commercials usually during the holiday season of the dogs and the cold, and the commercial advocating for people to sponsor dogs or cats because of the inhumane treatment that they're being given, I usually turn away or have my husband lower down the volume, because it just breaks my heart to see it. It hurts, it makes me feel uncomfortable. But that is what I want to tackle and the good thing about this podcast is that not only is it fairly short, but also you can listen to it in the comfort or the security of your own privacy, and you can do it when no one is around, so that way you don't feel as if you're being judged or anything like that, and you can allow yourself to feel the emotions that you need to feel and digest what those emotions are and why they may be there, and that, for all of us, helps us grow and helps us to understand why we feel the way that we feel about certain things. But, nevertheless, we're going to start this episode with the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. So are you ready? Let's go.

Speaker 1: 4:15

I have heard so many different things, and I did another episode about Gaza. We are calling it a genocide, we are calling it a war, we are calling it a humanitarian crisis, we're calling it many things. But one thing that all those classifications have in common is that there is definitely a lot of hurt and suffering happening there, and the argument from people may be well, they're suffering because of their fault, because they are hiding the big bad wolf, the big bad guys, with them, so that's why they're suffering. But I feel that in this case, in this scenario, it's a lot of violence and deaths that is happening to people that have nothing to do with that group, and yet they're paying the price for something they did not do. And that's where I feel all the pain that I feel whenever I look at this situation, and it hurts to keep looking at the suffering and the inhumane treatment that is happening and that has been happening. If you dig deeper into this, which is something that I've done for the past several months, it's not as complex as many people may see it. I think the whole fallacy of this situation being complex stemmed from other people not wanting others to really dig into the issue and to really understand it for what it is, which is a group of folks needed to be in a place so that way they can feel safe, and they went over this place that already had people in it and they encumbered the place and made the place their own without having the accord from the people that were already living there. And you can go back and you can read whatever.

Speaker 1: 6:22

There's a lot of different back and forths when it comes to that. People may say no one was there. People may say that was not theirs, or somebody else took it over, so it was somebody else. I'm doing air quotes here. Christopher Columbus discover the Americas, but really he didn't right, because there was people already living here. So there was nothing that he discovered. He just subjugated the people that were here to violence so that way he can take the land. You see the difference there? Very different, right, very different. So it really is nothing new that is happening here, as sad as that is to say, but nevertheless, even with that historical overview and understanding, is the inhumane treatment that is happening right now. And whenever I see the lack of food or how people from Gaza have to eat animal feed and have to eat these things that we wouldn't even want, I know. For me, I wouldn't even want my worst enemy to go through something like that, and it baffles me that there are still people that would say, well, they deserve it. That is really what blows my mind when people say that, because no one deserves anything like that. And let me read you something that I found so that way it can probably paint a clear picture for you.

Speaker 1: 8:00

And this is from Impactful Ninja, which I love that ImpactfulNinjacom and this is by Alicia Odell and she's writing an article on the best charities to donate to help the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. But in the first paragraph she has in here like a good overview, probably a little bit better than what I just gave to you. So it says right here that the Israeli-Palestine conflict dates back to the Arab-Israeli War in 1948, resulting in the displacement of over 750,000 Palestinians. The region has since remained in a prolonged state of conflict, which is very true. On October 7, 2023, islamic militant group Hamas escalated the violence by attacking Israel. The ensuing and ongoing war has led to a humanitarian crisis in Israel and the Palestinian territories of Gaza and the West Bank. So she's asking what are the best charities?

Speaker 1: 9:06

From watching the news and as well as following the creators that are over there in Gaza, I know that aid is slowing coming through, not just because of the current fighting that is happening, which prevents right truck and a humanitarian aid from going through, but also recently there has been a group that is against the humanitarian aid and it's using that holding off the humanitarian aid as kind of like a bargaining chip to bring back the hostages that Hamas took. So it's almost like no, we don't want humanitarian aid to come through because you still have hostages. So that's what's happening as well. So it's certain things that are hindering or slowing down the progress of the humanitarian aid, which is just bad all around. But here are some of the ones that they have on an impactful ninja, which is Anera. It was founded in 1968 by Jim Samms to help refugees displaced by the Arab-Israeli War of 1967. And they still remain committed to responding to the critical needs of the Palestinian people and other victims as well, in this regional conflict. They are also giving us.

Speaker 1: 10:28

There's a few more Direct relief, medical relief in times of crisis. So direct relief is another one as well, as well as doctors without borders you haven't heard. They have had various doctors that have been on the news as well and they have gone over there to just provide their expertise in helping the casualties and the victims to be able to provide care for them, and it is tough and hard to watch what they're saying and as well as the snippets of the things that they're doing and who they're actually caring for, which is quite alarming, that the people that they're doing surgeries and they're doing all this critical operations and techniques on happen to be children and women. Obviously, save the Children is another one of those charities that is still in the area and is still helping, as well as Live for Relief and Development, which was founded in 1992 in California by a group of Arab and Muslim Americans and respond to the post-called for humanitarian crisis in Iraq, and they're one of the many organizations that is giving back to help relieve the humanitarian crisis in there as well.

Speaker 1: 11:55

And, as you heard me say before, a lot of the information that I have accumulated when it comes to this comes from books that I have read before as well as currently comes to the area when it comes to the religious groups in that area, when it comes to the various ethnic groups in that area as well. But another source of information, besides the books that I've read and what I see on the news, has been creators that come from this region, and I'm sure you have heard and if you have not, let me tell you of AdWizard Besan I on Instagram, and Besan, she is a filmmaker. She had a travel blog, ladies and gentlemen. A travel blog, I'm sorry. It's a video log of the places that she would visit. She would showcase her country to other people and the things that she would do.

Speaker 1: 13:00

And she is a young person, she is in her 20s, but I think the various months since this had started, she has aged quite a lot, not just physically, but also mentally and spiritually. You can see the distress that is not something that you can fake on her person, on the way that she speaks, on the way that she carries herself, on the way that she jumps whenever something loud sounds off near her. It's sad to see, but most of the things that I am learning when it comes to real life it really is coming from these ordinary people that are from this region, that they were either photographers or they were journalists or they were vloggers, and that all of a sudden, their roles change when the violence escalated and this became what it is now. And now they're having to share these horrific stories, and they're doing it for various reasons, but there are two reasons that I have grasped when it comes to this. One of them is that they want the world to know that they exist. And two, they want the world to do something about it, to advocate, to raise their voices, so that way the world can help them and stop what's happening right now, so that way they may be able to live.

Speaker 1: 14:39

And that is what brings me so much discomfort, so much pain, so much heartache that we have a whole group of people begging complete strangers for their lives, begging complete strangers to utilize their social media to utilize their emails to do something, so that way their cries won't go and disappear into the ether. And that's one of the reasons why I'm doing this episode, that's one of the reasons why I did a blog post about it and continuing to update on the blog post and I emphasize and reshare the posts and news about this area, from this area, so that way, for those that don't know, they can know and they can become educated and they can try to advocate or, at the very least, just tell their families about it, because this is serious. An entire group of people saying please help us. And they're not combatants, they're not in the military, they're not part of the extremist group, they're just people that live in that area, that are literally in the crossfires. And there's a path forward to all of this, and the path forward is through humanitarian efforts and through targeted peaceful actions and international support that can help address the humanitarian crisis without making the conflict that much more worse.

Speaker 1: 16:24

We can discuss the importance of distinguishing, like I said, between the combatants and the civilians in this conflict, and resolutions and diplomacy and international law, which is goodness gracious. Diplomacy should be used at all extent possible before destruction, and I don't think diplomacy has been used enough when it comes to this, but I encourage anyone that is listening to this to just dig a little deeper when it comes to this. Go read something and you know what. Read something from somebody else's point of view. That's what I did here. I read from both points of views and was able to draw the line somewhere in the middle where the truth from each group met. Then I was able to make my own opinion when it comes to this, and that's how I can say that the whole thing is not truly complicated. It is very simple to understand and you will be able to understand it if you do that, if you learn a little bit from both and how both came to their truths, and you will be able to draw a line in the middle and figure out what this whole situation is.

Speaker 1: 17:49

So I encourage you to do that and I encourage you to highlight if you can highlight the ways to support humanitarian efforts and how you can give back to people that are hurting in Gaza, and if you cannot give back monetarily, you can advocate, you can emphasize, you can read a book from a Palestinian author, anything like that. Really just, it helps the collective to emphasize that there is a group in the world that is suffering, and it's not just this group. This whole month, we're going to talk about various things in the world that are suffering climate change, ukraine, all these things that can be so divisive because they make us feel big emotions but we're going to talk about it this March and it's going to get really uncomfy, but we're going to go through with it, okay, but remember, I'm going to leave you with this. It is so important for us to have that humanity, that compassion and that informed action when we address complex crisis. There is a potential as a global community that we can come together to support peace, justice and humanitarian aid and let go of violence. And we can do that if we come together and we understand that the people suffering are not the combatants, but are the civilians that have nothing to do with any of this. And I'll leave you with that and I'll see you on the next episode.

Speaker 1: 19:28

Come back, bye. Thank you so much for listening. I want to hear from you, leave me a comment, do a rating if you can on the podcast, share it with somebody you love, but, most importantly, come back. See you next time. Bye.