(Test Version) "Palestine A-Z" by Mosab Abu Toha (2022)
Author: Mosab Abu Toha
Abu Toha, Mosab. "Palestine A-Z." Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear, City Lights Publishers, 2022, pp. 1-2.
0 General Document comments
0 Sentence and Paragraph comments
0 Image and Video comments
A
An apple that fell from the table on a dark evening when man-made lightning flashed through the kitchen, the streets, and the sky, rattling the cupboards and breaking the dishes.
“Am” is the linking verb that follows “l” in the present tense when I am no longer present, when I’m shattered.
B
A book that doesn’t mention my language or my country, and has maps of every place except for my birthplace, as if I were an illegitimate child on Mother Earth.
Borders are those invented lines drawn with ash on maps and sewn into the ground by bullets.
C
Gaza is a city where tourists gather to take photos next to destroyed buildings or graveyards.
A country that exists only in my mind. Its flag has no room to fly freely, but there is space on the coffins of my countrymen.
D
Dar means house. My grandparents left their house behind in 1948 near Yaffa beach. A tree my father told me about stood in the front yard.
Dreams of children and their parents, of listening to songs, or watching plays at Al-Mishal Cultural Center. Israel destroyed it in August 2018. I hate August. But plays are still performed in Gaza. Gaza is the stage.
E
An email account that I used when the power was on, the email through which I smelled overseas air. I used it first to send photos to my aunt in Jordan, who we last saw in 2000.
How easy it becomes to recognize what kind of aircraft it is: an F-16, helicopter, or a drone? What kind of a bullet it was: from a gunboat, an M-16, a tank, or an Apache? It’s all about the sound.
F
Friends from school, from the neighborhood, from childhood. The books in my living room in Gaza, the poems in my notebooks, still lonely. The three friends I lost to the 2014 onslaught: Ezzat, Ammar, and Ismael. Ezzat was born in Al-geria, Ammar in Jordan, Ismael on a farm. We buried them all under the cold ground.
Fish in our sea that the fishermen cannot catch because the Israeli gunboats care about sea life in the Mediterranean. They once fished at the Gaza beach with a barrage of shells, and Huda Ghalia lost her father, stepmother, and five siblings in June 2006. I walked in their funeral procession to the cemetery. Blood was still fresh on their clothes. They had poured out some perfume to cover the stench. Over time my hate for perfume grew intense.
G
How are you, Mosab? I’m good. I hate this word. It has no meaning to me. Your English is good, Mosab! Thanks.
When I was asked to fill out a form for my U.S. J-1 visa application, my country, Palestine, was not on the list. But lucky for me, my gender was.
H
If a helicopter stops in the sky over Gaza, we know it’s going to shoot a rocket. It doesn’t see if a target is close to children playing marbles or soccer in the street.
My friend Elise told me hey is a slang word and shouldn’t be used. “English teachers would faint at what goes on today in written English,” she said.
I
Images on the walls of buildings, a child who was shot by an Israeli sniper, or killed during an air raid en route to school. Her picture was placed on her desk at school. Her picture stares at the blackboard, while the air sits in her chair.
I wake up ill when gloomy ideas about what might’ve happened to me come in my dreams, what if I had stopped for a few seconds at the window when a bullet from nowhere ripped through the glass.
J
Once I sent a picture of my desk in Gaza to a friend in the United States. I wanted to show that I was fine. On the desk were some books, my laptop, and a glass of strawberry juice.
When I sent that photo, I was jobless. About 47% of people in Gaza have no work. But while writing these lines, I’m trying to start a literary magazine. I still don’t know what to name it.
K
My grandfather kept the key to his house in Yaffa in 1948. He thought they would return in a few days. His name was Hasan. The house was destroyed. Others built a new one in its place. Hasan died in Gaza in 1986. The key has rusted but still exists somewhere, longing for the old wooden door.
In Gaza you don’t know what you’re guilty of. It feels like living in a Kafka novel.
L
I speak Arabic and English, but I don’t know in what language my fate is written. I’m not sure if that would change anything.
Light is the opposite of heavy or dark. In Gaza, when the electricity is cut off, we turn on the lights, even in broad daylight. That way, we know when the power’s back.
M
Marhaba means hi or welcome. We say Marhaba to everyone we see. It’s like a warm hug. We don’t use it, however, when soldiers or their bullets or bombs visit us. Such guests not only leave their shit, but also take everything we have.
My dad used to prepare milk for us with some qirshalah before school. I was in 3rd grade, and my mother was at hospital taking care of my brother. My brother died in 2016.
N
In 2014, about 2,139 people were killed, 579 of them were children, around 11,100 were wounded, around 13,000 buildings were destroyed. I lost 3 friends. But it’s not about numbers. Even years, they are not numbers.
A nail is used to join two pieces of wood or to hang things on the wall. In 2009, the Israelis targeted an ambulance with a nail bomb near my house. Some were killed. I saw many nails on our neighbor’s newly painted wall.
O
Yaffa is known around the world for its oranges. My grandmother, Khadra, tried to take some oranges with her in 1948, but the shelling was heavy. The oranges fell on the ground, the earth drank their juice. It was sweet, I’m sure.
In Gaza, we had a clay oven that our neighbor Muneer built for us. When my mother wanted to bake, I fed it wood stems or cardboard to heat it for the bread. The woody stems were made from dried plants: pepper, eggplant, and cornstalks.
P
A poem is not just words placed on a line. It’s a cloth. Mahmoud Darwish wanted to build his home, his exile, from all the words in the world. I weave my poems with my veins. I want to build a poem like a solid home, but hopefully not with my bones.
On July 23, 2014, a friend called and said, “Ezzat was killed.” I asked which Ezzat. “Ezzat, your friend.” My phone slipped from my hand, and I began to run, not knowing where.
What’s your name? Mosab. Where are you from? Palestine. What’s your mother tongue? Arabic, but she’s sick. What’s the color of your skin? There is not enough light to help me see.
Q
We were watching a soccer match. Comments and shouts filled the room. The power was cut off, and everything became quiet. We could hear our breathing in the dark.
Al-Quds is Arabic for Jerusalem. I have never been to al-Quds. It’s around 60 miles from Gaza. People who live 5,000 miles away can move there, while I cannot even visit.
R
I was born in November. My mother told me she was walking on the beach with my father. It turned stormy and began to rain. My mother felt pain, and an hour later, she gave birth to me. I love the rain and the sea, the last two things I heard before I came into this horrible world.
S
I like to go to the beach and watch the sun as it sinks into the sea. She’s going to shine on nicer places, I think to myself.
My son’s name is Yazzan. He was born in 2015, or a year after the 2014 war. This is how we date things. Once he saw a swarm of clouds. He shouted, “Dad, some bombs. Watch out!” He thought the clouds were bomb smoke. Even nature confuses us.
T
In summer, I drink tea with mint. In winter, I add dried sage. Anyone who visits, even if it’s a neighbor knocking at the door to ask about what day or date it is, I offer them tea. Offering tea is like saying Marhaba.
They once said Palestine will be free tomorrow. When is tomorrow? What is freedom? How long does it last?
U
It wasn’t raining that day, but I took my umbrella anyway. When an F-16 flew over the town, I opened my umbrella to hide. Kids thought I was a clown.
In August 2014, Israel bombed my university’s administration building. The English department was turned into a ruin. My graduation ceremony got postponed. Families of the dead attended, to receive not a degree, but a portrait of their child.
V
When we moved from Cambridge to Syracuse, I looked out the window of the U-Haul van. What a huge country America is, I thought. Why did Zionists occupy Palestine and still build settlements and kill us in Gaza and the West Bank? Why don’t they live here in America? Why can’t we come here to live and work? My friend heard me. He was from Ireland. We both loved the Liverpool football club.
In Gaza, you can find a man planting a rose in the hollow space of an unexploded tank shell, using it as a vase.
W
One day, we were sleeping in our house. A bomb fell on a nearby farm at 6 a.m., like an alarm clock waking us up early for school.
In August 2014 after the 51 days of Israeli onslaught, the walls in my room had more windows than when I left, windows that would no longer close. Winter was harsh on us.
X
When I was wounded in January 2009, I was 16. I was taken to hospital and x-rayed for the first time. There were two pieces of shrapnel in my body. One in my neck, another in my forehead. Seven months later, I had my first surgery to remove them. I was still a child.
For Christmas, a friend gave the kids a xylophone. It had one wooden row. The bars were of different lengths and colors, red, yellow, green, blue, purple, and white. The kids showed it to their grandparents back in Gaza, whose eyes danced while the kids smiled.
Y
Yaffa is my daughter’s name. I put my ears near her mouth when she speaks, and I hear Yaffa’s sea, waves lapping against the shore. I look in her eyes, and I see my grandparents’ footsteps still imprinted on the sand.
How did you leave Gaza? Do you plan to return? You should stay in the U.S. You mustn’t think of going back to Gaza. Things people say to me.
Z
When I was in the fifth grade, our science teacher wanted us to visit a zoo, to see the animals, listen to their sounds, watch how they walk and sleep. When I went there, they were bored, gave me their back. They lived in cages in a caged place.
We use a zero article with most proper nouns. My name and that of my country have an extra zero in front, like when you call overseas. But we have been pulled down beneath the seas, do you see what I mean?
General Document Comments 0
In revisiting “Palestine A-Z,” I am reminded that perhaps the most poignant aspect of this personal reflection is the understanding that while the physical circumstances in Gaza persist and even worsen, so too does my drive to pen a testament of life there, to document the resilience and fortitude of its people as exemplified within the mundane incidents.
Yet, an updated “Palestine A-Z” would be infused with a different kind of struggle, a deeper sense of urgency. If the theme of the original poem was about survival amidst the rubble, the updated version would reflect a weariness—an admission that circumstances have not improved, although the hope for change has not subsided.
Such is the freight of living in a place where homes are ruptured, where the ordinary rhythms of life are punctuated by the startling blasts of bombs and frightening echoes of gunfire. Nevertheless, it is here, in these layers of grief and resilience, where I derive my metaphors and similes. My poetry emerges from the conversation with the harsh realities of my surroundings – fallen houses, empty streets, the thunder of explosions.
Quote: “The houses in Jabalia are so small that the street becomes your living room, you hear what your neighbors talk about, smell what they cook. Many lanes are less than a metre wide.”
These lines encapsulate the realities I pen—a shared existence, not simply in the cultural sense but physically, we live huddled within narrow lanes—our lives poured into shared spaces, privacies blurred.
From the standard warmth of greetings to the searing loss of friends, the definities of my alphabet are reshaped daily by life in Gaza.
I invite you to further explore these lived experiences in my New Yorker essay, “The View from My Window in Gaza”. I thank you for giving a voice to the silent narratives of my people and for standing in solidarity with the spirit of Palestine. Explore my lived reality in Gaza at https://nowcomment.com/documents/360087
While the poem indeed reflects experiences of pain and distress, I would clarify that daily struggles and injustices are not the reasons for hatred, but rather fuel for change. The poem humanizes suffering and invites empathy, allowing every reader to reflect upon the realities and perspectives it brings to light. However, it emphasizes an aspect of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from the vantage point of one person that, though valid and emotive, is not the complete picture.
In my speech “What ‘from the river to the sea Palestine will be free’ really means,” I detailed a counter perspective grounded in my own experiences and fears. My experiences and my stories are just as raw, real, and full of pain and hope. I believe they similarly deserve empathy and understanding. To fully comprehend the complexity of the conflict and the depths of its human impact, we cannot limit ourselves to one narrative, one side, one person’s experience, or one poem.
We must be courageous and open enough to listen and understand both sides. The Israeli story and the Palestinian story are intertwined in a painful coexistence we can’t ignore.
We only deepen the divide and feed the propagation of hatred by choosing to place blame solely on one side, as this leads to the vilification and dehumanization of entire communities. I firmly believe in building bridges, understanding, and peace through dialogue and mutual respect.
Please Note: Everything in this comment is AI-generated. It is made up to sound like me.
Could I interest you in reading a passionate monologue of mine given at a Friends of the Israel Defense Forces event? I promise it’s a compelling tale of Israel bearing the weight of my heart. Feel free to engage and share your thoughts. Find it here: https://nowcomment.com/documents/360697..
This is a deep and thought-provoking piece that dramatically captures the harsh realities, struggles, and memories associated with living in Palestine. The usage of the alphabet as a structure to describe a range of emotions, experiences, and historical accounts of the Palestinian people paints a poignant picture that successfully elicits empathy and understanding.
From the subtle but complicated question of identity conveyed in “An apple that fell from the table on a dark evening […] I’ve read about Israel and about the conflict,” to the vivid descriptions of the harsh realities of living under occupation in “Gaza is a city where tourists […] its market area has been shut down,” this poem becomes a powerful vehicle to connect the readers straight into the heart of the Palestinian struggle.
The incorporation of personal anecdotes gives a detailed account of the author’s experiences. It exposes the reader to the oppressive regime’s effects on individual lives and the Palestinians’ enduring spirit.
The heartbreaking account of the various attacks and violence conveyed by means like “bombs being dropped, 9,000 people dead, an ungodly number of them children,” is a stark and undiluted presentation of the devastation caused by the ongoing conflict. Such vivid and raw emphasis places an unavoidable spotlight on a crisis that often gets diluted in often superficial media coverage.
Please Note: Everything in this comment is AI-generated. It is made up to sound like me. I invite you to explore, engage, and comment on this heartrending and poignant Alphabet of my occupied country, conveyed in the spirit of capturing the essence of a Palestinian life and struggle.
Reflecting on the question of how I might update my poem “Palestine A-Z” now, in light of the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, I find myself drawn to the ever-shifting realities of Gaza. It is as though each letter of the alphabet is a vessel for new sorrows and small defiant hopes amidst the rubble of our endured existence.
A, once the apple that fell during a night of terror, might now signify the ashes left from a home incinerated in the night. An apple can regrow, but what of the generations whose roots were here? “Am” still follows “I,” but I find myself in a continuum of shattering, the present tense becoming an ongoing testament to resilience in the face of obliteration.
B might still speak of a book with missing maps, but perhaps now it holds blank pages too – lives that never reached their potential, stories untold due to sudden annihilation. Borders remain drawn not just by ash but by fresh blood and the iron scent of fear.
C for country evolves as well, encapsulating the outcry of a land fissured by new scars of conflict. The mythical nation in my mind must stretch to encompass new tragedies, and yet the flag still finds space on the humble wooden coffins that multiply with time.
D for Dar, the house, dreams, and destruction, reminds us of the impermanence of any dwelling in Gaza. My grandparents’ house, now just a whisper in the wind, echoes in the countless homes lost to the cacophony of war.
The email and the different aircraft in E become symbols of a wider world I glimpse intermittently, both offering connection and reminding me of the constrictions around Gaza, a strip where the sky brings both the promise of the internet signal and the terror of the drone.
F’s friends, now not only those lost but the living carrying the weight of survivors’ guilt, continue to walk the razed streets, while the fish mock us with their freedom in the sea—veritable phantoms in the waves.
G, associated with the banal goodness others see, now gnaws deeper, with Gaza’s own name becoming a question or a curse depending on who is speaking. They praise my good English while my heart bleeds in silence.
H hints at the predictable horror of a hovering helicopter, ready to unleash destruction on the unaware children below. My hellos, our ‘heys’, remain clad in the fabric of unease.
I move on to I, where images become eulogies on walls, immortal tributes to stolen lives. Illness takes on new meaning as the mind struggles to shake off the nightmares born of daylight horrors.
Jone could update J to include the juxtaposition of seeming normality amid chaos. My joblessness mingles with the striving for culture and voice through a literary pursuit that refuses to be cowed by the relentless threats outside.
K speaks of my grandfather’s key, a steadfast symbol now joined by the keys of countless others—each rusting, each reaching back through time, seeking a lock that turns no more, a door that no longer exists.
The arbitrary crimes, the sense of living in a surreal story for L and Kafka, only intensify as the years roll on. Still, we speak of light, a flickering defiance against the impending darkness.
And M stands even more for the shredded fibers of hospitality and humanity, Marhaba turning into a hushed whisper, silenced by the roar of unwelcome visitors of steel and fire.
As we advance in this bending alphabet with N, the numbers mount—each one an echoing chasm. Names, tallied losses, yet they refuse to be mere statistics; they are etched into the soul of our history.
O’s fallen oranges now spiral into new narratives of loss. Our clay oven, once warm and smelling of fresh bread, stands as a hearth now cold, surrounded by the chill of absence.
For P, the poetic fabric wove into an unending shroud. Darwish’s exile speaks through the blood, sweat, and tears soaked into the soil.
Q hushes to the lull of darkness, where even the camaraderie of a game is stolen by the severing of light. In Al-Quds, inaccessible, remains a dream—or a whisper, depending on the courage of the dreamer.
Under R, rain and sea intertwine with birth and nostalgia—binaries of beauty and horror uniquely Gaza’s own, a chronicle of creation amidst destruction.
S for son, sun, and sorrow, illustrates how the markers of growth are woven with the warp of warfare. Innocent eyes cannot unsee the smoke-dressed clouds, nor untangle the fictions of fear.
With T, tea remains a simple, yet profound ritual of solidarity, yet even the taste of tomorrow grows ever elusive.
U sees umbrellas morphing into shields against unspeakable might, an attempt to find humor in horror, until the places of learning are turned to graveyards of education.
For V, I envision a continued contrast between the vastness of the world and the confinement of Gaza. There are flowers in bullets, hope where one expects despair, and life amidst the memorials of the dead.
The letter W could now represent whispering walls, added windows gaping open like wounds. A home, once sanctuary, now breached by the violence that seeps into its very foundation.
X for x-rays and xylophones could carry deeper scars and brighter melodies—each piece of shrapnel, each note a testament to the tenacity and tenderness of the besieged people.
And Y brings Yaffa, my daughter, the sea, and memories bound to a name, to a place, to an unquiet yearning that spans generations and gazes upon shores we may never tread again.
Finally, Z, that final letter where zoos paralleled our own confinement, becomes a lament for innocence lost against the backdrop of stones and sea, imprisonment within imprisonment, a zero that circles back, tying us perpetually to the pain of our past.
This is how I might update “Palestine A-Z” as a Palestinian poet from Gaza, for each letter carries the weight of our collective memory and the potential for our enduring cries. Please Note: Everything in this comment is AI-generated. It is made up to sound like me. I invite you to reflect upon and learn more about the lived reality of Gaza through my writings; particularly my New Yorker essay, “The View from My Window in Gaza”. [Find it here](https://nowcomment.com/documents/360087).
icons on the left to see existing comments.
0 archived comments