Finding Peace in the Holy Land by Lauren Booth

Author:Lauren Booth
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kube Publishing Ltd

2. Jonathan Cook, ‘Matrix reloaded – yet again’ (Al-Ahram Weekly, 13 November 2003).

12

Without A Paddle

‘When a man is denied the right to live the life he believes in, he has no choice but to become an outlaw.’ Nelson Mandela

OUTSIDE OUR STONE farmhouse the peach tree was in full, sensual blossom and around the front door jasmine wound its way up the part-rotten beams of our little porch. An English neighbour once told me, as we dined ‘al fresco’, that it reminded her of a Greek taverna. However, this day I sat at my desk in the renovated attic unable to tear my thoughts away from all that seemed ‘wrong’ with my life. Daily niggles, like unpaid bills, played on my mind day and night and even the merry noise of the children playing by the pool at the end of our vast garden was little more than a reminder of the hair washing I would need to do later. The beautiful moments in which I was unknowingly cocooned were being psychologically slept through.

Browsing through the emails on my desktop, I opened an unsolicited message which read simply: ‘Would you like to go to Gaza by boat? If so, call “Osama” on the number below.’ I laughed out loud. Go to Gaza by boat? Who on earth would be idiotic enough to try that? To get onto a boat, annoying the Israelis, and with someone called Osama? Surely it was a joke from one of my media friends. I scrolled up and down the message and checked the sender’s details for clues. It wasn’t from anybody I had ever heard of. Was it possible that a bunch of nutters were suggesting a boat trip towards a coast aggressively patrolled by one of the world’s most highly armed militaries? I read the message for the tenth time: ‘Would you like to go to Gaza by boat? If so, call “Osama” …’

The illegal Israeli siege of Gaza was hurting the families I had met on my visit. The articles I’d pitched for months to features editors, travel editors and news editors on the mounting humanitarian crisis had been given the almost standard answer: ‘Our readers are tired of the Middle East, they just aren’t interested any more. It’s been going on for so long … both sides are to blame … There’s no answer. No thanks.’ It was clear to me that Muslim lives did not matter to our leaders to the same degree as ‘white’ lives and I was becoming frustrated at the impotence of the shouting and banner waving outside Downing Street. I stared at the phone number at the foot of the email and had ‘the feeling’, a recognition that some things are simply going to happen no matter how much we resist. Whilst others, no matter how hard you push, are not destined.

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