PSU student documents the humanitarian disaster during his visit to Gaza this summer

Sean Healy is an undergraduate at Penn State University majoring in Political Science (sph5064@psu.edu). This past summer he studied abroad in Cairo, Egypt and was part of a student delegation that entered Gaza this summer.. Sean documents what he saw..

-1 Before I traveled to Egypt and then later Gaza, I admit that, when I saw people being persecuted on television, I often held the opinion that somehow these intangible victims brought this horror upon themselves. I assumed that there had to be something that they or their families did that made them blameworthy, and therefore, made the injustices committed against them somehow excusable. In the context of the Middle East, this opinion led me to believe that Muslims were inherently violent—that it must be in their genes or in their history, maybe an integral part of the religion itself. When I went to Egypt to study abroad, my perception of this “inherent Muslim violence” changed, and when I went to Gaza, my view of “inherent blame” changed as well.

I went to Egypt for my Study Abroad Experience, and what I got was certainly…an experience. I still can’t pinpoint exactly why I chose Egypt—probably half because I’m a Political Science major and half because I like to be a little different, and Egypt certainly is that. When I arrived in Egypt, I brought with me the baggage of my staunch personal views: protecting myself from the savage Muslims and their anti-American rage. Although I went to a Muslim country to experience another culture, to challenge these views, and although I would never vocalize those attitudes, these biases were hiding in the back of my mind, further buttressed by the opinions of my friends, my family, and American society. When students at my school asked me where I was studying abroad, I found myself a little embarrassed to respond: “Egypt”. I find this shame particularly ironic because now I am embarrassed of my past ignorance.

When I settled into the chaos that is Cairo, I found myself meeting mostly Muslims, most of whom had every quality that I admired in a person, taking me in as a brother immediately. After some reflection, I realized that I embodied the very person I feared most in Egypt: someone with an unfounded fear or hate of the unknown. Although I never considered myself a racist—I actually considered myself pretty open-minded—my views prior to my arrival were unfair and more simply, racist. As I began to meet other American students through orientation at the American University in Cairo, I met Anna, similarly a Political Science major, but also with fervent passion for injustices around the world, in particularly the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Later in the semester when I heard through the grapevine about a chance to go to Gaza, I couldn’t wait to tell her. For me, it seemed like another great adventure, a chance to see things I could never see again. So the plan was soon set in motion: we were going to end our semester at American University in Cairo with a bang—pun intended—in Gaza.

At Rafah, the Egyptian border-crossing into Gaza, we received the typical Egyptian bureaucratic run-around, but this time, with more urgency and militancy. I kept wondering: “why don’t they want us to go into this place?” and “what is there to see that is so important to keep hidden?”. I was also shocked that my “golden ticket”, my American passport, didn’t put the Egyptian secret police and soldiers under the same trance that it had for the first four months of my experience in Egypt. I’d been convinced you could get away with murder with that blue packet of patriotism, but at Rafah, for the first time these officials treated me like an Egyptian citizen—very poorly. With a few phone calls and the right pulled-strings, however, we entered Gaza the following day.

Most people don’t even know what to call Gaza—some say a country, state, one of the Occupied Territories—but for most Gazans to whom I spoke, they call it a prison. When we finally crossed to the other side of the border, when we finally entered the prison of Gaza, we were greeted with cameras, cold water, handshakes and many smiles—I went to sleep the night before in a hole-in-the-wall hostel in Egypt and woke up a celebrity in Gaza. After our Red Carpet run-in with the press, we hopped onto our tour bus, pressed our faces against the windows, and began to view the destruction that is the Gaza prison.

My eyes were immediately drawn to the bullet holes: how many could I see? Was there a fight in this very spot? How many people died here? I was so caught up in the moment that, finally the second that I had a chance to breathe, I noticed the beauty of the area. It was so much greener than Egypt: I’d forgotten what the smell of vegetation was like after months of inhaling the famous Cairo smog. Even the manure smelled refreshing to me. After our cross-country bus ride (literally across all of Gaza, from the south to the north in only 25 minutes—this is how small it is), our celebrity-delegation met at Marna House Hotel, where we were quickly introduced and dispersed to our host families.

My “brother” in my host family was Ahmed. Ahmed is the kind of guy that you can’t help but love—genuine, down to earth, with unwavering morals. When we arrived at his house, I was a little bit nervous for several reasons, but mostly because of my deplorable Arabic skills (I can only say the basic “hello”, “how are you?” and every curse word in the book), and the fact that I wasn’t extremely knowledgeable on the history or details of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But when I was greeted with food, laughs, and this family’s generous hospitality, I felt immediately at home. A traditional family, the men entertained the male guests, and I actually didn’t even meet the female side of the family until a couple days into our trip. Ahmed’s father and three brothers gave us plenty of good food, sheesha (flavored tobacco), and water as we sat in a circle and spoke for hours. We spoke about the war for maybe thirty minutes—it seemed like a side-track to our conversation about movies, Egypt, our interests, and our life goals. Ahmed’s father, a round and jolly man—he reminded me of an Arab Santa Claus—did ask us why the US military is not considered “terrorist” when they openly admit to killing innocent civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq, but when Hamas fires rockets into Israel, they are considered “terrorists”?

At first, I wanted to jump on the defensive, to explain why it’s impossible for the US to use terrorism or be considered terrorist, but then, the more I pondered the question, the more this impossibility became possible, maybe even correct. Then it occurred to me that I couldn’t really tell you what a terrorist is or what the qualifications are to become one. With such vagueness in my definition, I began wondering if I was a terrorist or supporting terror, is there a way to find out?

As our rock-star war tour continued, we heard lectures on Women in Gaza, Human Rights Law and Abuses, the Israeli Concept of National Security, among others. We visited refugee camps, the American School in Gaza (which had been completely destroyed by Israeli forces), and homes of victims of the December/January Israeli offensive. Everyone wanted to tell me his or her story, and I couldn’t write fast enough to do any justice. I felt helpless. I felt like a phony because these people saw me recording their testimonies like a journalist and rushed to tell me their narratives—little did they know that my power with their words was limited at best. It depresses me to think of the great hope that the Gazans had in me and our delegation and my inability to give them the justice they deserve or even make a dramatic difference in even a single person’s life.

There were many depressing sights and stories from Gaza. Bullet holes are seemingly part of the buildings’ and homes’ designs, hospitals have collapsed wings, even universities were targeted. You can ask anyone on the street about the Israeli offensive, and they can respond with a horror story that would put Stephen King in his chair—this is the reality of Gaza.

Many of these sights and stories were deeply disturbing for our delegation, but for me, what struck me the most were the students- my peers- that I met in Gaza. Many of these students received scholarships to outstanding schools all over the world—scholarships they received after years of studying and working under foreign sanctions and the siege—but they were unable to leave Gaza, even for these educational opportunities. The loss of hope that I witnessed in these students—a countless number of students—left me with a deep emptiness in my stomach and changed my perception on what is fair and just. I was dumbfounded when kids my age told me how they have never, and fear that they will never, leave this territory as I mentioned before, it took only 25 minutes to drive from the furthest southern point to the northern border. They saw their scholarships as their one opportunity to leave but, even after earning these honors, they will not escape Gaza. They said that they felt that their time for college education or experiencing the outside world has passed and that they will never be able to get that back. I felt that someone had hit me over the head with a bat as I heard their stories during my privileged semester abroad. What started as an exotic adventure quickly had now become a dramatic slap-in-the-face. I couldn’t believe that most of these kids my age have been stuck in this tiny area for their entire lives and that, even at such a young age, they have already lost hope that they will ever be able to leave. I was outraged and wanted them to call their lawyers, their Congressmen, their president—except there is no one that can help them—they have a complaint about their prison of Gaza? Get in line.

It completely disheartens me to think that even the brightest young minds can’t receive the education that he or she deserves. Furthermore, it sickens me to think of all the people that these bright young minds could be helping and the things they could be changing, in their territory or in the world at large, with the priceless knowledge and skills that they could gain from these institutions overseas, from the same kind of institution from which I have gained such an invaluable education.

The friends that I made in Gaza (who were many thanks to their hospitality and openness) keep in touch with me through facebook.com and in emails. They are constantly thanking me, telling me that I’m a hero—one of my friends ends all his emails with “our American heroes”. I want to pull my hair out and yell: “I’ve done nothing heroic! I’m just a kid who looked and listened!” I hardly moved a rock—hell, I didn’t even donate very much money! I’ve thought about this dilemma long and hard, and I realize that these friends and people that I met were really just thankful that someone was listening and making an attempt to help—to them, that was so refreshing in itself; it may even seem heroic.

So therein lies my ultimate point, plea, demand, or request in writing this essay. I want to challenge more people to just listen, to let my friends be heard. It’s not much to ask, and it’s not that difficult to do. I’m not debating whose land it is, who was there first—I believe that argument is a dead end in this debate. UNWRA Director John Ging said, “Everyone needs to be accountable to the law. That is the only place to start, not with political issues.” Fairness, justice, and equality must be restored to both sides because those ideals are the cornerstones of democratic self-governance, the kind of governments that we, as Americans, hope to see develop in both Israel and Palestine.

My request cannot be properly fulfilled through a simple google-search; I’m asking for a genuine pursuit of the truth—which sometimes isn’t as easy or painless as it would sound, but regardless, I think these questions are worth answering:

- Why does the US give the most aid to Israel, almost more than to all of the African countries combined, when it has nearly the same GDP as Spain?

- Do the flaws and shortcomings of Hamas leave all Gazans responsible or accountable to the terror and horror of war?

- Why haven’t most of my friends and family, most of whom are very intelligent, heard so little about the current siege and blatant international violations that Israel is imposing on Gaza with our tax dollars?

If these questions are answered or at least raised more often, then I think that my friends will finally get to enjoy the scholarships that they worked so hard to earn, finally receive access to the medical treatment that they deserve, and finally, most importantly, enjoy the every day freedoms and liberties that I take for granted as an American. The fact is, as Americans, the decisions that our government makes in Washington wields unimaginably profound influence and impact on the rest of the world. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt once said that “in a democratic world, as in a democratic nation, power must be linked with responsibility.” For every-day Americans, that responsibility demands that we at least question the decisions of our government, and I’m convinced that if enough of us make these simple inquisitions, the answers will be interesting enough, compelling enough, to dig further into the enigma of US foreign policy.