World Demanding More Narrative On Gaza

By Sakina Mohamed Bernama conducted an exclusive interview with the renowned Norwegian doctor and advocate of the Palestinian cause Dr Mads Gilbert during his visit to Malaysia recently. He talks about his experience as a volunteer surgeon at the Shifa Hospital during the worst Israeli aggression ever recorded, on why he has been banned by the Israeli government from entering Gaza and how solidarity movements are more effective than we give them credit for. KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 19 (Bernama) -- Dr Mads Gilbert is perhaps one of the most feared activists by the Israeli government. In November 2014, Israel banned him for life from entering Gaza. The 68-year-old trauma surgeon smiled wryly when asked about it. “The reason they gave was that I was dangerous. If a stethoscope and camera makes me dangerous, then you know that Israel really wants to hide the realities in Gaza,” he told Bernama in an exclusive interview. Dr Gilbert comes from one of the most unlikely background for an advocate of the Palestinian cause. He grew up in Norway while it was very much a "pro-Zionist” country. His first exposure to the plight of the Palestinians was as a young volunteer doctor during the bombing of Beirut, Lebanon in 1981. The experience jarred him. He returned to the city in 1982 to volunteer during the Sabra and Shatila massacre. “It was a very brutal experience. That was the first time I could really see the consequences of the Israeli war machine and it made a huge impression on me,” he recalled. HEART IN GAZA He has worked on numerous projects around the world in his medical capacity. However, for the last 15 years, his efforts have been concentrated on Gaza. He was on duty at the Shifa hospital during the last four brutal attacks on Gaza city in 2006, 2009, 2012 and 2014. He described the last onslaught as the worst aggression he had seen yet. Thousands of tons of explosives were dropped on the 365sq km Gaza Strip over 51 days. The violence claimed the lives of 2,251 Palestinians, 551 of them children. Over 10,000 were wounded and over 100,000 became homeless, according to the United Nations. He documented it in his second book, Night in Gaza. The detailed account and images makes the book a heart-wrenchingly difficult read. His first book, Eyes in Gaza, which he wrote with Norwegian colleague Dr Erik Fosse, was a personal account of their harrowing experience in 2009. That year, Israel had barred the international press from entering Gaza. However, due to the Norwegian government's sponsorship of $1 million the doctors had managed to enter. As one of the only foreign aid workers in Gaza at the time, Dr Gilbert dedicated some time to speak with the local press, some of whom were reporting on behalf of foreign media such as the BBC, CNN and Al-Jazeera. His social media updates and open letters during the 2014 massacre went viral, including one that implored US President Barack Obama to spend just one night at the Shifa so that the latter would view the situation in a new light. His account of the reality on the ground, from a medical and personal perspective, was backed by powerful images that shocked a world that has been long indifferent to the Palestinian suffering. This was also the beginning of a PR nightmare for Israel, as it gave further momentum to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) Movement, a very powerful global campaign threatening Israel’s economy and politics. POWER OF THE PEOPLE Despite his contributions, Dr Gilbert believes that the most important solidarity work he has done is the one done back home. This involves aiding the Palestinian solidarity movement in Norway and educating Norwegians on the harsh realities of Palestinian life. This eventually resulted in a very dramatic shift of the Norwegian opinion of the Israel-Palestinian issue. In the days when it subscribed to pro-Zionism, Norway had made heavy water available for the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) to make the atomic bomb. Israel mayors and prime ministers, such as the former premier Golda Meir, often travelled to Norway. However, all of these changed in 2000. The following year, the city of Tromsø even became the twin city of Gaza. Skeptical young Norwegians have time and again been converted to the Palestinian cause after deployment to Gaza as the United Nations peacekeeping soldiers. “It has always been said that they would leave Norway 99 per cent pro-Israel and come home 99 per cent pro-Palestine. “I think the strongest argument for the Palestinians is the reality on the ground," he said. Things have also changed for Dr Gilbert, who is currently the head physician at the University Hospital of North Norway and professor of emergency medicine at the University of Tromsø. Prior to 2009, traveling to Gaza had to be done by taking leave off work. “Today, when I go, it is as a representative of my hospital,” he said. THE TIDES ARE SHIFTING It is not only Norway that has changed its stance on the Israel-Palestine issue. Dr Gilbert says that there is also an enormous demand for the narrative of Palestine in the US, despite the country being Israel’s biggest ally. The largest growing student group on US campuses today is “Students for Justice in Palestine”. The group has doubled its membership last year, with half of their new members being young Jewish students. Americans are now relentlessly seeking answers to the very questions their mainstream media refused the address. “What is the face of Israeli bombing, when they killed the 551 children last summer? What is it like working in a hospital lacking everything because of eight years of brutal siege? What is it like when Israel pounds Gaza with 5.5 times more bombs during the last attack than during Operation Cast Lead?” he said of the questions most asked by them. The BDS movement is also fast picking up on campuses and churches in the US, signifying that more people are recognising that this was not just a “Muslim issue” but one of humanity. “There is tremendous pressure on the government to stop the financial and military support of the occupying regime in Tel Aviv,” said Dr Gilbert. WORKING IN DIRE STRAITS He views his retelling of the stories as giving a “voice for the voiceless”. His intention is to inspire ordinary people make a stand. Many have lauded his efforts in exposing the atrocities endured by Gazans but Dr Gilbert is uneasy with the amount of credit given. “I am not the hero. The heroes are the Palestinian doctors, nurses, paramedics who risk their lives everyday to treat the wounded and serve the people,” he asserted to the writer. What stood out the most for him, however, are not the horrors he witnessed but the courage and dignity of the Palestinians. He recalled how even the children displayed “an incredible amount of human courage”. “We had to provide anaesthesia to a severely injured child and the older one had to watch her brother be intubated and put to sleep. They were both sobbing in fear and pain but maintained their presence in order to comfort the other sibling,” he told. The children were among those injured during the Sheja’ia massacre on July 20, 2014 when more than 400 wounded were brought to the Shifa due to Israel's relentless bombing. “We had beheaded children and entire families who had been killed brought in. Despite this chaos and mayhem of human suffering, the doctors and nurses never gave up. They sorted and prioritised the patients, determined to save every life,” he recounted. IMPROVISING TO SAVE LIVES One of the first things that the Israel's security forces does when it bombs Gaza is to shut down the power supply. Gaza endures a power outage of 18 to 20 hours a day, said Dr Gilbert. The Shifa relies on aged generators for backup energy, which frequently break down. “The lights would be out. The respirator would stop and the operating theater lamps would go off. “If they had to perform a complicated surgery at the time, they would use the light from their mobile screens to look into the operating field,” he recalled. It was this image of resilience and human dignity that stuck his mind, surpassing the images of horrific suffering and death. As for the argument that it is a "Muslim problem", Dr Gilbert has this to say: "The Palestinian cause should deeply affect everyone. It’s a huge mistake to think that only the Muslim world should take ownership of it. "As the Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu says, if you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. There is no neutrality. You have to choose." --------------------------------------------------------------- SIDEBAR DO BOYCOTTS WORK? Some Malaysians have voiced heavy skepticism on the effectiveness of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) Movement. “I understand the skepticism but you have to look at reality. Many of the big corporations that have been targeted by the BDS, like Veolia and G4S, have paid a huge price for their activities and their profiteering from the occupation. “Bear in mind that G4S are responsible for running child prisons in Israel and maintaining the apartheid wall in the West Bank. The Norwegian BDS campaign targeted G4S and it worked. They ultimately gave up their operations in Norway,” he said. Veolia, meanwhile, is a large multinational corporation that built an illegal railway from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem on occupied Palestinian lands. After being exposed by the BDS campaign, the company lost international contracts worth billions of dollars. The company is now packing up its operations in Israel. “So there is no doubt that boycott and divestments work. It’s threatening the Israeli economy. (The Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu said Israel is facing two compelling threats: the BDS and Iran. The Israeli government has even made it a crime to support BDS in Israel. “They also tried to make it a crime to support BDS in the US and Canada. What a pathetic move in a situation where this is the most democratic and peaceful mean we can use and in a situation where the West is imposing BDS in Iran, Iraq, Libya,” he said. “During the bloodshed in the Shifa hospital in Gaza last July, the UN, the US, the European Union were throwing out sanction cards - not against Israel, but against Russia. It took them just days to impose sanctions on the Russian government and people. So the sanction and boycott card is used all the time by the West against every other regime but Israel,” he said. He wants Malaysians to subscribe to the campaign, targeting first the major companies that profit the most from the occupation and killing of Palestinians. “This is not a difficult question. Don’t buy Israeli goods. Don’t allow the Malaysian government to secretly import from Israel through Singapore. Stop all cultural, academic, trade with Israel until they comply with international law and lift the siege in Gaza. “We have to be an ally to the ordinary Palestinians by ensuring our governments stand up against the US and Israeli occupation of Palestine. At the end of the day, that is what will change history. Ordinary people saying, 'enough is enough, we don’t want this kind of world'.” Malaysia does not have formal diplomatic ties with Israel, but does engage in trade with the country. A European Commission report has indicated that Malaysia ranked 15th among Israel’s major trade partners in 2010. -- BERNAMA