Yet another anniversary. It is June 5th and the memory of the 1967 war is upon us again.
On that fateful day when the Arab world collapsed (and collapsed it remains), I was a primary school pupil at a boarding school in Mount Lebanon.
At seven, nothing seemed to matter but the weekly ration of chocolate. Since I hated sweets, and still do, I looked forward to bargaining my ration for something I really wanted. On Wednesdays of every week, I was the most popular “scholar,” as we were called, on campus.
Our Latin teacher kept telling us about being at the top of the world, as geography goes, since the mountain steeply fell into the sea, but the only power I felt was that of chocolate: I did not want it and others did. I think I learned to disengage from that moment on.
Then the tranquil mountain morning was shattered by the buzz of Phantom jets. They came down so close that we could clearly see the blue Star of David. Everyone said there was a woman behind it and her name was Golda. I could not understand, since every woman to me was like my mother. I don’t think I experienced fear that day. No child knows fear except if it takes the shape of a father, mother, or a teacher.
A fighter bomber dropping death is neither here nor there. We went into the woods for security reasons. Teacher said it was safer. We thought it wonderful since we could finally harvest the madman’s raspberries without being shot at. He lived to guard the orchards and we lived to try and get away with raiding them. It did help that his ancient shotgun spewed its venom no more than three yards away.
I was into keeping silkworms with a passion. I used to keep them in old shoeboxes. I provided them with their leafy fodder, tended them while they wove their cocoons and then saw them emerge as lovely feathery moths to lay eggs. I used to sell their eggs, never their silk nor their larvae.
Because of Golda, whoever she was, I had to leave my worms and they died in their boxes.
It is all history now. I grew up to understand that there were casualties more important than my silkworms during those memorable days.
I also knew that I had an enemy I did not know or recognize. More importantly, I figured out that not every woman is a mother.
I am sure the Israelis have more stories of this kind to tell. But they cannot say the Arabs did it.
Their problem was European and not Arab. Yet we suffered their pain.
So many decades on, the problem persists with more devastating results. Could the Israelis understand what their “independence” cost? Could they see what havoc they wreaked while building their homeland on someone else’s land? Could they be wise to understand?
- Arab News Opinion 5 June 2003