A Palestinian speaks out

 

 

   By Reginald Johnson

      Johnny Sakakini knows the suffering of the Palestinian people. He’s lived it.

  On October 23, 16 days after the Israel-Gaza War broke out, he got a call from his mother with some devastating news. Describing what had been told to her by relatives, his mother said 12 members in their wider family in Gaza had been killed by an Israeli rocket attack against a Christian church in Gaza City.

  “They came to the church that Sunday, mothers, fathers and their kids,” said Sakakini. “The parents told the kids, ‘go to the hall (next to the chapel) and play with the other kids.’ They went and moments later, there was a sound --- Psst! --- a missile came in and took out the whole hall.”

   In total, 80 people lost their lives in the attack on the hall, which was part of the Greek Orthodox St. Porphyrius Church, which dates to the 1100s and is one the oldest Christian churches in the world.  Many of the people killed were refugees who had fled more war-torn areas and were seeking shelter in the church. Sakakini said he used to go to the church when he was a boy.

  No explanation or apology was offered by Israeli authorities for the strike.

 “They went to the church thinking they were safe,” said Sakakini. “But they weren’t safe. They weren’t safe...” he repeated, his voice trailing off.

  Sakakini is a Palestinian-American who came to the United States to escape the Israeli Occupation from the West Bank city of Ramallah in 1988. He now runs a restaurant called “Abi’s Falafel” in Trumbull.

  He sat down recently to talk about the tragic incident at church, the war in Gaza and the Occupation in Palestine.

  Our talk took place as the war in Gaza raged on with over 30,000 people killed. (3000 more people have been killed since the interview took place). Another 1.5 million people have had to leave their homes and find shelter somewhere away from the violence.

 The war began when Israel retaliated for an attack Oct. 7 in southern Israel by Hamas extremists which killed 1200 people attending a concert.

  Israel has been accused of using disproportionate force in its military campaign and committing a number of war crimes, including carpet bombing residential neighborhoods and bombing churches, mosques and hospitals. The IDF has also bombed food centers,  refugee camps and schools. Israel is also being criticized for blocking the delivery of food supplies into Gaza. There’s now growing concern about famine engulfing the region.

  On April 1, the Israeli military fired missiles at aid trucks from World Central Kitchen, killing seven workers. Israeli authorities said the attack was a mistake.

 Officials of the UN, the International Court of Justice and human rights organizations claim that there is substantial evidence showing Israel is carrying out a genocide in Gaza.

 Israeli officials deny the charges of war crimes, saying the military is “precise” with the bombing attacks and efforts are made to avoid civilians. And in general, they stress that Israel has a right to self-defense in the wake of the horrific October 7 attack.

 “I understand that Israel has a right to self-defense,” said Sakakini, “but this is way beyond self-defense, way beyond. You know when we went into Afghanistan, did we bomb everybody that lived there? No, we didn’t. We went there and took out the guys we needed to take out… Killing 35,000 civilians is not justified under self-defense.”

  Often Israeli officials maintain that if civilians were killed in an attack, it was either a mistake, Hamas rockets had been fired from the area or there were Hamas terrorists mixed in with the civilians and the killing of the civilians was unavoidable.

   Sakakini responds,  “Israel will use anything as an excuse. If the bird flies the wrong way, they’ll use that as an excuse to target civilians.”

  He added,  "The funny part is, in the United States people will believe everything Israel says. Nobody believes what other people say like Amnesty International, the United Nations or other human rights groups --- what their reports show.”

       Johnny Sakakini at his restaurant in Trumbull. He immigrated to the United States to escape the Israeli occupation of Palestine. He said living under occupation was like being in a "concentration camp." (Reginald Johnson photo)

  Since the Gaza war began, passions have been running high in the United States with widespread demonstrations taking place in support of the Palestinians. But there’s also been considerable support voiced for Israel.

  A number of cities around the country have seen efforts by pro-Palestinian groups to pass cease-fire resolutions to stop the war, but there's been fierce pushback by advocates for Israel.

In Bridgeport, a cease-fire resolution was passed by the City Council after weeks of debate. Passionate speeches were made both for and against the resolution at the public forums prior to the council meetings. One night, a heated argument erupted at the end of the forum, and police had to be called in to keep it from getting out of hand.

   Sakakini was asked if there had been any problems at his restaurant as a result of ongoing anger over the war.

  “In the beginning after October 7 happened, there were some issues,” he said. “One guy came in and shouted, ‘I don’t support Palestine!’ and then spit on the floor and walked out.”  There were other people, as well, who walked out after seeing the Palestinian flag by the door.

“It’s funny,” said Johnny.  “I’ve had that big flag by the door for six years. All those years it didn’t bother anyone. After October 7 it becomes an issue for some people. But it is what it is. I am a Palestinian. I support my country. If you want to support Israel and the soldiers, go to the McDonald’s up the street and support them.”

  (McDonalds has been criticized for supporting the Israeli government by advocates of the movement to boycott Israeli goods and disinvest in Israel.)

 But Sakakini noted that many people have come to his business and expressed support for the Palestinians. He recalled one day when a lady came in with her children.

  “I went over, thanked her for coming in and asked if she was Palestinian. She said ‘No, I’m American.’ I said, ‘Thank you for supporting us,’ Suddenly, she started crying.  I said, ‘What’s the matter?’ She said, ‘I’m 35 years old and I never knew the struggle the Palestinians are going through until now. Why wasn’t I told?’ “

  “So people are opening their eyes,” Sakakini said. “People are seeing what is happening and they can’t ignore it anymore.”

  Sakakini, who wears a wrist band which says “Free Palestine,” runs the restaurant with his wife Simone. They have two children, both in college. So far they haven’t encountered any problems. “But they told me they don't want to look at any of the pictures of destruction in Gaza. It gets to them," he said.

Palestinian flags and a picture of Palestine at Abi's Falafel in Trumbull. (Reginald Johnson photo)

 Johnny, 50, came to the United States alone before his parents arrived and at one point worked at a Subway in downtown Bridgeport. Later he opened the restaurant.

 He recounted the difficulty of growing up in the occupied West Bank. While Israel technically does not have sovereignty over this area they control many aspects of life there. In particular, the military has checkpoints at many locations. Palestinians have to go through those checkpoints, show their ID and answer questions before they can go on. In some cases, people are subjected to strip searches.

 When Johnny and his friends were growing up and going to school, Israeli soldiers would frequently harass them.

  Sakakini said he was jostled by soldiers one time coming home from school. Another time he saw a soldier slam a boy with the butt of his rifle.

 “When you live under military occupation it is not a piece of cake," he said. "They control your water, they control your electricity, they control where you can walk where you cannot walk, they control the schools, when they open when they close, they control when you can open shops. They can put you up against the wall for 20 hours and you can’t move and God forbid you make a move they'll shoot you or they’ll say 'you're trying to resist' and they’ll charge you.”

  Sakakini likened Palestine under occupation to "a concentration camp."

  The bitterness felt by many Palestinians for living under military control sparks random violence, such as kids throwing stones at soldiers. Some kids have been shot and killed for doing this.

 “People don’t understand international law gives you the right to fight occupation,” said Johnny.  “So if you think shooting kids who are throwing stones is the right thing, something is wrong with the whole picture… You know this whole thing did not start with October 7. This has been boiling since 1948."

 (In 1948, the UN created Israel out of the old Palestine controlled by the British.  Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were forced to leave their homes and many were killed. Palestinians call that period the "Nakba," meaning catastrophe).

  “Imagine five generations of Palestinians who've been living under occupation,” Johnny said.

   Under the UN Partition Plan, Israel received 56 percent of the land from the British Mandate. A second state was envisioned for the Palestinians but no agreement was reached on setting it up.

  In the 75 years since then, there has still been no agreement on a second state and now much of the land that Palestinians nominally have, has been chipped away at as the Israeli government has allowed Jewish settlers to take over Palestinian areas to build homes. Now Israel has full control over about 80% of what was the British Mandate and have occupying forces in the remaining Palestinian areas in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem.

  “It’s a land grab. No matter how you look at it, it’s a land grab,” said Johnny.

“People accuse the Palestinians of using the slogan ‘from the river to the sea Palestine will be free’ but in reality it is the Israelis that used that term in the beginning. It was in the Israeli Likud Party charter of 1970 where it is stated that Israel should be on the land ‘from the sea to the river,’ you know.”

  One of the things that most bothers Sakakini is the way the media portrays Palestinians --- likening them to terrorists due to the actions of extremist elements of Hamas or other militant groups.

 “Nobody knows it, but you see how the media dehumanizes us and makes us look to the world like we’re terrorists," he said.  “Customers don’t even know that Jesus was Palestinian. I said, how could you not know where Jesus was born?  Jesus was born in Bethlehem. Where is Bethlehem? It’s in Palestine. Jesus was a Palestinian Jew, just like  there are Palestinian Jews today, Palestinian Muslims and Palestinian Christians.”

  Sakakini said he does not justify the attacks by Hamas last October. “There should not be violence used by either side. There should be peace for us and peace for the Israelis.”

  Members of the Palestinian community around the country have been pressing their Congressional representatives to get the Biden administration to arrange a ceasefire in the Gaza War and get humanitarian aid into Gaza. Sakakini and three others --- including a young woman from Greenwich who has lost 120 members of her wider family in the war --- met with U.S. Rep. Jim Himes, D-4, and told him how much suffering their community has  endured and pleaded with him to back a ceasefire.

   But the meeting was fruitless. "He basically said,  'I understand your pain, but we have to back Israel,' " Sakakini said.

  The resistance by members of Congress to criticize Israel and push for peace has left Palestinians like Johnny bitter at the Democrats. He said many Palestinians will stay uncommitted in this year's election.

  "I was a Democrat all my life. I always voted for them," he said. "But things have to change."

   Sakakini was asked what the solution is to the long-running Palestinian-Israeli dispute.

  “A two state solution. Give the Palestinians the right to live as human beings with all the resources. Give the land back to us that we had. Give the land back so we're living in peace and have all the rights like anyone else," he said.