The Domestic Life of Women Inside War
by Amber Poole
The rotting heart of humanity doesn’t give me much hope that we will justly end the war in Ukraine, the ethnic cleansing of Gaza, the civil war in Sudan, or advance a sustainable plan for the 120 million people displaced by these wars.
J.D. Vance says he doesn’t care what happens to Ukraine, one way or the other. That’s a convenient position considering since the Clinton administration, America has escalated its agenda of forcing NATO practices in Eastern Europe until there was finally war.
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And what happens when there is war, J.D. Vance? After the senseless and needless loss of so many young men drafted into military service, who is left standing to raise the children, to labor for their care? The Women. America dragged us into this war and now, as detached as the flip of a switch, you say you don’t care what happens to Ukraine one way or the other.
Yet, America and Britain support an endless supply of bombs to Israel in their efforts to cleanse the Gaza Strip of its population, without equivocation.
It would appear they don’t much care for Palestinians either.
To be clear, it is a double standard where Israel is concerned. J.D. Vance considers the hackneyed notion that Israel as ‘the cop on the beat in the Middle East’ is worth funding. The irony here is so few, including you J.D. Vance, know very little, if anything about the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the beginning of Western colonialism in that region. So it’s not about pulling the rug out from under the feet of the rest of the world to grant America the opportunity to concentrate on its own problems, it’s a selective ‘pick and choose’ system.
This is our leadership, worldwide. This is the venom and the virus, the sludge that infiltrates the media, the contagion that imprisons the mind, ordering it to hate in some cases but in most, to just not care. Breeding apathy. I don’t care one way or the other what happens to 120 million displaced people or if a pregnant woman is burned alive or an infant convulses from imbedded shrapnel in the body or if 355 bullets are pumped into the body of a six-year-old girl by the ‘most moral army in the world’. I don’t care because it’s not happening in my gated community. It’s not happening in the rich man’s world. It’s not my child, not my church, not my wife, not my daughter, not my friend, not my...I mean, what can I do about it anyway?
It is The Other and I don’t care about The Other, in fact, I care so little that I am willing to drink the poison of the propaganda narrative that tells me to be afraid, to think of The Other as a threat, to think of them as inhuman, even better, to not think at all, but just drink up, feed upon the lies and live my own life, at least live it the way The Rich Man dictates because The Rich Man makes me feel secure, even though, in the order of things, after The Rich Man has a go at The Other, you and I might very well be next on his list. (Study what happened in Poland – a deep study; it wasn’t just the Polish Jews that Hitler wanted to eliminate from the country, he first went after the Polish nobility, landowners, artists, intellectuals, scholars and writers, which he successfully managed to cleanse). Read.
Not for one minute am I convinced that this whole ‘Make America Great Again’ extravaganza is really going to achieve the goal of building bridges between the poor working class and the 1%, solve the Fentynal crisis, improve health care for seniors or impact a solution for homelessness other than to relocate it, which is not enough. As displaced persons continue to stack, there will come a time when there will be no place to relocate. When operating from a starting point that poor, homeless folk make rich folk feel queasy, I don’t hold out much hope that anything more than a cosmetic solution will be applied.
Meanwhile, Sun Valley Idaho welcomed their annual attendees to the ‘summer camp for billionaires last week.’ Hedge fund quarterly dividends: it’s what’s for dinner. It’s what hyper-capitalism feeds on. Unfortunately, snap. You’re not invited. When will we wake up to the fact that we’re not on the guest list.
*****
On Saturday, my dear friend from Switzerland surprised me with a short, overnight visit. She was travelling through Germany, on her way to the Polish seaside and stopped at the border to see me.
I had two hours to quickly tidy up the house and prepare something for dinner. Grab the broom, sweep the floors, give the bathroom a once over, stash the clutter, light some candles, get the lentils and rice going; I can do that in two hours.
But then...
I have water. Clean water. I have light. I have lentils and rice. I have cleaning supplies and I have towels. I have soap.
I have power. I have a refrigerator. I have a stove.
I can cook. I can clean. I can sit in front of the fan if it’s too hot. I can turn on the light in the middle of the night if I have to go to the bathroom.
Oh. Yes. I almost forgot. I have a bathroom too. I can clean my own bathroom. I can flush my toilet.
I’m always thinking about my friends in Palestine: the women who have nothing but the clothes on their backs, sleeping in tents on dirt floors, some, even, who have chosen to cut their hair due to the inaccessibility of basic sanitary options such as soap and water, add to the unmerciful heat as oppressive as their occupiers. It may not seem like much of a sacrifice, but it’s just one more domestic component that must be compromised under occupation and now, under genocide.
Can you imagine living in a tent, which is actually a luxury as many are living on the street, with no water and no electricity. Food is in short supply and most all belongings have been destroyed. And you’re not camping. This is the real deal. You’re living in squalor. In scorching temperatures with no end in sight.
What do you think of when you think of a Palestinian woman? What image comes to mind. I’m curious. How do you picture them?
Mother, daughter, sister, friend, doctor, lawyer, wife, auntie? They are all of these.
When my husband and I provided shelter for 40 Ukrainian women and children for 18 months, I had no idea what to expect from these women or who they were, but who ultimately became part of my extended family; some, my dearest friends, a niece by marriage and a business partner. That was my winning lottery ticket. (Sunflowers at my Table: War Diaries of a Ukrainian Community). I urge you to read this book for the simple reason that it might help you overcome the fear of The Other as we perceive it and falsely project it onto another human being.
Women inside War.
I don’t want to underestimate the terror of being driven from your home by an aggressive invasion of another country with bigger guns, but the Ukrainians were welcomed into Poland. They could move around. All borders around the world opened their doors to receive them.
The Palestinian women are trapped in an open-air prison and charged with crimes they didn’t commit. Make no mistake. They are erroneously labelled as the enemy, stereotyped and judged unfairly.
The Palestinian women are well educated. They value education unlike any I know. They are artistic, talented musicians, actors, writers, journalists, painters, lecturers, doctors, dentists, pharmacists, engineers and more. To think that women who have studied so hard, who have dedicated their early life to something useful, something that can make a difference to this shabby, despicable world to try and make it a better place are now living in these deplorable conditions. Our dogs don’t live like this.
To demonstrate the contrast of life before the genocide, Heba writes:
I was a spoiled, sociable only child. My parents one and only focus was to care for me, to provide a good education for me and to teach me about generosity and the value of being kind. I loved kitchen games. I was an enthusiastic child in the kitchen and loved helping mother prepare food for our meals. I loved playing with my friends. Since my earliest memory, I imitated the beautiful qualities of my parents. I recognized from early childhood that they cared for me like nothing else. We lived in a beautiful house. We woke up to the sound of birds singing. We ate breakfast together as a family.
My favorite book is Men are From Mars, Women are from Venus.
What do I love about the Palestinian people, she says… They can make the impossible happen.
Heba is one of my friends. She’s a software engineer with such a kind heart. On the occasions I’ve sent money to her, she buys what food she can find and shares it with the children. This is the soul of Heba.
Tomorrow my women friends can go for heart checks if it’s quiet. If the bombs are not dropping. They are suffering from severe panic attacks which, in some instances, are causing episodes of tachycardia.
As you’ve read in the news, the ‘most moral army in the world’ dropped flyers announcing the safe areas in Al-Mawasi, Nuseirat Refugee Camp, Khan Younis, and Rafah. When everyone moved into these ‘safe’ areas and got as settled as they could with no supplies, the only ethical thing to do at this point was/is to bomb the hell out of them. Shootin’ at fish in the barrel style, or should I say Israeli style.
Everyday these bombs fall from the sky, claiming the lives of women and children, not Hamas. Babies can’t sleep, can’t feed. Mothers are terrified trying desperately to protect them but in too may cases, loose their children to the ‘most moral army in the world.’ Please don’t forget that Ben-Gvir, the Minister of National Security in Israel, is perfectly happy with women and children being shot. ‘We cannot have women and children getting close to the border...anyone who gets near must get a bullet in the head.’ So he says.
My friends live in an atmosphere of death. The stench of the strewn dead bodies. The smell of sewage. The heavy air. The fear of not knowing who’s next.
Is this the kind of world we want to bring into being? Do we think that our gated minds living inside our gated communities will protect us from the consequences of the barbarity we inflict upon of so many innocent women and children? Or do we suffer from some kind of delusional thinking that would indicate to us that this just happens ‘over there’?
Please STOP killing my friends. Please just STOP the killing.
*****
A few texts from Dr. Al-Mohanad:
Things are getting worse by the day.
It’s dangerous to move around.
I can’t stay at my tent.
Various texts from Haneen:
I sleep on the floor without a mattress, unfortunately.
I feel affectionate hands (the presence of spirit) on my shoulders everyday. My heart hurts so much. Did you ever feel like your heart wanted to cry? Good morning, my loyal friend, the child Yazan (Haneen’s cousin)* is in intensive care at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital. His mother, my aunt, was killed. His father also in intensive care. There is no safety in Gaza to stay in one place. The victims are women and children.
*Yazan was injured during the first strike at the Unrwa School, which occurred after the strike at Al-Mawasi, but before the second strike at the same school the next day at Unrwa.
Children wake up everyday with no parents, sometimes no legs, no arms.
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