From Mahmoud Darwish, Poet
Gaza is not the most beautiful city.
Its shore is not bluer than the shores of Arab cities.
Its oranges are not the most beautiful in the Mediterranean basin.
Gaza is not the richest city.
It is not the most elegant or the biggest, but it equals the history of an entire homeland, because it is more ugly, impoverished, miserable, and vicious in the eyes of enemies.
Because it is the most capable, among us, of disturbing the enemy’s mood and his comfort. Because it is his nightmare. Because it is mined with oranges; children without a childhood; old men without old age; and women without desires. Because of all this it is the most beautiful, the purest and richest among us and the one most worthy of love."
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. . .For a few days a place called Gaza appeared between dreams. The old harbour of Gaza may currently be experiencing reinvestment delays but the sun shines as beautiful here as on any other part of the eastern Mediterranean coastline.
The crowds here might make one believe they were in any part of downtown Cairo.
In time, hostility may not end, but its substance might evolve to resemble a minor disagreement over tax revenue and appropriate use of firearms. And that evolution for Gaza is still somewhere down the road . .
. . . in the undiscovered country.
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