A review by yossikhe
The Words of My Father: Love and Pain in Palestine, by Yousef Bashir
5.0
One of my favorite books ever. A beautifully written, heartbreaking story with a message of peace and coexistence. It is a story that speaks to me, a Jewish reader, on how occupation has corrupted my dear Israel. I have a strong bond with the Jewish State, and it's sad to look at it as the perpetrator of injustice and inhumanity. Nevertheless, the Israel I know and love is also represented in the book as the nurses who helped Yousef in Tel Aviv and the kids he lives with in the hospital. It's a story of humanity, of how people represented in the media as just victims have too, a daily life: the Palestinians go to school, like soccer, mess around with their friends and hide from their parents.
It is a story of peaceful resistance and sacrifices, as Khalil Bashir, the father of the author, did not give in to the IDF Soldiers who mistreated his family, shot his son and made them prisoners in their own house. In the contrary, he always treated them like guests and seemed to understand that they don't know what they're doing because "they are kids".
The thing that shocked me the most was the necessity to humiliate by the soldiers. Khalil Bashir relates that after the night they left in the Gaza Disengagement, they found that the soldiers had defecated on all the Kitchen Pots just to disturb them, or to asses their "superiority" over the family.
I love the ending of the book, with a peace offering to the soldier who shot him: “Without your bullet, I might never have understood forgiveness. You were created by the same God who created me. You have the same humanity as I have. You are part of the same family as I am. I forgive you, my cousin.” concludes Bashir.
Must-read.
It is a story of peaceful resistance and sacrifices, as Khalil Bashir, the father of the author, did not give in to the IDF Soldiers who mistreated his family, shot his son and made them prisoners in their own house. In the contrary, he always treated them like guests and seemed to understand that they don't know what they're doing because "they are kids".
The thing that shocked me the most was the necessity to humiliate by the soldiers. Khalil Bashir relates that after the night they left in the Gaza Disengagement, they found that the soldiers had defecated on all the Kitchen Pots just to disturb them, or to asses their "superiority" over the family.
I love the ending of the book, with a peace offering to the soldier who shot him: “Without your bullet, I might never have understood forgiveness. You were created by the same God who created me. You have the same humanity as I have. You are part of the same family as I am. I forgive you, my cousin.” concludes Bashir.
Must-read.