Certainly in writing and speaking, one’s aim is… trying to induce a change in the moral climate whereby aggression is as such, the unjust punishment of peoples or individuals is either prevented or given up, and the recognition of rights and democratic freedoms is established as a norm for everyone, not invidiously for a select few.” – The Reitch Lectures (1993) by Edward Said

To paraphrase Greek philosopher Plato, only the dead know the end of war. In retrospect, Plato was right. As this piece is being penned, 8000 Palestinians have died in the attacks on Gaza, with half of them being children. By the time you read this story, these numbers will have risen.

When we discuss Palestine, or march in protests, some of us do so in a binary sense, informed primarily by the media and news footage. Victims and survivors. War and peace. Infringement and noninfringement.

However, truth be told, the situation is far more complex than we care to admit. Somewhere between a people mourning its dead, and longing for freedom and recognition as a free state, it is also a land inhabited by people who are just like you and me but described in half-truths.

In 2008, as the Palestinian Festival of Literature celebrated its tenth anniversary, the varied accounts of those on the ground and their individual experiences culminated in the book, This Is Not a Border, first released in 2017.

With editing beautifully handled by Ahdaf Soueif and Omar Robert Hamilton, it is one of those rare books where you can begin at any chapter, penned by more than a dozen writers, and understand that the cause of Palestine could not be more true or significant unless your understanding of the human condition is narrow and the woes of Palestinian people in a broader sense is lost.

In This Is Not a Border, each account, each poem, each piece is helpful because it provides a narrative that is based on personal experience and covers a variety of issues.

I can’t believe the news today/Oh, I can’t close my eyes and make it go away.” - ‘Sunday Bloody Sunday’ by U2

Yasmin El-Rifae describes how nothing in Palestine is free from occupation in the introduction before stories, reporting, reflections or poems.

Over the course of 10 years, PalFest has hosted some of the finest writers, novelists and so on. But with one condition: PalFest also mirrored the experience of the very audience it was catering to.

Wrote Yasmin El-Rifae: “Palestinians under the occupation are issued by Israel with one of two types of pass: a Jerusalem ID or a West Bank ID. If you have a West Bank ID you cannot enter Jerusalem or go beyond the 1948 line without a special permit.”

What this means is that Ben Gurion Airport is not open to you and you must travel via Jordan, over the King Hussein (or Allenby) Bridge. To mime the real experience of a Palestinian, this was the “entry point” for PalFest.

Mahmoud Darwish, reflecting on Palestinian history, notes not just the role of a writer who seeks the truth but how attempts have been made to “erase” the Palestinian people from “the memory of history and from the map of this place”.

We are also reminded that this conflict is not up for discourse. “The Arabs have unanimously offered Israel a collective peace proposal in return for Israel’s recognition of the Palestinians’ right to an Independent state. But Israel refuses.”

Life in Palestine, or surviving each day is a miracle because every day a Palestinian person dies. Apartheid ended in South Africa and the Berlin Wall has fallen, but apartheid is alive and flourishing in this part of the world.

Somewhere between a people mourning its dead, and longing for freedom and recognition as a free state, Palestine is also a land inhabited by people who are just like you and me, but described in half-truths. “I’m almost ashamed to admit it: Palestinians are normal people,” writes Adam Foulds. “Friendly, intelligent, rational people. Not only their warmth and openness, given their situation, was very striking. All the Palestinians we met were extraordinarily hospitable and pleased to see us. Movement is all but impossible for Palestinians, and the presence of outsiders seemed to bring oxygen to their enclosed world.”

From geographical terrain to language, every question regarding the existence and occupation of Palestine is answered through experience. But finding answers is another matter.

Yasmin El-Rifae notes in a chapter called Where does Palestine begin and provides context to the geographical terrain.

She says: “There is often confusion when talking about Palestine as a geographical place. Most people don’t know that Gaza and the West Bank are as unreachable from one another as two places can be. You cannot reach either one without going through a border or a checkpoint controlled by Israel.”

Suheir Hammad writes in poetic form in a chapter called The Gaza Suite: Gaza and the harrowing reality of each day.

“Each day Jihad/Each day faith over fear/each day a mirror of fire/the living want to die with their families…”

Adam Foulds reflects on how years of education and news footage cannot begin to prepare you for the anxieties that begin as you prepare to head to your destination and how meeting Palestinians is not different from meeting individuals from a place that is not occupied and where death doesn’t lurk and take one life every day.

“I’m almost ashamed to admit it: Palestinians are normal people – friendly, intelligent, rational people. Not only their warmth and openness, given their situation, was very striking,” he writes. “All the Palestinians we met were extraordinarily hospitable and pleased to see us. Movement is all but impossible for Palestinians, and the presence of outsiders seemed to bring oxygen to their enclosed world.”

Susan Abulhawa writes on a heartbreaking note in her piece: “To be disinherited of home, land and family was perhaps a fate worse than death.”

Sabrina Mahfouz paints a sharper image of what attending PalFest brought - by dividing each day from start to finish - jotting how even when nothing went wrong, every single day of traveling from one place to another brought with it fear, trepidation and constant worry about all that could’ve gone wrong as well as why words such as occupied and oppressed apply to Palestine since decades.

Through each piece we learn about the Palestinian reality including illegal settlements by Israelis, its culture, the bullying of a people, the presence of Israel in Palestine that is so tangible that you cannot deny it.

Other accounts are just as important to read although reading the whole book in one go will make you realize a great many things: some of us are do forget about the Palestinians even when we read the numbers of the dead go up or remain static because we are focused on internal conflict or too busy to wonder what it must be like to live under such oppression. What this book exquisitely does is that it represents Palestinians and the courage with which they lead their daily lives in a broader sense. The writers must be applauded because they made the effort to go to PalFest over the years as well as those who had the courage to start this festival and/or lend support.

If you are protesting in the name of Palestine in any part of the world, understanding the ground reality and the wounds of the people is paramount. Writings in this book will help in achieving that goal although it does so in a manner that is bold and ironically enough, wailing. Don’t turn away, though. It is important to learn these truths before waving flags or joining protests based on a single commonality.

Other reading material that complements This Is Not a Border include a graphic novel called Palestine by Joe Sacco, which is simply put, “gripping” as well as Letters to Palestine: Writers Respond to War and Occupation that features at least a dozen writers and neatly edited by Vijay Prasad.