By JOHN LESLIE

The book, “Things You May Find Hidden in my Ear: Poems from Gaza,” by Mosab Abu Toha is a wonderful collection of poetry about life, love, loss, and all the things in between. Abu Toha writes about Gaza, the city of his birth, in a way that pulls you in and helps see the sights and smell the air. At a time where Gaza is being erased by Israel with the help of Western imperialism, reading Abu Toha’s poems helps us grasp the human dimension behind the statistics.

“Things You May Find Hidden in my Ear” was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and won an American Book Award. Abu Toha was detained by Israeli troops in Gaza in November and released after an international outcry.

In “Leaving Childhood Behind,” Abu Toha writes:

I walked with my sister, down the road with no end.

We sang a birthday song.

The warplanes echoed across the heavens.

My tired parents walked behind,

My father clutching to his chest

The keys to our house and to the stable. (excerpt)

Keys are mentioned more than once in Abu Toha’s work. During the Nakba (Catastrophe), the ethnic cleansing of Palestine by Zionist militias, many Palestinians fled their homes taking the keys with them thinking that they would return one day. The key has become one of the symbols of the Palestinian liberation movement, representing the right to return to stolen land and homes one day. Abu Toha’s grandparents were forced from their home in Yaffa in 1948 taking the key with them.

In “Palestine A-Z,” Abu Toha writes: “My grandfather kept the key to his house in Yaffa in 1948. He thought they would return in a few days. His name was Hasan. The house was destroyed. Others built a new one in its place. Hasan died in Gaza in 1986.The key is rusted but still exists somewhere, longing for the old wooden door.” (excerpt)

In “My Grandfather was a Terrorist,” he writes:

My grandfather was a terrorist—

He departed his home, leaving it for the coming guests,

left some water on the table, his best,

lest the guests die of thirst after their conquest.”(excerpt)

As Israel and their supporters try to physically erase the Palestinian people, they are also intent on erasing every vestige of Palestinian culture. The genocide in Gaza requires us to look away, to see Palestinians as “the other.” Simply put, it is more difficult to destroy people when you acknowledge their humanity. Palestinians are people who write novels and poetry, play music, and make art.

This attempted erasure of culture is visible in the backlash against a Palestinian literature festival, Palestine Writes, held Sept. 22-24, 2023, at the University of Pennsylvania. Wealthy donors claimed that the festival itself was a gathering of antisemites and terrorism supporters and withheld donations from the university. However, the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations (NELC) description of the event explains that the festival was a “gathering [of] dozens of writers, artists, publishers, performers, and scholars to explore the richness and diversity of Palestinian culture.”

Palestine Writes executive director and organizer Susan Abulhawa responded to criticism, stating, “It will stand in history as a testament to the grotesque privileged elite who stood behind a genocidal settler colonial state & cheered on the bombs obliterating the indigenous population. … We are not afraid, nor are we intimidated by craven statements of individuals who genuflect before powerful billionaire donors to attack the weak and marginalized.”

This contempt for Palestinians and their culture is nothing new. In 1914, Moshe Sharett, who would become Israel’s first foreign minister, wrote, “We have forgotten that we have not come to an empty land to inherit it, but we have come to conquer a country from people inhabiting it, that governs it by the virtue of its language and savage culture.”

In “The Wounds,” Abu Toha continues with something that seems ripped from today’s headlines:

The houses were not Hamas

The kids were not Hamas.

Their clothes and toys were not Hamas.

The neighborhood was not Hamas.

The air was not Hamas.

Our ears were not Hamas.

Our eyes were not Hamas.

The one who ordered the killing,

the one who pressed the button thought

only  of Hamas. (excerpt)

“Things You May Find Hidden in my Ear: Poems from Gaza,” by Abu Toha is published by City Lights Books. I encourage the reader to buy a copy and share it with friends and family. I would also encourage you to ask your school and local libraries to carry this book and other books about Palestine. In times like these, times of war and genocide, we must above all assert the humanity of the Palestinain people.

I’ll let Mosab Abu Toha have the last word:

A ROSE SHOULDERS UP

Don’t ever be surprised

to see a rose shoulder up

among the ruins of a house

This is how we survived.

Photo: Mosab Abu Toha in 2022 in the ruins of a house in Gaza that was bombed by the Israelis.