I, Yasin Shareef, an olive harvester in the town of Sinjil, north of Ramallah, Palestine, send warm salutations to you, Uri Horowitz, a retired astronomer in East Jerusalem. I extend my hand.
The fifth Prime Minister of Palestine was my son, Mustafa Shareef. The fifteenth Prime Minister of Israel was your son, Elijah Horowitz. They will be remembered as long as there is peace between our two nations. They will be forgotten when honoring the humanity of others is voluntary. I pray that time never reaches us again.
I only speak Arabic, so my daughter, Karima, translates my words in Hebrew and writes them down on the page. She went to university in Tel Aviv. She’s a filmmaker. She also studied Hebrew and English. I’m told your surviving son, Matthew, is a filmmaker as well. My daughter has seen some of his work. She enjoys movies more than I do.
She wants me to tell you that she holds the deepest respect for how your son Elijah fought for peace, not war, until the very end. She wants me to tell you that his memory will live on forever. She understands that your son was not popular among his own government. She thinks that a man with ideas of harmony and order threatens no one, and that a man with ideas of conquest and carnage threatens everyone. She believes that our country’s right to self-determination was accepted as a peace aim in the wake of your son’s death, the same way she believes that your country’s decision to lay down its arms was accepted as a peace aim in the wake of her younger brother’s death. She maintains it was fate that they both spent their final days in the same hospital in Norway. And in her grief, she believes our lives are forever indebted to theirs.
If she wishes, she can make a movie about the lives of our sons. Who knows, maybe our living children might work on such a movie together. That would be nice. But for now, this is my letter, and I will get Karima to write these words that I speak from the heart to you, Uri Horowitz.
I will tell you a story, Mr. Horowitz. When my son Mustafa first told me his vision for how he’d lead our country, he spoke of your country in the same breath. In his eyes, they would always be intertwined. He talked about it often, the need to restore balance between our people and offer a safe haven for our dignities to be protected, for our differences to be respected, and our dreams to be realized. This belief, of course, was met with resistance from your government, a government that took great offense at my son’s words. Politicians across various war cabinets spared no opportunity to let their opinions be known, often in cruel ways. My son spoke his truth, and your government wanted him to be mindful of what he spoke. Yet, dirty words never once escaped the teeth of my son, even when they were hurled in his direction.
My son always kept a smile on his face. He smiled because it was a form of charity. He smiled because it was his favorite genre of communication. My son believed that history was worth remembering, but not at the expense of tomorrow. He told me that, while history is meant to guide us, it can also paralyze us in equal amounts. I think what my son meant by that was how terrible of a punishment it would be to permanently hold yourself hostage to the past when the possibility of beauty and love and forgiveness surrounds you and gestures at you with open arms. It’s the kind of perspective you’d expect from a man seasoned with life and meaning. My son was barely thirty when he told me that.
During his campaign, my son Mustafa told me that one of his greatest fears was the idea that defeat would not be his to pay, but the people that came after him. He built emotional superstructures out of this fear, fear over events that hadn’t happened yet. He laughed when I told him that he worried just like his old man. It was a reasonable fear for him to have, but I did not tell him that. Instead, I told him to focus his energy on building a cause, not out of what happened, but what should happen according to the things he believed in, and to trust that those of sound mind and heart will follow him on that path. His responsibility in all of this, I told him, was to raise the collective conscience. Anything after that was a bonus. As a man of science and space, I’m sure you can appreciate how hard it is to prepare for a miracle that has yet to be seen. My son expected the worst while still hoping for the best.
Layla, my wife, rejoiced the day Mustafa was elected because she understood what it meant for Palestinians and Israelis alike. “God shines His light on all of us!” she proclaimed.
But I went on to have bad dreams shortly after my son was sworn in as Prime Minister. I had no basis for the bad dreams that I had, no evidence that suggested calamity was on the horizon. By that time, your son was climbing the polls in Israel, and when he was elected just a few months later, I should have felt comforted by these historic events. Our sons were similar. I knew that from the very beginning. I felt that their capacity for courage and kindness was immeasurable, that they truly saw the good in people, that their values were joined at the hip and would pave the way for a new way of governing, one that honors the liberties of its citizens and its neighbors. They were thoughtful men. And with enough hard work, sincerity, and time, they would usher in an era that would bring generations of Palestinians and Israelis to their knees with overwhelming joy and elation.
Still, there wasn’t a night where I wasn’t haunted by bad dreams. Maybe the dreams were trying to tell me something. Maybe the dreams were a revelation. Maybe the dreams were trying to warn me that no good deed goes unpunished.
Karima is very embarrassed that I should say that in this letter to you. She thinks that you will think I am a cynical and superstitious man. Maybe I am. I think that religious people of the past would caution religious people of the present. They would caution them because religious people of the present assign so much more of what happens to them to chance than they do to fate. The things I dreamed about my son came true. Mustafa died in a hospital in Oslo, Norway. On the eve of his death, my son told newsmen how optimistic he was about the prospect of the two-state solution and the future of our two nations. I cried like a baby when the news reached me. I have never cried as hard as I cried for my Mustafa. Allah Yerhamo. May God have mercy on him.
I am a selfish man. I would give up everything in exchange for my son. I would give up all that I own: my home, my farm, my precious olive trees. I would give up peace. I would give up sovereignty. I would give up diplomacy. What good is it to enjoy the fruits of a utopia if I cannot enjoy it with the one who helped bring it to my feet? Does that make me a coward, Mr. Horowitz? Maybe it does. Just know I take no pleasure in these thoughts. I am simply a man that hasn’t ever stopped grieving his little boy. But I realize I do not have to tell you this. A part of me likes to believe you feel the same as I do.
Yesterday, I travelled from Ramallah to Northern Gaza to visit the library named after my son: The Mustafa Center. It was a long train ride, and along the way I couldn’t help but remember a time when there was no way a person could travel freely between these two cities due to division and politics. Now they have railways extending in every known direction across the country. How times have changed.
My daughter tells me that there have been several books written about my son since the last time I visited his library. It’s been so long that I hardly recognized the building anymore. It’s modern and grand now, something I’d expect to find on the campus of a prominent university, not on the corner of a quiet street in Gaza.
When the librarian asked if I was looking for anything in particular, I did not tell her because I knew she would point me toward the aisle where I’d find words written about my son and that realization was too much for me to handle. It was always too much for me to handle. I wandered the halls in timid measure, keeping a respectable distance from the shelves, fearful that the books I passed might catch on fire if I examined them closely. I found out for myself in the library that the shelves were not a fit place for my son or his legacy. The pages were either too short or too long, the words were either too sterilized or too flowery, the concepts were either too nebulous or too plain, the sentiments were either too painful or too soothing, the realities were either too near or too far. I wanted to pull them all down. I did not want their memorialization. I did not want their tributes. I did not want their records of history. I only wanted my son back.
And as I made my way out, the librarian from behind the desk called out to me and asked if I was someone she had met before. I told her no. I felt I was dismantling in front of her. As I hurried off, I looked at her face one last time for some flicker of familiarity, but there was none.
Maybe I did know her. Who knows. My memory is so bad nowadays, I wouldn’t be surprised. Once you get to around my age, faces start to shed most of their meaning.
At home, I said nothing about my trip to the library to my wife because I did not want her to know. My discoveries would serve no purpose. Most of it she already knew. She frequents his library almost every week. And I did not want to tell her the things I read about Mustafa because I knew that it would only make her sad. I waited for Karima to come home, and after dinner, we resumed our evening ritual of penning you this letter.
The sight of one’s son on his death bed is an unforgiving sight, Mr. Horowitz. I know I don’t have to explain this to you. My son was a strong man, with broad shoulders and eyes like a full moon. When I saw him for the last time, he was a small and tired man. Cancer of the colon had taken a sledgehammer to my son’s body, shrunk it, weakened it. The pink and red were flushed from his face. His cheeks were razor sharp. His eyes were sunken. I learned later that Mustafa had continued working long after his diagnosis. That didn’t surprise me. He had a tireless work ethic. He was like that even as a child, in school, at home, on the farm. During his last months, my son held many important meetings from the hospital room. My son worked until he couldn’t work anymore. Then he passed on. Mr. Horowitz, you would have liked my son. He was a calm man. He was a noble man. He was so noble of a man that he did not tell his family he was sick.
At that time, I asked Mustafa’s chief of staff, Ahmed Faraj, who stood outside his hospital room out of respect, if he knew why my son withheld this information for his family. The gentleman was very solemn when he answered me. He had cause to be solemn. He was telling me why Mustafa was willing to suffer in silence.
Ahmed started his speech, but not before my wife and daughter let their feelings be known. And Ahmed bore the brunt of it, listening with tact and patience while the voices of Layla and Karima assaulted him and their hands did tender violence to his shirt.
Ahmed told us that the decision wasn’t something that Mustafa came to easily.
“Your son’s every act and intention has been aimed at creating change, as much as a person possibly can.”
“No!” said my wife.
“It would have been very difficult if news got out about his condition. You would’ve wanted him to step away, anybody would.”
“He had no right!”
“Yes,” said Ahmed, deeply pained by these words my wife uttered, “but even so, it’s what he wanted.”
Ahmed turned to face me, his eyes filled with undiluted sorrow. “The density of your son’s regret,” he said, “was grounded by this thought: there is so much love to be learned and seen out there.” And this part moved me. “Your son,” he said, “treated every day like he was trying to restore the parts of humanity that had been lost. For a year and a half, that was his sole mission. And by God, I like to think that in this moment, he has accomplished that mission.” Ahmed started to cry but found himself doing it all by himself; and he stopped.
In my numbness, I nodded to Ahmed as if to say he was right. I perceived the tragedy of my son’s decision as a man who not only knew the definition of tragedy, but as a man who has felt it. I knew its weight in my bones. I knew what it was like to live in a world that was shaded by fear and violence. I knew what it was like to live in a world that was absent of love. My son was creating a new world. And I tried to help my wife hold the picture in her mind, the picture of a world without the things that we had become accustomed to. I tried to help my wife picture a world of peace, of unity, of forgiveness. I locked my wrists together in her hands and dumbly waited for the beauty to reach her. And I told her how beautiful it is to be the parents of a child who has the eyes, ears, and heart of humanity.
It was later that night that the doors of mourning broke in. The weight of Mustafa’s death plunged in through the hospital windows, blowing wind, flashing lights, blasting sirens. And we listened to it.
In the months after my son’s death, every night I listened to the radio broadcast of things that your son Elijah Horowitz said. I heard nothing about hatred, or revenge, or conquest. I only heard the composed, brave things that he said. For months, I cherished the words of your son because they reminded me of my son. Elijah sounded strong. He sounded optimistic. He sounded kind and wise and caring. And then one night, I did not hear your son’s voice. When the news of his death reached me, I couldn’t help but cry.
Our sons both passed away in the same hospital in Oslo, Norway. This is not news. Our sons suffered at the hands of a similar affliction, one colon cancer, the other lung . I don’t know if that’s poetry, but I like to think it is. Only now, ten years later, have I learned that Elijah visited Mustafa while he was ill. They spent a weekend in that hospital room together. Did you know that, Mr. Horowitz? I wonder what they talked about in those moments. I wonder what emotions dominated their airspace. I wonder what it must’ve been like, looking at each other, telling the other what the world should look like and having the ability to make it come true.
It’s one of those stories a father will keep telling himself over and over whenever he’s pinched by grief.
I write this letter to you as a stubborn olive harvester. Our farm had been passed down for generations up until the war, where it was sold away from our possession. It was only after your son was elected that our land was restored in our name. It’s just one of the many things your son did to honor the deal struck between our two nations. Blessings from beyond the grave.
I like to think our farm is very fertile ground for hope to grow and take shape. I’ve enclosed a photograph of an olive tree, taken just this week. It’s in excellent condition. I’d like for you to have it, Uri Horowitz, if you’ll accept. I can think of no more heartened symbol of man’s goodwill than extending an olive branch. I’ve also enclosed a photograph of myself, my wife, my daughter, and my son, happily taken in downtown Gaza the night your son Elijah was sworn in as Prime Minister of Israel.
Indeed, what a night that was.
Your friend, always,
Yasin Shareef
Sinjil, Palestine