If I Must Die: Poetry and Prose
Israel killed the Palestinian writer Refaat Alareer on 7 December 2023, in the first months of the genocide in Gaza. The poem from which the book gets its title catapulted Alaeer into international prominence after his murder, a message that is now inscribed into our conscious and conscience. However, this collection of writings is a sombre reminded that such voices should be still alive, writing and leading the struggle against Zionist colonialism.
Alareer reminds the reader of the continuation that is Zionist annihilation of Palestine, as the writings in the anthology span the period between 2010 and 2023. Annihilation comes in several forms, we are reminded. Not only the killings of tens of thousands of Palestinians, but the Zionist narrative’s erasure of truth is also the annihilation of the Palestinian people and their land.
“Ten years ago not one single Palestinian (not even those with the wildest imagination) could have foreseen that certain kinds of rockets will be used in the struggle. But Israel made it possible. By crushing stone throwers, Israel was, albeit not directly, saying to the Palestinians, “you better think of other weapons.” And Palestinians did.” This excerpt from a 2011 essay by Alareer is testimony to how Palestinian resistance grew according to the expansion of Israel’s colonial violence. The intifadas were not inevitable – they were developed as a result of Israel’s determination to erase Palestinians from Palestine.
Alareer’s writings also devote ample space to the humanity that Israel crushes with the might of its bombs and bulldozers. In the midst of bombings and in their intervals, Alareer discusses his children’s questions on colonialism and violence, his contributions to education in Gaza, his encouraging students to write and “showcase Palestinian creative resistance to injustice and to Israeli racism and brutality.” Storytelling, which is the main fabric of this anthology, makes an appearance when Alareer discusses his readings of European literature and imperialist discourse – the example given being Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe. “Crusoe’s imperialist discourse had never before annoyed me like it did them,” Alareer writes, noting that Palestinians should never have their stories told by anyone else when they have the capacity to narrate their stories themselves.
Literature also played a role in Zionist colonialism, Alareer notes. The colonisation of Palestine was preceded by Zionist literature, with the difference that the literature describing the so-called barren land was a lie: “And there were people – there have always been people in Palestine.”
With his focus on storytelling, Alareer also pays tribute to the Palestinian tradition of oral history. “If I allowed a story to stop, I would be betraying my legacy, my mother, my grandmother, and my homeland,” he asserts. The homeland is the ultimate link for Palestinians – leaving is not an option and Israel leaves no options for Palestinians to leave and return. Leaving recreates the 1948 Nakba. For Palestinians, Alareer writes, “People stayed because finding peace and protection in one’s own house is a very human act. And for that Israel sought to punish the whole Gaza Strip.”
Reading through the essays and poetry in this anthology, the importance of continuity is reinforced time and again. Alareer notes the Israeli insistence on destroying Shujaiya, which he says “was the last area to fall under Israeli occupation in 1967.” There is a reason behind the destruction and one that lingers in Israel’s colonial violence. The same can be said for Israel’s collective punishment against Palestinians, as Alareer wrote in 2015: “Israel, in its arrogance, the PA’s Mahmoud Abbas in his cravenness, and Arab regimes, in their complicity, seem to have agreed that a good Gaza is a starved Gaza.” In Israel’s genocide in Gaza since October 2023, starvation was implemented overtly as a genocidal weapon. This is the continuity that the international community allows, unlike the Palestinian resistance which also has to fight for its continuity, not just against Israeli colonialism and Western imperialism.
One particular anecdote Alareer narrates is his teaching of English literature at the Islamic University of Gaza, where his students under his guidance dissected the stereotypes and racism in set texts such as William Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice. Alareer notes that his students identified with the aggression Shylock experienced in the play, choosing to resist humiliation and subjugation like Palestinians do against Zionist colonial violence. Israel bombed the Islamic University of Gaza in 2014, destroying the criticism papers of Alareer’s students which he intended to compile for a book. While the Islamic University of Gaza was teaching literary criticism, Israel destroyed the academic institution on the premise of “a weapons development centre”. Literature, Alareer states, did not protect Palestinians against death. But that did not stop Israel from destroying the Palestinians’ right to education and literary expression.
By the time Alareer’s writings discuss the genocide, the continuation of Zionist colonial violence and its ramifications on Palestinians becomes as heavy as the genocide itself. Alareer’s writing is incisive, straightforward, but also gentle, demanding understanding. How does a father express love for his children in times of genocide? How do Palestinians transition from the knowledge of land, bequeathed over generations, to fluency in Israel’s relentless bombings and killings?
“This is an extermination,” Alareer writes. “Israel long ago created the concentration camp. But now this is an extermination camp.” Maybe if the entire world listened to the Palestinian people instead of describing Gaza through Israel’s security narrative, the world would have at least got the right vocabulary.
Instead, Refaat Alareer’s clarity of writing and speech was extinguished by Israel, along with other tens of thousands of Palestinians whose voices we will never know, but all of who had stories to tell.
