<\/p>\n
Gaza has been dubbed a \u2018graveyard\u2019 for children by the Unicef<\/a>. Israeli airstrikes relentlessly tear through neighbourhoods, schools, hospitals and mosques, leaving devastation in their wake.<\/p>\n For the last five months, Israel\u2019s siege on the coastal enclave has cut off electricity, water, and basic supplies, in an attempt to push the Palestinians to the brink. The world wakes up every day to jarring images of dead babies as Israeli warplanes carpet bomb Palestinian territories, yet calls for a ceasefire fall on deaf ears.<\/p>\n That\u2019s precisely why the session on \u2018Ceasefire Forever\u2019 brought the audience together on Sunday at the 15th Karachi Literature Festival held at the Beach Luxury Hotel \u2014 to shed light on Palestine and its people; their plight and suffering, their resilience and courage, and to stress that a ceasefire was the only way forward. No more excuses, no more delays. No more \u2018humanitarian pauses\u2019. It\u2019s \u2018Ceasefire Forever\u2019, or nothing<\/em>.<\/p>\n Salma Dabbagh<\/a>, a Palestinian writer residing in London, discussed excerpts from her novel, \u201cOut of It\u201d<\/a>, underscoring its relevance to Gaza\u2019s predicament today. The panel discussion, titled \u201cCeasefire Forever,\u201d was moderated by author and documentary filmmaker Saba Karim. The session provided insights into Dabbagh\u2019s layered perspective on the ongoing Israel-Palestine conflict.<\/p>\n Karim asked Dabbagh how the latter even begins to process apartheid unfolding in a place where she may not live but is home for her in so many ways.<\/p>\n Dabbagh started with how she is unable to articulate the feeling; a whirlwind of emotions has been coursing through her being and there isn\u2019t much she can do about it. \u201cBut you don\u2019t really have the space or time to dwell on those emotions and you cannot feel entitled to make a fuss about yourself. I\u2019m very conscious of my own privilege and my level of distance,\u201d Dabbagh added somberly.<\/p>\n \u201cI appreciate my safety enormously. When I wake up in the morning, I know there is going to be a roof over my head and water in the taps. I know we\u2019ll have food at home and my children won\u2019t get attacked on the way to school. So, I have privilege. But of course, sometimes when I think about it, it breaks me. It\u2019s important to keep people around you; to have a community to depend on and talk to in these times,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n She is representative of diaspora Palestinians who harbour a profound connection to Palestine and \u2014 even if from afar \u2014 are deeply impacted by the ongoing atrocities there.<\/p>\n When questioned about whether the conflict is about Jews and Palestinians or Zionists and Palestinians as many conflate the two, Dabbagh put forth a coherent response.<\/p>\n \u201cMohammed El-Kurd, a commentator, said that Palestinians are so well-versed in their distinction between what is anti-Semitic and what is anti-Zionist,\u201d she explained.<\/p>\n \u201cAnti-Semitism is a racist trope that seeks to racialise Jewish people and vilify them and that is deplorable; we distance ourselves from it. Anti-Zionism, however, is the idea that Jewish people have divine right to the Palestinian land. It\u2019s an expansionist settler-colonial ideology that the Israeli state has come to represent. And that is what we condemn.\u201d<\/p>\n