Three Wishes: Palestinian and Israeli Children Speak
By: Kendall Haney,
Jr. Infectious Disease Correspondent
Author’s Note: After reading Three Wishes, by Deborah Ellis, I set it down next to me, closed my eyes, and took a breath. Then I picked up my laptop to write what I hope is a review that lets you know, in a very stream of conscious and personal kind of way, what I thought of Ellis’ work, and her message to all of us. If you get nothing else out of this review, let me leave you with this: please don’t wait another day to order and read it. You should go right now and let all its implications sink in. If the majority of the world did just that, maybe then there could be peace in the Middle East. With that note, read on…
I don’t know how many of you reading this have been to the Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C. It is a building set up to show—not tell—the true story of the Jewish people’s massacre during World War II. I remember it well because it hurt so badly to think about while I was there, and it continues to wrap its long fingers around my heart, grip tight, and pull every time I re-examine that memory a little too closely. Am I glad I went to the museum?
No!...
Okay fine, maybe…yes…yes I’m glad I went there, but I wish it didn’t exist, even though it would be wrong for it not to, and I’m never going back there again.
It’s relevant to mention it because those are the exact same feelings that the book by Deborah Ellis “Three Wishes: Palestinian and Israeli Children Speak” evokes from cover to cover. Ellis used words, not bricks, to paint her picture. She didn’t need relics and a sound system to bring forward the plight of children—both Palestinian and Israeli—who want a future being a doctor, lawyer, governor, mother, father, sister, brother, husband, wife. It isn’t just Palestinian children in the region who dream of living a peaceful life, raising a family there, and pursuing what they love. The surprise in this book for me was that Israeli children, just as the Palestinian children do, dream of better days.
Anyway, as I was saying, Ellis didn’t need bricks and a sound system to convey her message. She just needed the voices of kids just like me. And she caught them, and funneled forever the sound of their pleas into pages that act like hallways holding ghosts of cruel past, present, and even future if we don’t start choosing peace instead of choosing war.
No, I’m never reading this book again. But, yes, I am so glad I picked it up and highly recommend it as required reading material for every one person in the whole world forever and ever, amen.
Get the picture of how strongly I mean that you should read this book? You can get it at amazon.com right now for $9.95. Here’s the link: http://www.amazon.com/Three-Wishes-Palestinian-Israeli-Children/dp/0888996454/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1415259853&sr=8-5&keywords=Three+Wishes
In it you will literally hear the voices of Israelis and Palestinians whisper a glimpse of their daily struggles into your subconscious. Every two to three pages reads like a short story you can’t put down because in the back of your mind you know it isn’t a fictional character trying to talk to you, but a real life person’s muted voice banging on the walls of the world to make the bullets stop.
The first (real life) story you will read about is that of a 15-year-old boy, Artov. He is a Russian Jew who loves to talk food, and came to Israel with his sister about three months before he was interviewed by Ellis. His parents brought him and his sister to live in Israel because Russia, according to him, is an unfavorable living situation because of his religion. He misses home. Had he stayed in Russia, the fear was that his family would be killed just for being what they were born to be. Jewish.
Later you’ll meet Nora, age 12. She is a Palestinian who lives just south of Jerusalem. She isn’t allowed to play much outside because of the Israeli soldiers watching all the time. They give her nightmares, and she wishes they would just go away. Nora is in a wheelchair, but that isn’t why she finds it difficult to get around. Israeli checkpoints make it chokingly impossible to do something simple like go to school, or get something to eat at the local markets. Her mother worries for her all the time that she might get hurt because an Israeli might shoot her.
“If they feel like shooting, they will just go ahead and shoot. They don’t care if they shoot at a child or an older person,” says Nora.
The stories go on and on, and they all say about the same thing. But by the time you finish the book you’ll realize just how futile and mean it is to pick on people just because you want something they have, but you don’t. By the time you are finished, I believe you’ll see that both Israeli and Palestinian sides have suffered severely. I believe you’ll see that Palestinians and Israelis have ignored shared experiences of persecution, displacement, ridicule, and war. You get to see how war effects children, and you wonder why the parents allow it to continue. Don’t they love their children enough to make it stop?
I ended this book believing that, for lives to be improved, both the Israelis and Palestinians have to acknowledge what they are doing to each other on a daily basis. This is not a conflict where one side exclusively is right, and another side is exclusively wrong. Yes, the Palestinians are fighting for their country, and undoubtedly are mistreated at a level, and in my opinion anyway, that is criminal. But sadly, the Palestinians don’t seem to want to acknowledge that their government is not protecting them. It isn’t okay for the Palestinian people to suffer, and it is the duty of their government to embrace policies and positions that could open checkpoints and borders. I don’t believe the Palestinians, after reading this book, realize that their government isn’t responsibly leading them. I know it to be true because I saw on TV this morning how Hamas, the Palestinian leadership in Gaza, ‘blessed’ those people who tried to kill some Israeli people just this morning. Emphasis on the word ‘people.’
On the other hand, while the book outlines that the Israeli government is doing everything it can to protect its people, it has failed to realize that the Palestinians are regional citizens of the land that Israelis occupy. Therefore the Israeli government (an organization with unlimited resources) must show restraint, and has a responsibility to treat others living next to them with the respect they deserve. Let’s be clear here and right now—in an effort to protect themselves, the Israelis invite more and more hostility with every bullet fired, every house bulldozed, every airstrike, and every mean-spirited lollipop handed out with a sick smirk.
Maybe that’s why the Palestinians justified trying to kill people with cars this morning. I don’t care why Hamas blessed it. I just know that the Israelis are going to respond. Badly.
And that’s how I know these children who look just like me are still suffering as documented in this book despite it being written in 2004…and the violence spirals on and on and on…
I’m rambling, aren’t I? Maybe this essay rambles like the violence never stops because the war rambles like a badly written book review that grips your heart and head and makes a girl not able to type through tears.
Yeah, the book affected me. Whether you lean hawkish or more dove when it comes to the wars people like to start, this is a book that lingers with you after you read it. It is my opinion that every person on the planet should have to read it, and my hope is that every K12 student will go to Amazon right now, order it, and start a new fight worthy of winning—fight for peace. It starts with laying down the bullets, and throwing out the bombs.
Then you never go back…