Publication Thoughts

Well Publication date has arrived, and the huge excitement I’m feeling of having Night Swimming finally unleashed on the public is mixed with great sadness at the situation in Israel/Palestine having boiled over – I want to say “once more” but it seems worse now than in a long time. Night Swimming in the Jordan is set against the backdrop of the Arab-Israeli conflict, the politics as well as practical implications of which play a pivotal role in the lives and relationships of the characters.

I have been so disheartened at the turn of events since 5th October when hundreds of Israeli civilians were killed by Hamas men who infiltrated across the border from besieged Gaza. Then well over 100 Israelis were taken as hostages back into Gaza – including babies and elderly people, and now the Israel government is bombing northern Gaza, wreaking havoc on yet more innocent civilians. And where will it end? When has bombardment of civilians and civilian infrastructure ever worked to improve anyone’s life? I’m asking this rhetorically, of course, and will omit to mention weapons manufacturers and others with their own nefarious designs on the region – some of the agencies who do benefit from and become enriched by the chaos and human suffering wreaked by war.

I have spent decades speaking out against the Occupation in Gaza and the West Bank, and opposing the oppression of Palestinians by successive Israeli governments. I believe it is not widely known that numerous Israeli Jews are devoted to the pursuit of peace with the Palestinians, promoting Palestinian rights and opposing the Israeli apartheid regime. Israel’s government is not the Israeli people, just as the people of Gaza are not the Hamas.

To finish on a more hopeful note, I think at this time of enormous pain and grief it’s particularly important to turn away from polarisation and division. It’s been so distressing to observe so many people taking up a position and proceeding to hurl proverbial stones at the other side with no room for conversation or nuance. Please, if you’re reading this, let us maintain our connections and develop conversations that defy the sort of us-and-them, black-or-white narrative that’s keeping us at odds with each other.

I believe it’s important to realise that the Palestinians and Israelis are in this conflict together – the task of changing our reality is great and everyone involved must strive together for peace and justice, if it is to be achieved. Also important to note that neither the Palestinians nor the Israelis is about to go anywhere or disappear off the face of the earth – there’s nowhere else for either peoples to go. In the end, everyone is going to have to live together having reached a peaceful and just political solution – and the sooner this road is embarked on the better.

To realise this just and prosperous, political solution I believe we must reach towards each other in solidarity, peace and humanity, it’s the only way out.