Free A Month by the Sea by Dervla Murphy Page A

essentially unIslamic action (suicide bombers are
martyrs
) prompted much speculation about the real motive for Vik’s murder and the identity of those behind it. Of course there were mutterings about Mossad. Could this well-publicised crime, coming only eleven days after the West Bank assassination of the film director Juliano Mer-Khamis, have been calculated to unnerve the foreign supporters of Freedom Flotilla II, due to sail to Gaza in July? A few of my Fatah friends insinuatingly recalled that Vik’s blog had more than once openly criticised Hamas – e.g., ‘Since winning the election they have deeply limited human rights by trying to impose hardline Islam.’ Responding to those friends, I deplored this ill-considered judgment ; one can’t reasonably blame Hamas for Salafist influences percolating through on the Strip.
    In August 2009, during the Rafah mosque siege, a Syrian imam proclaimed Gaza to be an Islamist caliphate. Hamas had long been patiently negotiating with this fanatic, seeking to lead or push him towards moderation. Therefore the five policemen who entered the mosque, hoping to end the siege peacefully, were unarmed. They died beside the imam when he blew himself up and in the chaos that followed Hamas killed twenty-four of the ‘caliphate’s’ adherents. The subsequent discovery in the mosque of hundreds of suicide vests, packed with
Israeli
explosives, generated another swarm of speculations.
    Vik had long since been granted honorary Palestinian citizenship and Gaza’s Prime Minister, Ismail Haniyeh, telephoned condolences to Vik’s mother. During mourning ceremonies in Gaza City Dr Mahmoud al-Zahar, Hamas’ co-founder and elder statesman, condemned ‘this awful crime against our friends’ and during similar ceremonies on the West Bank Fatah’s Mahmoud Abbas addressed the crowds. It would have pleased Vik to see this spontaneous surge of grief uniting so many Palestinians. Meanwhile a Salafist minority,tiny but shrill, continued to jeer at Italy as ‘an infidel state’ and to accuse Vik of having spread corruption by encouraging men and women to meet in public as independent individuals.
    * * *
    On 14 June the ISM team invited me to a commemorative five- a-side indoor soccer tournament at the Rafah community centre where Vik had spent so much time coaching boys who for lack of space could never play normal soccer. This centre, in a cleverly converted factory, is another example of Gazan energy, ingenuity and fortitude. It will take a very long time to blockade these people into demoralisation.
    At sunset, in a vast first-floor chamber, we joined a dozen men around a banquet-long table overlooked by tall showcases crowded with trophies won during the past half-century: cups, bowls, urns and trays, all engraved and embellished. The only other woman present was a fiery young Anglo-Egyptian ISM-er, famous for subduing Israeli naval officers. Handshaking became incessant as sporting (and other) notables continued to arrive from all over Gaza. Many men eagerly enquired about my compatriot, Caoimhe Butterly, a great friend of Vik’s, whose courage as a paramedic working throughout Cast Lead won’t soon be forgotten. Everyone received a T-shirt depicting Vik above an Arabic inscription and below the crossed flags of Italy and Palestine. The notables spoke emotionally and at length – until suddenly a piercing whistle signalled the start of the tournament.
    In a hangar-like hall, tiered seating for 1,000 rose on one side above a chalk-marked soccer pitch (also marked for netball and volleyball). I found myself in the front row beside Mohammed, born in Rafah camp in 1973. He had graduated in Italy but ‘at the start of the Second Intifada I wanted to be with my family’. He was proud of his wife who, having tasted freedom in Italy, refused to wear the hijab or jilbab. ‘She’s maybe the only Gazan woman sobrave in these times! Though not brave enough to wear a swimsuit.’
    On my other side