No Country for Coriander

In a longstanding game of one-upmanship, Israel keeps banning harmless goods, snatching away the simple wants of Palestinians

- Tanul Thakur

YARA, a 22-year-old Syrian woman, entered Gaza on November 8, 2018, with excitement, anticipation, hope—and her wedding dress. She was about to get married to her sweetheart, Fadi al-Ghazali, in ten days. In her in-laws’ house—her new home—she hung the dress on the wardrobe’s door. Four days later, as she arranged her clothes in the bedroom, Yara heard screams from the street outside. Someone pounded on the door and asked her to vacate the house because the Israeli army had attacked the Gaza Strip, destroying nine buildings. So she ran, saving herself. But she couldn’t save the dress or her dream to look like a beatific bride because it got buried under the rubble.

Yara bringing that dress to Gaza from a foreign country was itself a ‘luxury’, as wedding dresses have been banned for import in the territory for a very long time. What else is—or was—banned? Let’s go back in time, say the year 2008, and think about a toddler craving chocolate. Not allowed. Banned. Or how about a Palestinian girl needing crayons and stationary to draw a sketch on an A-4 sized paper? A-4 sized paper, banned; stationary, banned; crayons—crayons?—banned.