1. A Play For Gaza

2. By
Mariam Mohanna Salwa Sammour

3. Out line
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Introduction
Author
Production
References
Quotations
Themes
Stylistic Devices
Responses

4. Author …
Caryl Churchill

5. Production

6. Introduction …
o Title
o Language and structure
o Setting

7. Issues in the Play
• Holocaust
“Tell her there are still people who hate
Jews”
•Jewish Migration to Palestine
“Tell her we’re going home
Tell her it’s the land God gave us”
•Expulsion of Palestinians
“tell her they’re going away”

8. Issues in the Play
* 48 War
“Tell her we turned them back”
* Dispute over water
“Don’t tell her the trouble about the swimming pool”
* First Intifada
“Don’t tell her the boy was shot”
* 2008 bombing of Gaza
“Don’t tell her how many of them have been killed”

9. Activists Killed
“Don’t tell her about the bulldozer”

10. Mohammad El- Dorrah
“Don’t tell her the boy was shot”

11. Apartheid Wall
“Tell her we need the wall to keep us safe”

12. El- Sammony Family
“Don’t tell her about the family of dead girls”

13. Quotations….
‘’Tell her her uncles died’’
 The suffering of Jews
‘’Tell her they’re Bedouin, they travel about
Tell her about camels in the desert and dates’’
 We move from place to place
no home ‘we are displaced’.

14. ‘’Tell her this was not their home’’
‘’Don’t tell her who used to live in
this house’’
 They are homeless, it is only a
house for them not a home.
Good word choice

15. ‘’Tell her for miles all round they
have lands of their own’’
 A reference to all Arabs world they can
go to any Arab world …… to any land.
‘’Tell her the Hamas fighters have
been killed’’
Resistance
 The choice of words is very clever….

16. ‘‘Tell her I'm not sorry for them’’
‘’Tell her I look at one of their children
in blood and what do I fee? Teel her all
I feel is happy is not her’’
brutality
Cruelty
“Tell her maybe we can share”
Two - State Solution

17. Themes ….

18. Palestinian Suffering

19. Tension within the Israeli
Community

20. Difficulty of Explaining
Violence to Children

21. Stylistic Devices
• Motif
• Irony
•
Subversion

22.  Churchill
 Blue Truth
 The Jewish chronicle online
 The Guardian

23. Caryl Churchill
One press report quoted
Churchill as saying: ’’Israel has done
lots of terrible things in the past, but
what happened in Gaza seemed
particularly extreme.’’
Churchill has said she sees the play as a
Churchill has political‘’she sees the
said event
play as a political event’’

24. Churchill defended herself
Throughout the play, families try to
protect children. Finally, one of the
parents explodes, saying, “No, stop
preventing her from knowing what’s on
the TV news”. His outburst is meant, in a
small way, to shock during a shocking
situation. Is it worse than a picture of
Israelis dancing for joy as smoke rises
over Gaza?

25. David Mamet
‘’inspired by Mr.
Goldberg, I have written
"Seven Muslim Children"

26. 7 Muslim Children
Tell him to get his gun
Tell him to shoot the Jews
Tell him to block the road
Tell him to shoot the convoys
Tell him they can’t have a country here
Tell him we were going to have a country
too
Don’t tell him we were going to have a
country too
Tell him the Jews will slaughter him
Tell him about Deir Yassin
Tell him about Deir Yassin
Tell him about Deir Yassin
Don’t tell him about Kfar Etzion
Don’t tell him about Latrun
Don’t tell him about “itbach-al-Yahud”
Tell him “itbach-al-Yahud”
Tell him we will drive them into the sea

27. By John Nathan
‘’Does the Court’s artistic
director, Dominic Cooke, not
realise that a play that is critical
of, and entirely populated
by, characters from one
community, can be defended only
if it is written by a member of that
community?’’

28. Charlotte Higgins, The Guardian's chief arts
writer, defended the by saying
‘’The play did not strike me as antisemitic.... I
cleave strongly to the view that it is possible
to be critical of Israel without being
antisemitic, and I do not believe that Churchill
is making or otherwise implying universal
claims about the Jewish people in this play.’’

29. Michael Billington
‘’her play becomes a
heartfelt lamentation for the
future generations who will
themselves become victims
of the attempted military
suppression of Hamas.”

30. 59 well-known British Jews
published a letter published in
the Daily Telegraph claiming
that Seven Jewish Children
reinforces "false stereo types"
and demonizing Israel for
depicting Israelis as "inhuman"
who teach their children "Arabs
must be hated’’

31. Anti-Semitism

32. * “Tell her I look at their children covered
in blood and what do I feel? tell her all I
feel is happy it's not her”
* “I don’t care if we wiped them out”
* “ I laughed when I saw the dead
policemen”
* “Tell her we kill far more of them”
* “Don’t tell her her cousin refused to
serve in the army.”

33. Anti- Semitic vs.
Anti-Israeli

34. Breaking the Silence: In the reality
of occupation, there are no
Palestinian civilians – only
potential terrorists

35. I order her. “Where are you going?” I ask, although I
know she’s on her way to school.
I turn back to the post to check with HQ that she is not on
the wanted list, although I know she isn’t.
I break the silence now because I’ve realized silence is a
part of that which enables this to happen.

36. Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2ZDPep3GOY
To watch the video click here