God’s Promise

Ahmed Najar and Laura Hope-Gill produced this play at The Cockpit Theatre in Marylebone London in 2021. Ahmed grew up in Jabalia Refugee Camp in Gaza, one of eight such camps that comprise the city. He is a professional Dabke dancer, the traditional dance of Palestine, and he closes this play with such a dance.

This is not a play about Hamas, just as this is not a war about Hamas.

This is not a play about religion or religious groups.

This is not a play about foreign policy and what we Americans have to say about it.

This is a play about oppression, and this is a war about the most evil form of oppression: genocide.

The theatre filled with Palestinian people and a tiny handful of non-Palestinian people. The story and its variations are drawn from actual events in places such as Sheikh Jarah, where individual from New York and Israel claim the homes of Palestinians even though the homes are in Palestine and Palestinian neighbourhoods.

Ahmed and Laura, who started their friendship in London a month after 9-11, worked together every week from the start of lockdowns to the end. We moved our production date five times or so, and when it finally became possible to produce it, we did. We wrote another play during this time, and Ahmed has a new one. He completed it on October 7, and now it mirrors life, and death.

They have chosen to release God’s Promise today to enhance understanding of what Palestinians go through on a regular basis (and worse) living under perpetual siege in Gaza.

Please share the play and the Q&A with your circles and communities.

Click here for the Q&A.

A note from Laura:

When I was working with Ahmed on this, I was warned by many people, mostly scholars, that I should be very, very careful, that the FBI could take my computer, that I should use a secret gmail address, that I shouldn’t be so open about my support for Palestine. When the provost of my own university offered to teach my classes for me while I went to London for production, I was thankful.

At that time, only two or three people would “like” my posts, and I know it was because Palestinians remain outside the window of “safe” conversations.

We are now witnessing the result of erasing the humanity of a group of people: More than 9000 dead in three weeks, of which one third are children.