Israel’s ongoing war on Gaza today makes Dr Ang Swee Chai’s book, From Beirut to Jerusalem, a necessary read. The book, which was originally published in 1989 and then republished with an updated edition in 2023, details the Penang-born Singaporean orthopaedic surgeon’s personal journey from a self-declared Christian Zionist to becoming a fierce supporter and friend of the Palestinians.
Many incidents led to her changed views, including a personal encounter with a Palestinian whose family was driven out of their home in Jaffa. Dr Ang also bore witness to numerous attacks and massacres against the Palestinian refugees and Lebanese in the Sabra-Shatila camps in Beirut, Lebanon, including the siege and massacres in 1982 and 1985.
The book is a precious documentation of Israeli atrocities against Palestinians, whether at home or in exile, from the lens of a non-Palestinian, and of Dr Ang’s own struggles and efforts in embodying what it means to be a friend of the Palestinians. More than that, Dr Ang’s account reveals many universal lessons and values to learn from.
A THEOLOGY FOR LIBERATION AND HUMANITY
Dr Ang unwaveringly and consistently refers to her Christian tradition as a source of insight, faith and strength, that drives her to go above and beyond for the people of Palestine. Though there are moments when she questions God for the tragedies that befall the Palestinians, their resilience and unending warmth and kindness remind her that there is still reason to hold on to faith: “Over the years, I have seen much destruction and death, but I have seen so much love and faith that I am fully assured God is still there.”[1]
In a world where religious exclusivism and extremism are rife, it is fascinating to learn from Dr Ang’s ability to draw universal values of justice and equality from her Christian tradition and apply them unconditionally to every human being. It is her Christian beliefs that ground her to embody an unconditional extension of God’s mercy and love for humankind.
Beyond practising compassion as taught by her religion, her faith is oriented towards the poor and marginalised, which in this case refers to the Palestinian refugees of Sabra and Shatila – the exiled who have no means of returning to their homeland, and the Palestinians under Israeli occupation.
To Dr Ang, religion does not just compel one to do good, but to take sides with the oppressed and to orient one’s life towards them. Her actions echo the ideas of liberation theology, in which one recognises the role of theology in ending or alleviating human suffering. Spanish priest and liberation theologian Jon Sobrino sums up liberation theology succinctly in his quote, that “there is no salvation outside of the poor”, instead of “outside the church”, as the saying conventionally goes.[2]
What does it mean to seek salvation from the poor? It requires a complete and radical reorientation of one’s faith from a self-serving spirituality and religious orientation to one that centres around marginalised groups, regardless of their identity and affiliations. Liberation theology has roots in many movements in various parts of the world, from the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa to liberation movements in Latin America and Indonesia.[3]
For Dr Ang, this concern for the marginalised and oppressed began much earlier on in her life, before her trip to Lebanon in 1982. She recalls being taught in school that “science, to be meaningful, must be channelled to alleviating suffering and poverty”, which led her to question poverty and inequality, and how science can be a panacea to these problems. [4] Her deliberations led her to believe later on, during her two years at the Singapore University’s faculty of community medicine, that there are “clear links… between disease and poverty and ignorance… that unequal distribution of wealth resulted in unequal distribution of health.”[5]
FROM THEOLOGY TO PRAXIS
Liberation theology demands action — it is not a mere intellectual exercise or an academic debate. Dr Ang’s concern for human suffering, particularly Israel’s bombing of Lebanon in 1982, was the catalyst for her to spring into action and volunteer as part of the international medical team at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps. She returned several times to the camps, as well as Jerusalem, to serve the communities there.
After her return to the UK from Beirut in 1984, Dr Ang continued the work of upholding justice for the Palestinians by founding a non-sectarian, non-political medical charity to help Palestinians with several individuals. The charity was named Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) to avoid the political question of Palestine and to help Palestinians wherever they were, whether under occupation or in exile.[6] Currently, MAP has a permanent medical services team in Gaza and is setting up another team in Egypt. MAP continues to send medical personnel and services to the West Bank, Gaza and Lebanon.
Dr Ang’s efforts point to one truth when it comes to standing up for what is right, which is that sacrifice and discomfort are necessary. On multiple occasions, she had resigned to the worst of fates if it meant she could contribute one step forward in the freedom and justice of the Palestinian people. While waiting to board a ferry from Cyprus to Lebanon in 1982, she received news that Israel had bombed an International Red Cross ship. At the thought that even her status as a doctor would not confer her any protection from being bombed, she only had this to say: “Well, all right, at least if I happen to be blown up, the people of Lebanon will have had one Singapore friend who did try.”[7]
On another occasion, after co-signing and submitting a testimony to testify about what she witnessed during the Sabra-Shatila massacre, Dr Ang recalled feeling a sense of relief, and as she looked at a “whole street full of Israeli troops and their armoured cars and tanks”, she remained undeterred: “All their might, I said to myself, could not stop our statement from reaching the rest of the world now…. From that moment, it would not matter one bit if I suddenly dropped dead. I had done what I needed to do.”[8]
Even in the face of threats by her colleagues in the international medical volunteer team and loss of support from her Lebanese sponsors, Dr Ang remained steadfast in her decision to testify what she saw during the 1982 massacre in the camps to the Kahan Commission, a commission of inquiry that was set up by the Israeli government to look into the events at the refugee camps in Beirut. This commission was the result of local and international pressure on the Israeli government to take account of what happened in the camps.
True to the spirit of liberation theology, these incidents point to the clarity of her thoughts in identifying the barriers to justice for Palestinians. Dr Ang was able to distinguish between good-hearted Israelis who were supportive of and fought for Palestinian liberation, and who had pressured their government to take accountability. In her account, there had been large demonstrations in Tel Aviv, where “400,000 Israeli citizens protested against the invasion of Lebanon and the massacre in refugee camps”. In addition, a significant number of Israeli soldiers had been put in prison for refusing to serve in Lebanon. While doing some “soul-searching” – as she puts it – she said she “had to be careful not to confuse the war-mongering and aggressive state of Israel… and the 400,000 Israelis” who protested the war.[9]
In a separate encounter with an Israeli professor who opposed the war, Dr Ang reflected that “not all Israelis wanted to see the Palestinians persecuted and slaughtered”, adding that “it must be cruel for Jews who had suffered so much under the Nazis to see their own people inflict suffering on others”.[10] As a result of her clarity of mind on who was and is doing the act of injustice, Dr Ang never once spoke ill of or held stereotypes about Jews or Israelis, even as she had much contempt against the Israeli government. Her intact humanity despite all that she had seen and gone through is an important lesson, that the Israeli government’s actions have never and will never justify any form of anti-semitism or prejudice against people of the Jewish faith.
JUSTICE IS A JOURNEY WITHOUT AN END, AND SO IS HOPE
Above all, Dr Ang’s book is a testament to the enduring human spirit and hope. Despite having witnessed numerous massacres, wars and attacks against the Palestinians, she is still hopeful for the Palestinians and continues to rally support for them in various ways, whether through MAP or in her own capacity.
On March 27 2024, Dr Ang delivered a talk on her experiences at the Sabra-Shatila refugee camps, at the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore. Still as fierce as ever, she reminded the audience that we must not forget about the Palestinians and their right to return. Drawing from her Christian faith, Dr Ang said: “They (Palestinians) are the children of God. They are our brothers and sisters too.”
Personally, Dr Ang’s perseverance is a wake-up call – in the face of tragedies, it is too easy to resign to hopelessness and numbness. But as she said in the talk, we must not underestimate our ability to change things and be brave in speaking up for justice.
I end with the following quote from Dr Ang’s letter to her husband, the late human rights lawyer and co-founder of MAP, Francis Khoo.
“… we are just two tiny individuals in this tide of historical liberation… we know where the tide will flow, and nothing can stop it…. I laugh, laugh victoriously, for I know that there are millions that would carry on the struggle after me.
I looked into the face of death and have seen its power and ugliness, but I have also looked into its eyes, and seen fear. For our children are coming, and they are not afraid.”[11]
1 Ang S.C. (1989).From Beirut to Jerusalem. Grafton Books & Times Books International, pp. 250.
2 Sobrino J. (2008). No salvation outside the poor: prophetic-utopian essays. Orbis Books.
3 See Esack F. (1998). Qur’an liberation & pluralism : an islamic perspective of interreligious solidarity against oppression. Oneworld; Gutiérrez G. (1973). A theology of liberation : history politics and salvation. Orbis Books;
4 Ang S.C. (1989). From Beirut to Jerusalem. Grafton Books & Times Books International, Pp. xlii.
5 Ibid. Pp. 40-41.
6 Ibid., 139-140.
7 Ibid., 9.
8 Ibid., 74.
9 Ibid., 103.
10 Ibid., 131.
11 Ibid., 80.
Nur Hikmah Md Ali is a writer who has published poems, book reviews, commentaries and book chapter in various publications including Karyawan and Berita Mediacorp.
