I realize I didn't give readers any idea of the personality of Mats Gilbert, the Norwegian doctor who worked in Gaza for 12 horrific days and now bears witness.
Gilbert seems to be around 60 but he has that ageless half-starved Scandinavian skinniness that makes older men look boyish. He is dressed like a European sophisticate– jeans and a white shirt with its square tails out, hip angular glasses. His blond hair looks ungrayed. He wears it long in a kind of Norwegian mullet. He referred to his daughters' support but not his wife. I wondered about the personal cost of his commitment. He has been drawn to one crisis after another, and flew into Gaza in a heartbeat when the bombing began, having left it a month or two earlier.
He is passionate and restrained, just a little didactic. He said that when he was younger he used to scream but that got him nowhere. Now he speaks in a controlled voice behind which the passion brims. When he was questioned by the Russian Jew about being biased against Israel, he stood before him with ankles crossed nodding and meeting his eyes and thanking him for the question.
There's a religious element to his presence, of complete commitment to his fellow man. I found this incredibly inspiring. When he spoke of Jews and Nazis, it was evident to me that he would have hidden Jews during the Holocaust, he is that type of missionary person. His physical risk during the Gaza assault meant nothing to him.
I found I had no desire to go up and talk to him after. He had given his all, and what you saw is what you get with him, you don't break through to some personal side. He is a religious type.
He almost cried once, when he talked about a little girl who was so terrified of the Israelis, last year, that she had a recurrent dream of a black dog coming into her room at night and under the bed and wanting to eat her. He had helped her by bringing her a stuffed animal from Norway in order to change the black dog into a kind animal. Now of course the big black dog is back, he said.
He couldn't do what he does without tremendous support and community. The Norwegian government supports him. He has an organization behind him. The Norwegian people understand the issue. During Gaza, 1 million Norwegians demonstrated against the slaughter, he said: a quarter of the population. [Bruce Wolman says the Norwegian press contradicts him: 10,000 in the largest demo]. I walked out thinking it is essential to build the American community that is also horrified by Gaza. I also thought about my own American Jewish culture, which is as strong as Gilberts's Norwegian one, but right now, at this moment in history, not as evolved.
