I have never felt more nervous to write about anything in my life. It’s hard to navigate and express these feelings, because they can feel clumsy, foolish, and incomplete, especially on social media. But I’ve never felt more compelled to fight through those feelings because being silent is not an option in a time where we’re witnessing the ethnic cleansing of a group of people on a very public stage with impunity. I’m hoping without the limitations of social media, my thoughts here can be more complete and hopefully make sense.

I want to preface what I’m about to write with the fact that I am still reading and understanding the intricacies of the history of the region and that I am always open to evolving and learning more. I don’t mean to offend or alienate anyone with what I’m about to write, and if you’re feeling like maybe now is not the time to read this, please take some time for yourself. I’m also fully aware that I’m quite privileged to be able to write this and from where I’m writing this. 

As I mentioned above, it feels like a lot is lost in the social media conversation around this subject. The reality is, it’s near impossible to have a nuanced conversation online. Things get lost in translation. Tone is misconstrued and words are misused. That is not to say they shouldn’t happen. It just seems like there should be more intention when engaging. Also, I do believe that people can be quiet on social media but loud in the streets. Making assumptions about how people use their voice is unhelpful.

When the attack first happened, there was so much noise online. People were unsure what to read, who to believe, even now it feels like propaganda is fighting to displace journalism. It was around this time everyone was standing with Israel and starting to conflate Hamas with Palestine. We were all trying to process what we were reading and what we were hearing. It was a barrage of hearsay and misinformation. Twitter which had been such a reliable source of breaking news truly became X where people were frantically searching for serious reporting and only finding unverified information under the guise of blue checkmarks who shell out $8 to be more discoverable, but not more infallible. Keyboard warriors were demanding death to all Palestinians. An immediate demonization was underway and nothing was going to stop it. It was a mess It is a mess. Then, almost immediately after came the insistence that if you still stood with Palestine after that attack, you were immediately an anti-semite and relished in the destruction of Israel. The polarization had begun and it still feels scary to voice your opinion if it isn’t unequivocally and incontrovertibly for Israel. For days after, and even now, I continue to read about what’s happening and try and decipher what is real, sticking with news sources and not handles like rita8684.

It’s been difficult to see people leaning one extreme way or another. It’s like they’ve forgotten that space can and should be held for the lives lost during the Hamas attack and even before that. Innocent people in Israel and Palestine have become pawns in this greater power grab that is truly atrocious to watch and makes me sick. It is governments filled with people who have little to no regard for human life that are perpetuating a culture of violence and inhumanity. Israel’s government is not representative of its people, just as Hamas is not representative of every Palestinian who is currently under exceptionally vicious siege right now. Let’s not sugarcoat things, Israel has the full backing of the US (and pretty much all the other superpowers) who has on multiple occasions over these last few weeks, at certain points, condoned and encouraged their right to defense, which subsequently lead to this horrific daily onslaught of bombs in Gaza. These bombs being dropped are supposed to be targeted for Hamas, but we all know bombs aren’t discerning. So many innocent Palestinian men, women, and CHILDREN are the victims of this brutal retaliation and there are far too many people not acknowledging the war crimes we are all seeing on a daily basis. Shutting down food, water, electricity for an entire settlement. Refusing, just until recently, to let humanitarian aid in. It’s unacceptable. Hamas is supposedly the target but the death toll of Palestinians is making that extremely hard to believe at this point. We are witnessing a genocide in real-time.   

With all that’s happening in Palestine, the pain of the attack in Israel is still tangible. The Hamas attack has been compared to 9/11. It was by all accounts, a terror attack, but it is impossible to ignore the years of unrest and disproportionate number of Palestinian lives lost- still- due to a deal made by superpowers that basically bulldozed the rights and sovereignty of an existing settlement. The Hamas attack was indelibly a vile act of war that targeted civilians and I’ve seen so many people respond with “Well, what did you expect?” Killing civilians like this shouldn’t warrant or illicit some flippant reaction as if anyone deserves to be killed, like they “had it coming.” This was an attack due to the refusal of leaders to sit down with each other and speak diplomatically about a problem for decades. This attack is a culmination of the failure to effectively communicate and instead rely on the destruction of an existing culture and people instead of reimagining a peaceful way forward. It always blows my mind how political figures (besides the PMs or Presidents) are somehow forgotten about in times like these, like their direct actions aren’t the glue in this collage of unconscionable tragedy.
This is one of the harder things to reconcile. A history of Palestinians consistently experiencing disproportional violence along with years of being ignored by the rest of the world until now stirs up an anger and disgust that is palpable. It feels like I’ve failed as a global citizen while oppression continues to persist all over the globe. It is something I am figuring out how to be more mindful of and continue learning more about. 

The death toll of Palestinians far exceeds those of Israelis when you look at the many years of persecution, but it does not make the deaths of Israelis less painful for their families. It doesn’t mean that their lives were worth less and the people who loved them could more easily accept their brutal departure from this world. It doesn’t take away the terror that Israelis and Jewish people all over the globe are feeling in the aftermath and the anti-semitism that is rearing its ugly head with more veracity than ever. It does not take away how scared some Jewish people are to just be Jewish right now. The same goes for Arab people, a lot of whom are Muslim. Islamophobia really never has gone away in this country, since 9/11 and just as that was used to justify mistreatment, so is this. It’s disgusting how close bigotry sits beneath the surface of this country and beyond. Even when talking about Palestinians, who are not a monolith, people assume their religion. There are Christian Palestinians too whose church was recently obliterated. 

It feels the mainstream has made up its mind that there are only polarizing views that can be accepted about what’s happening. Either you stand with Israel and you are anti-semitic or you stand with Palestine and cannot acknowledge the pain Israelis are experiencing, too. I urge all of us who are on the outside looking in to be more mindful about how we engage with each other and implore you to understand several things can be true at once. I also don’t want to be naive and say there are no questionable sides of this history, because I do believe the agreement in 1948 was short sighted and didn’t take into consideration people who were already living on that land and how strained and ultimately shattered the relationships would be amongst these groups of people. Palestinians have a right to sovereignty and before there was an Israel, Jewish people were made a promise that should absolutely be kept, but there needs to be a way to move forward that results in peace. I won’t presume to know what that looks like, but I do know that Holy Land should not have this much blood on it. 

My heart is with the Palestinians who continue to show the world their resilience, strength, and fortitude in an impossible station. My heart is with Israelis who are suffering under this oppressive regime and are standing with their fellow humans. My heart especially is with all of the innocent young lives lost who should never have been subjected to such brutality and deserved better from this world.

This is an incredibly trying time. Please choose love over everything and find the humanity we all have and embrace the hope that preservers even in this utter darkness.