Many Palestinians I know never trusted for a moment that the so-called ceasefire would last. And after so long living in the West Bank I also can no longer be shocked at anything the U.S. or Israel does. Any remaining illusion I may have had about the possibility of government or people in power to do good have been completely shattered. At the same time, I don’t know if anyone could have predicted the way things have escalated since the “agreement.” Most of the West Bank is under lockdown due to military closures. The IOF is bombing refugee camps. Houses are demolished without giving the families a minute’s notice. Settlers are organizing large pogroms daily. I woke up in a panic this morning at 3:00 am, as has become habit, and checked my phone: 404 people killed and 562 wounded from airstrikes in Gaza.
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I continued scrolling, as one does. I saw that an Israeli-American comrade was arrested, blindfolded, and beaten for three hours for his activism. Nobody is safe anymore. The Zionist regime is no longer bothering to pretend to care about anyone except themselves and their mission to commit genocide and seize land.
The line from my favorite Kahlil Gibran poem mocks me now: “the deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.” How much deeper can this sorrow carve? I am hollowed out.
I made a promise to myself to write more about what I experienced in the West Bank since I returned home. But every time I try to sit and reflect, emotions crowd out words. Everything I didn’t have time or space to feel while I was in the West Bank I am feeling now.
Earlier, I had a conversation with a dear friend who referenced another poem I once also called my favorite: “Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this, too, was a gift.” But what gift can so much death bring? It seems like everything I knew to be true is crumbling.
I want to hold onto my rage and despair and alchemize them into action. Into something meaningful. The ways a person can effect change have become clearer than ever, but I find myself still taking pause. What am I willing to give up in this struggle? We all must contend with that question. Khalil Gibran ends his poem, “only when you are empty are you at standstill and balanced.”
I am not yet empty. I certainly do not feel balanced. And yet I still have to get out of bed every morning and decide in each moment to work toward the person I want to be. It is a daily challenge not to become bitter. It is easy to become bitter.
Maybe a gift that this darkness has brought is to know now that I do have a say in how I process this pain. Even though I no longer trust that this suffering will bring about an equal joy in my lifetime, I believe that participating in any small way in this movement will eventually contribute to building a better world. That is enough to give me solace.
