As I write this, the Zionist colony is carpet-bombing Rafah. You might have been sleeping. They are bombing tents, houses, and mosques—1.4 million displaced Palestinians with nowhere to go. Over 60 Palestinians have been murdered so far (try to understand what it means for us to have to say “so far”), mostly children. Mothers shiver and convulse, holding their lifeless hearts in their arms. “Oh my mother, oh my head, my heart,” screams a woman in black, fully covered, in hijab and niqab as she weeps over her son’s body. Yes, her son. Her “mother.” His name is Mahmoud. This mother, like most Palestinian parents, calls her son “mother” out of overwhelming love. It is an expression of endearment with no English parallel, and after 128 days of a genocide, this chasm in language is not without reason—it speaks volumes.
Palestinian mothers love their children so tremendously it is as though their roles were reversed—in Islamic and Arab culture, no one is more beloved than a mother. So, when Palestinian mothers call their sons “mother,” it means their love is unmatched. They would sacrifice everything for them. With one word, the mourning Palestinian mother addresses her son and says, “You are my mother. Without you, I cease to exist.”
Here, you are likely expecting me to make a point, construct an argument, or draw meaning from these scenes of suffering. I am to peer into a mother’s tears as though they were a crystal ball, read her emaciated palms, piece together her child’s scattered remains, to enlighten you, unshackle your mind, ease your burdens, open your eyes, and put your hands to work. The world asks a father to put the soul of his soul aside and speak to them. It asks a convulsing mother to pause for a moment and conduct an interview: “What’s your message to the world?” Between bombs, interviews, funerals, and genocide, there is no time to mourn.
Those Palestinians on the outside, in exile, in the diaspora, are subject to the same. Unable to contact their families, unsure of their fate, internally paralyzed and disfigured, they remain busier than the rest. I spoke recently to a friend with family in Gaza and asked how things were. “I can’t contact them,” she said. “I spend every day and night waiting for a sign. If I get a message that means they’re okay. If not, I don’t know if they are alive.” Still, she has to go in for work every day, smiling at customers, and pretending all is well. She dons a silver Palestine map necklace to raise awareness. Confronted with a world busy watching Super Bowls and drinking iced lattes, not oblivious but apathetic, inhuman, and in denial, pausing only to curse and condemn, there is so much to be done.
The very world perpetrating genocide asks the Palestinians to prove that their children are indeed in pieces under the rubble, and not terrorists in a tunnel. It shoves fingers down Palestinian throats to see if they vomit up animal feedblood, or bullets. It exhumes cemeteries, steals organsand asks for a receipt of death. It cleanses Palestinian lands, plunders artifacts, levels villages, razes olive trees, and belies indigeneity. It lives inside Palestinian homes, reclines on Palestinian furniture, and asks for evidence of Palestinian presence, for evidence of their theft. In the words of Ghassan Kanafani, “They steal your loaf of bread. Then they give you a crumb. Then they demand you thank them for their generosity. O their audacity!” Amidst all the proving, there is no time to mourn.
Videos and images of Palestinians holding the pale bodies of the children to cameras have become routine. The first time, we wept, the next time, we shed a single tear, then we clenched our eyes. Now, our eyes are glazed as we scroll past, onto more uncommon things. We do not consider, even for a moment, what it means for a parent to force their children’s corpses through lenses, onto your screens. We have never considered that they might hate themselves for it,—and hate you more for degrading them such—that they do not want a camera on their child, but feel desperate and abandoned, with no choice. When a mother holds up her murdered new-born and screams, “What was this child’s sin? Is this your ‘bank of targets’?” she has been forced to engage and combat your narrative, to prove her innocence and her killer’s criminality, even with her daughter’s blood. With her daughter condemned at birth and killed moments later, she is allowed no time to mourn.
Forced to engage in advocacy, we are violently desensitized. Thus, just days after their families are slaughtered, Palestinians are carefully screened, selected, hauled onto the news, and commanded to condemn—condemn themselves, of course. The murder of Palestinian families is either brushed aside to ask, “But do you condemn Hamas?” or interrogated: “What were they doing there? Why didn’t they evacuate? That word [genocide] is very charged. You’ve had your chance to speak. Israel says it’s only targeting Hamas.” And so, we are forced to present statistics, as if the making of them, the reduction of souls to numbers, was not cruel enough.
Worst of all, we are forced to use these numbered souls—our families buried somewhere within them—as citations in sentences designed to prove a point: “100 killed, 1,000 killed, 35,000 killed…can’t you see this is a genocide?” On social media, every news item, updated death toll, and picture serves as a background to a caption. Martyrs become evidence in discourses spoken, challenged, and silenced, thousands of miles away.
Every 7 minutes, a child is killed in Gaza. But these children are not a statistic to win an argument. In our worlds of advocacy, debate, and appeal, we have lost touch with the realities on the ground. We remain engaged in theory, contesting narratives and terminologies, coddling and being coddled, as Palestinian lands are stolen, cities leveled, and families massacred.
We must come to realize that we, sitting in the comfort of our homes, and protesting on paved streets, are irrelevant. Our words, the minds we change, and the hearts we win, neither stop the bombs from falling nor liberate lands. Our work is only as powerful as our empathy—it must be all-encompassing. We must look to Palestine and see our—not “their”—fathers, writers, daughters, mothers, fighters, and sons. We must all become Palestinians, and act accordingly. Palestine, its land and its people, are supreme—our role is simply to amplify and represent them authentically, unembellished, and unabashed.
As you read this piece, a Palestinian was murdered in Gaza. That Palestinian, fetus or fighter, must be mourned, as though he was your mother. And, he must be avenged.