A Year of Conditional Empathy
Who knew the statement, "Terrorist attacks and famines are both bad," would be controversial?
I wish there was a ceasefire. I wish there was a hostage deal. I wish this war ended months ago.
Wishing does little. Yet, it certainly does more than knowing you have the key to end this crisis, but fidget with it while people die.
A year ago, I wrote an article about October 7 and wishing for a better future. I still hope for one, but I am used to inaction at this point. All I can do is pray and write.
I Wish Upon a Star
I didn’t know much about Israel and Palestine during my K-12 years. The most comprehensive education I had on the subject was in history class. My teacher told us how after the Holocaust, the state of Israel was created for the Jewish people. When we learned about the Holocaust, my teacher showed us the most disturbing, graphic photos from the Nazi regi…
A lot has changed since October 7, 2023. A lot has also stayed the same. I don’t have the words to describe the rollercoaster that is watching mass atrocities in horror. I also don’t have the background to offer a thought-provoking perspective. I can only pray and write.
Looking back, I see fragments. Let me summarize those fragments for you.
I unfollowed celebrities that I admired. I also found admiration for other celebrities like Melissa Barrera, the actress fired from the Scream franchise for posting about the conditions in Gaza, and Nicola Coughlan, the Bridgerton starlet who raised money for the Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund—which spurred action from celebrities like Ariana Grande and Sabrina Carpenter.
I found Palestinian journalists like Bisan Owda. Given the Israel Defense Forces’ restrictions on media access in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian journalists are important.
I found Jewish advocates calling for a ceasefire and hostage deal. One of those advocates is Talia Ringer, an Israel-American professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Ringer has used her platform on Twitter (no, I’m not calling it by its new xylophone name) to advocate for Palestinians and routinely calls out the mass atrocities occurring in Gaza and the West Bank.
One of the hostages, Naama Levy, volunteered for an organization that fostered coexistence between Israelis and Palestinians. When she was kidnapped by Hamas terrorists, she told her captors, “I have friends in Palestine.”
At my current internship, I learned how to use my professional skills to make an impact. It has also furthered my passion for accessible Holocaust education, especially now. If you follow me on Twitter, you know where I work. I’m not naming the employer due to the next bullet point below.
A pro-Israel influencer on Instagram found my account and saw my story sharing a news article interviewing Rep. Ilhan Omar’s daughter, who was suspended from Barnard College after the encampments last spring. That influencer attempted to contact my employer for… sharing a news article. They stood by me. I changed my Instagram to private after the fact—it is still private today.
At the beginning of the conflict, I saw a video of a Palestinian journalist playing with a baby in Gaza. The journalist is still alive. I hope the baby is alive too.
Refaat Alareer and Marcellus Williams were beautiful poets. Both were victims of systematic injustice in different contexts, yet their suffering is intertwined.
A Political Science professor at my college, Virginia Tech, was the subject of extensive media coverage concerning his public advocacy for Palestine. He was also instrumental in leading the encampment at Tech. While I certainly did not agree with everything he said, I thought the humanitarian crisis in Gaza was ten times worse.
Speaking of encampments, my classmates had every right to call out injustice. Like the aforementioned professor, I did not agree with everything they chanted. I knew one thing was certain: we both wanted Palestinian statehood and an end to this nightmare.
While promoting his new book, acclaimed writer Ta-Nehisi Coates gave an interview to New York magazine. Some of his quotes were exactly what I was thinking, finally put into words. “The fact of the matter is,” Coates told the reporter, “that the kid at Columbia, whatever dumb shit they’re saying, whatever slogan I would not say that they would use, they are more morally correct than some motherfuckers that have won Pulitzer Prizes and National Magazine Awards and are the most decorated and powerful journalists.”
That [the Israel-Palestine conflict] was complicated, he now understood was “horseshit.” “Complicated” was how people had described slavery and then segregation. “It’s complicated,” he said, “when you want to take something from somebody.”
There was a Palestinian man in Gaza with Down’s syndrome who I saw in a video about how the war was affecting him. It haunted me as an autistic person who is very sensitive to loud noises and sudden changes in routine. He later got mauled by an IDF canine.
Most of all, I remember seeing the gory images from Gaza. Limbs; a decapitated baby; innards. Those are only the things I have seen. Imagine the atrocities you don’t see.