to bear witness

on this last week

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I know this is a culture newsletter, and I know that most of you come here for my writing on books, and Taylor Swift, and the delight of gossip, and sometimes sports, and often celebrity culture. I love writing about these things, and I appreciate the privilege of being able to care about these things with you all. This week, I felt weird trying to write about anything other than what we’ve been witnessing in Israel and Palestine. It’s all I’ve thought about. And as I have a platform, small as it might be, I wanted to use today’s entry as wisely as possible. It feels important. However long you’ve been following me and reading my words, I hope it has been evident that I am a reasonable, rational, measured, and informed person.

Last weekend, Hamas carried out a terrible atrocity in Israel, killing hundreds of Israelis. A terrible thing. An act of terror. Unjustifiable and unjustified. The world stage — individuals, world leaders, businesses, organizations — was very quick to call it what it was. We rightfully mourned those deaths and unequivocally condemned Hamas.

Almost immediately, the Israeli military began its retaliatory campaign on the Palestinian people. Millions of people, half of which are children, caught in an ever-shrinking strip of land, who have not been able to hold elections since 2006, the overwhelming majority of which are not affiliated or associated with Hamas. 6,000 bombs were dropped on Gaza in six days. In the name of self-defense. In one of the most densely-populated geographic areas in the world. Already, the death toll in Gaza has surpassed that of the 2014 war. Gaza’s access to water, fuel, food, and electricity has been cut off for days now. This kind of disproportionate offensive attack on a civilian population by a nation-state, one that is heavily financed and enabled by American tax dollars, is something we should feel empowered to call out. We can — and we should, and we have — condemn and denounce Hamas while also rejecting the military targeting of millions of civilians who have no real means of escape or defense.

Indeed, the deplorable actions of a terrorist group has prompted an all-out attack that will almost certainly eradicate an entire people. And I have been losing my mind a little bit because people — many of whom I considered rational and considerate and kind — are calling this destruction commensurate and appropriate. Again — I feel insane. That even saying this feels risky, because if I don't say the exact correct thing, I will be labeled as something I am not. But how can I not say something, when millions of innocent lives are at risk and a vast majority of international authorities appear to be either tacitly or loudly condoning their destruction? When my own government is funding and standing by it? We are watching the annihilation of Gaza and its people happen right in front of us. 

Every time I have expressed even a sliver of empathy for Palestinians over the last few days, I've had a (very) small minority of my followers essentially call me a terrorist sympathizer. It is not, as you might imagine, a wonderful feeling. I am not uninformed on this issue. I live in this world. I have read and I have studied and I have lived and I can recognize, as most of us can, the events that will bring us shame for years to come. I also know that in one, five, ten years, there'll be articles and books and documentaries asking how did we let this happen. I don't want my silence to be part of that how. I don't want to be included in that we.

But it turns out that if, in the same breath that I write I fear for the fate of Gaza in these coming days and weeks, I don't also condemn Hamas, repeatedly and in very specific terms, I am apparently complicit in terror. Every message that I put out against the murder of millions of Palestinians has to go with "and I denounce Hamas," as if that is not obvious. You think an anti-terror stance is not the default, for me and for the vast majority of people speaking up? Of course it is, but I will say it again: I denounce Hamas and its actions. Their attack was a tragedy, and I am against terrorism. Indeed, no one wavered before calling Hamas's attack an atrocity, because that is what it was — but when it comes time to calling the attack on Palestine the same, we force ourselves to hesitate. Why?

We are watching the dehumanization of an entire people in real time. All of us, around the world, mourned the tragic loss of innocent Israeli lives lost at the hand of Hamas. Of course we did. The outrage was immediate and unequivocal, and rightly so. And yet, when we want to extend that grief and mourning to the tragic loss of innocent Palestinian lives, the same lives that have been oppressed for decades, we run into resistance. We have to caveat it because, for some reason, Palestinian victims are not worthy of the same sympathy. Of the same support. It is always conditional. They deserved it, or they should've risen up against Hamas, or well, what else can Israel do?

Again, I have to humbly express that the eradication of an entire people — over 50% of which are children — can never be the right answer. That for a state to cut off access to fuel, water, food, and electricity to millions of people can never be the correct choice. That to give a 24-hour deadline for over a million civilians to evacuate their home before it is bombed — an impossible feat — is not right. There is no justification for this. 

I stand with the Jewish people's right to safety and a home — of course I do. These two rights have, for decades, been denied to the Palestinian people. It should not be controversial to say that the price of a home and of safety for one people cannot possibly be the loss and displacement of another people. To condone that is to condone an ongoing atrocity. It’s difficult to speak out against it, but it feels impossible not to. In the last day or so, our administration (the same one who, earlier in the week, referred to calls for a ceasefire as “repugnant”) has begun to ever-so-slightly temper its unconditional public support toward the Israeli military’s actions in Gaza. This is why I believe speaking out matters.

I am an immigrant. I know how hard it is for a child to leave one's first home and to create a new one, even in the absolute best of terms. How difficult it is to replace the feeling of safety and family and community. To learn new customs and languages and street names. I can't imagine doing all this as a refugee for whom the world cared so little.  

Genuinely, I have found myself at a loss this week. The callousness I’ve seen displayed from people I considered friends, who I have known for years, has broken me. I don't understand how we can watch millions of defenseless civilians being deprived of their right to live, and have to convince people that it is wrong, as if a rational argument is needed. As if we need a pros and cons list to decide whether an ethnic cleansing is justified. Even my fear in posting this makes me feel insane, because how can anyone believe otherwise? And yet.

Thank you for reading. As always, you can find me on twitter, instagram, and tiktok. This newsletter is updated twice a week, and includes one post a week for paid subscribers. If you enjoyed and would like to support my work, please consider becoming a subscriber. xx