Inever been in two months since my niece Juri – a bright, grinning six years old – killed by Gaza. We buried him while his sister recovered from his wounds and his father tried to walk again with the broken legs. Only one week ago, I hit another irrevocable loss. My 16-year-old Ali was killed: a rocket that fired rocket through him and six members of our family while sitting outside the house we left – the one who had left the dust.
Ali is divided into two. That’s not a metaphor: it literally what rocket does his body. A child trying to escape the inspiring warmth inside a house without electricity, with no water, no safety. A child whose only one crime was sitting in a plastic seat in a corridor of his uncles – men trying to enjoy a place where the comfort becomes a threat.
Why are they killed? They are not warriors. They don’t have weapons. They do not hide. They are not “Human shields“
And there are no headlines. No angry, no press conferences, no vigles in the candle in the western chapters, no hashtags, no question is asked. But I want to tell you something else. Even after all the horror my family in Israel – the killings, hunger, loss – I say yes to an invitation to invite Paris. It is part of a series of gatherings that carry up to a major summit intended in New York, where President Emmanuel Macron promises to push a state of Palestine.
Shortly after the meeting of Paris, the New York conference was silent. No explanation. No urgent. It seems peace – like everyone in our lives – can last forever. However I went to Paris. I went even if I warned that there were governmental government supporters in the room. I didn’t flinch. I will go somewhere and talk to anyone if it means to stop killing mass of my people.
I didn’t go for revenge but for hope. I sat in a room with the participants of Israel who said they wanted peace, like I did. But there is something. As we all speak of peace, as I am willing to talk about death. None of the Israelites I said to know Gaza’s genocide. Best, some admit that Israel commits war crimes – but not genocide. This is, despite excessive agreement between International Organizations,, Academics in Israel and Genocide Scholars that what is happening in Gaza is worth a genocide.
A couple came to me quietly and, the whispers, confessed, yes, what was happening really a genocide. But they say it’s like a secret. It is very dangerous to say in force. It seems that truth is a weapon that can destroy peace hope.
We talk about peace in abstract terms. Great, flowing, beautiful ideas about interaction and shared future. But no one wants to deal with the land that is blood under us. No one wants to talk about hungry children. Or the drone tearing the body in my nephew. Or the silence that follows the screams. Even some Palestinian companions – from other parts of Palestine – don’t want to acknowledge the ongoing killings in Gaza. I feel alone. I feel a barrier. Like I’m very raw, not very good, real. Everything is busy with build bridges while I’m still trying My family is alive.
At one point, a woman Israel asked me: “Isn’t it better if Gazans leave for a while, until Gaza is rebuilt?” He told it if the exile was neutral. As if 1948 did not occur. As we have never learned that when Palestinians leave, they are not allowed to return. I told him: perhaps in theory, if people can leave temporarily and return, perhaps. I said: “They may remain at the Negev Desert (in southern Israel) and return when rebuilt Gaza.” He quit. “You don’t like peace,” he said to me.
But between it, I also talked to another woman in Israel – good and honest – who told me that he was directly affected by 7 October attacks. He did not hide his pain. “We are the minority of Israel,” he said to me. “Most people are more anti-Palestinian.” I believe in him. And I appreciate his willingness to talk. But at least he – someone who really wants peace – can’t bring himself to call what happened to Gaza a genocide.
And I didn’t wonder that I thought: If this was the little minority of the Israelites who believed in association, and even though they did not deal with what was happening in Gaza, what do we feel? If those who say they want peace also don’t know our suffering, what kind of peace do we talk about?
I don’t know if that conference shows hope about peace or if I teach it something important, the Israelites will ask forth unthinking courage. The class that does not fly from reality or hide behind noble words as people are buried under concrete and fire.
Peace will require Palestinians ready to talk about their pain and see people in those who impose it. And it would require the Israel to face what their government had done, and continued to do, their name. There is no real peace until both sides can stand on face to face and say: “We’re wrong. We’re complex.”
Ali killed after I returned from Paris, where I was sitting in the room and trying to build bridges. I told people about my niece Juri and asked them to see our pain – and now Ali was also lost. But there is something inside me the transit. Not in rage but to solve. Peace cannot be built in silence or denial. It cannot be established while Palestinians are treated as applicable. It begins with justice, truth and a political solution that guarantees the rights of Palestinians to live in freedom, in dignity and self determination. And at least, it should start at the most basic rights of all: the right to remain alive.
Ahmed Najar is a financial and political analyst as well as a playwright
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