ix months into Israel’s murderous war on Gaza, I spend my days in Ramallah reading the devastating news, feeling helpless and heartbroken. Yet one morning, I turned instead toin which the author observed: “It is when the experience of powerlessness is at its most acute, when history seems at its most bleak, that the determination to think like a human being, creatively, courageously, and complicatedly matters the most.
The Israeli crimes in Gaza are unprecedented and immeasurably larger than what we’ve experienced at any time in the past. I asked my Israeli friend where were the voices of reason and compassion who took to the streets after theAn Israeli military bulldozer patrols the Balata refugee camp in the northern West Bank on Monday, following a raid on the camp.The war has also exposed the failure of Hamas to have anticipated and prepared its civilian population for Israel’s response.
Which makes me wonder when we will be able to climb out of our trenches. To paraphrase Siegfried Sassoon, when will “hope, with furtive eyes and grappling fists, flounder in mud”? We will then emerge from the depth of our misery and yet again be able to flourish in our history-burdened region of the world.