My Sister’s Keeper

When we killed Ismail Haniyeh’s sister Zahr last summer- in a targeted airstrike- I went for a very long walk. My own sister and I at the time weren’t on speaking terms. We might never speak again. She has spent the last two years actively supporting the Palestinian cause both online and irl. She told me in a dm on instagram that Israel was just ‘stealing land like they always do.’ A few months ago, our mom was in the hospital. Our mom and I are also not on speaking terms. Both of those issues are because I was our mom’s primary caretaker through both cancer and dementia. And my sister was not present. She never was. Not when she was needed, anyways. I wrote this when our mom was in the hospital in February:

my thoughts on gaza as an idf veteran are that my mom is in the hospital again and my sister is not here and was not there when our mom had cancer nor dementia but instead uses her free time to campaign justice for palestine because its a problem on the other side of the world she’ll never have to solve and I think every one of those little flags in peoples bios all really say ‘there are problems in my own life that I lack the strength to confront’

I stand by that statement. And still when we killed Ismail Haniyeh’s sister I felt that we had lost the plot. Lost any semblance of operational judgement. My sister posts every day on instagram that she thinks the world would be a more equal place if I were gone and everything I fought for destroyed. And if you killed her in an airstrike man- there aren’t English words to describe what I would do. The river of my vengeance would flow for a hundred years. دِرْ بَلَك god forbid. If it were my sister held hostage in a market in Nuseirat I would burn the whole world to get her back. Even if she never spoke to me again. Even if she hated me for it. So the day we killed Ismail Haniyeh’s sister (and her entire family) I wondered why. His response looked just like mine would. If anything he seemed measured. We killed him a few months later. Nice. On the night we killed his sister I wrote the following in the notes app on my phone:

I gotta ask: what has been achieved? are we any closer to getting or levy back? hersh goldberg? are we safer? I don’t feel safer. as a golanchik I gotta admit I feel pretty weak and fucking powerless, watching a river of blood carve through sacred ground

fwiw I dont believe in a deal. I dont believe hamas can be allowed to continue breathing my air, but I see how we are fighting and I dont really know how we’re any different now

maybe thats the answer, though, is that we never were. and this whole stupid argument about who owns what sand gets us further from the truth that we are indiscernible from one another. brothers. sisters. siblings to the jordan river

Hersh Goldberg would be murdered by his captors a few months later, when they realized Israeli forces were closing in and that he would be freed. They chose to shoot him in the head instead. זיכרונו לברכה may his memory be a blessing. Or Levy was released from captivity almost a year later. I don’t know him but Or Levy is my brother, is my sister, is my family, and whatever the cost to get him back- we paid it. In Hersh Goldbergs and Zahr Haniyehs. זוכרונם לברכה may their memories be a blessing