State of Mind and Palestine

Hearing news about rebel conquests in Syria, my thoughts drift to questions about people in northern Israel evacuated in October 2023. Do they have homes to return to and can their safety be guaranteed? People from southern Lebanon are less likely to have homes to return to, but my thoughts wander to people starving in Gaza. Israelis are oblivious. If you live anywhere other than Israel, that hardly seems credible.

Israelis have problems which I in no way undermine. Different and similar problems. Problems are never quantitatively comparable so let’s not go there. I am mortified by the hunger plaguing Gaza.

Israeli media serves the Israeli public, and soldiers’ morale, and the most balanced of outlets still needs its advertisers, that need “feel good” news. Israeli news is about heroism.

If that counterbalances our pain and anger, and induces pride, we still suffer from a government that has failed to bring 100 hostages home from Gaza, a government that fails to prioritize this. Worse, we see elements of the public sharing that approach, condemning hostages’ families calling for their loved ones’ release.

Still, I mostly follow Israeli news because it’s most accessible. I rarely circumvent blocks to Al Jazeera or look for CNN. I’m skilled at switching channels to avoid news about another fallen soldier. The remote control works overtime because what you see on one Israeli channel appears moments later on the others, and you’re a news consuming channel-switcher.

Driving to the office, one morning, I was stuck in traffic for over an hour. Checking Waze for alternative routes, preparing for meetings in my mind, the radio set the tone for the day.

Daily broadcasts about a soldier who fell in the current war with a short bio delivered by a loved one. A wife, a sibling, a husband, a parent, describing dreams and aspirations of a young adult who will never realize them. Children or fiancés, parents of an only child after years of infertility speak. An expecting mother describes the other parent who will never raise their shared child.

Appreciating the importance of this commemoration, yet protecting my emotional wellbeing, I often switch channels. Not that morning. Then a news item reports soldiers attacking Palestinians in the West Bank. Listening, knowing innocent individuals are caught in crossfire or temporarily detained unable to do much but observe. Preventable cultivation of hate. Knowing few will ever find emotional strength to fight for peace. Jewish settlers attacking in Huwara. Israeli news covers the part of the story about injury to our soldiers, because occasionally law and order are imposed. But injuries to Palestinian children are only marginally newsworthy here.

I reach the office feeling unfit to do my job. I can do the mechanics, but to enhance that it’s crucial to see events, live and online, with Israelis and Palestinians sharing stories of loss resulting from this conflict, and their exceptional commitment to reconciliation. I would say commitment to peace, but that sounds anachronistic. Israeli politicians removed the term from public discourse and the public scoffs at it.

A colleague gets a hold of me, observing I’m withdrawn. She encourages me to attend an event to gain inspiration from bereaved women committed to peace. Selfishly, I feel incapable. In-person meetings, podcasts, webinars beginning with stories of bereavement drag me down, rendering me incapable of hearing their powerful messages.

My colleague insists that if I attend such an in-person meeting, I will be uplifted. Another colleague, a bereaved mother of many years, tells me later in the week that my attitude is offensive, certainly to a bereaved person passionate about ending the war, working with Palestinians, demanding a solution. She recommends I listen to recent podcasts spreading this message.

The next day doesn’t start better. My state of mind, to my surprise, takes a turn in the afternoon at a meeting representing my place of work together with seven other individuals representing their respective organizations in the peace camp. We were invited to the offices of the EU delegation in Israel to discuss short-term crisis interventions.

That reminded me of other organizations working for similar purposes, mostly familiar to me, but I’m usually too busy to read their newsletters, protecting my emotions, by avoiding their demands for change framed by tragedies and injustices. Last to present the work of my organization, I was invigorated from energies generated by the other presentations. They reminded me of the power of the message my organization spreads, even if it requires leveraging pain.

That evening, I represented my organization among some 60 guests invited to a book launch at the home of the Ambassador of Ireland. I recognized two or three other NGO reps, publishers, journalists, retired and active diplomats, academics, former military and political personalities. The book, written by Israelis, presents interviews of Irish, Cypriots, and South Africans, after their nations achieved peace, following extensive conflicts.

The ambassador in her remarks referred to her government recognizing the State of Palestine in the past year, and how that was perceived as anti-Israel. Addressing the author of the book who she interviewed, she asked if her government had made a mistake. I clapped, rapidly joined by other guests acknowledging that a Palestinian state is in Israel’s best interest.

Introduced to someone writing a script based on a book related to my organization, he tells me he wants to integrate testimonials of individuals bereaved on and since October 7 into the story. “Like the playscript from the book about Arab and Jewish riots in 1928-29 that integrated personal stories from the civil uprising in mixed Arab-Jewish cities in May 2021,” I responded. His nod confirmed. We never met before, but then I tell him we had an email exchange in 2022 because I translated that script to English. As good pen-pals, we exchanged emails again the next day, and he emphasized how important it is for the few of us committed to peace to bind together and stay in touch.

Harriet Gimpel, December 7, 2024