Sadness, anger, disappointment, helplessness, and shock.

Sadness, anger, disappointment, helplessness, and shock.

This is how I began the piece I published on my blog on October 11, 2023. Incredibly, today, February 21, 2025, these very emotions not only persist but have grown even more intense. They’ve built up and merged into a complex fabric of feelings and passions that defies simple description.

Sorting through these emotions feels like a struggle. Now I question whether I must include another, the strongest emotion of them all: Hate.
 I know there are people who hate me; people who don’t know me, who don’t know who I am, yet despise me solely for being and existing.

I’ve always believed there isn’t any room in me for hate. While I’ve felt repulsion toward certain ideas, attitudes, or figures, hate itself has never taken root.

Today, it feels like there’s a conflict raging inside me, is this turmoil just the familiar mix of sadness, anger, disappointment, helplessness, and shock, or is it something more? How can I feel sadness and anger toward the hate aimed at me and my people if I carry that same feeling inside? How can I even hate someone I’ve never met?

I also ask myself how can I love and miss someone that was never truly mine. The little faces of Ariel and Kfir will stay with me for the rest of my days, leaving a mark on my heart until my final breath.

This past year and a half have shaped me in ways I never expected. I’ve come to know myself more deeply, to feel greater gratitude, to love and appreciate more fully, and to better define who I am. This period has tested my resilience, and though it has been exhausting, it has also made me stronger.

Watching my loved ones and my community carry this pain alongside me brings a strange sense of comfort. There’s an irony in it: it hurts to witness the suffering of my people, yet knowing I’m not alone in that hurt gives me solace. I hope they can also feel that I’m with them.

A part of me still holds on to faith—faith in the future— even though it’s getting harder to justify.

 Many might call me naive or even foolish, but just as German and Japanese societies changed after World War II, I believe Palestinian society, too, can be deradicalized. I’m not saying the road will be easy or that I hold the recipe; I only mean that my faith in this possibility hasn’t been completely lost.

Anyway, the first step is clear: Hamas must be dismantled, and the hostages must be returned

Beyond Gaza, the real battle for peace lies in Iran, it must be contained; its proxy networks across the Middle East are fueling this endless cycle of terror.

Soon, I believe Saudi Arabia will join the Abraham Accords, and other Arab nations will follow. The region’s future depends on a clear path forward—one that isolates extremism and strengthens alliances committed to peace.

 What about the western world? Western “anti-Zionists” who call Hamas terrorists freedom fighters, those that seek Israel’s annihilation, those who blame the Jews for all their troubles are simply not compatible with the reality of my being and existence. I pity your ignorance and despise your antisemitism. We share the same planet, yet we live in different worlds.

I believe that the “bad” ones are just a minority, while the majority stays silent. Yesterday, I once again fell into the trap of scrolling through X (formerly Twitter), a breeding ground for hate, extremism, and hollow likes wrapped in heart-shaped icons. If you want to erase Israel and celebrate the murder of Jewish babies, how do you expect us to react? At the very least, we must defend ourselves.

I also read extremist posts from my own people, calls like “Nuke Gaza” or “Kill more Palestinian children.”  I reject these calls; let’s not lower ourselves to our enemy’s moral level or engage in a contest fueled by hatred.  We cannot become what we are fighting against. We must hold onto our principles, even when rage tempts us otherwise.

To my readers: feel, grieve, grow stronger, and fight. Fight against hate, ignorance, darkness, and terror.

To the Bibas, to Hershel,  to Noa,  to the rest, I have just one word: סליחה.

To grasp the depth of this pain, I turn to these words by Bernard-Henri Lévy:

“One must imagine the life of Kfir and Ariel as hostages if, as is probable, they were torn from their mother’s arms. Imagine the life of a baby who spends most of his time in dark, damp tunnels. Imagine the life of a toddler, ripped from his family without understanding. Were they hungry? Thirsty? Did the captors change Kfir’s diapers, or did they let him sit in his own filth until his skin burned? Did they have talcum powder? Medicine for fevers? What did the masked jailers do when the boys cried, were scared of night noises, or asked the stars about their fate when they were briefly allowed outside? Did they hit them? Strike them with rifle butts? Did they amuse themselves by firing their Kalashnikovs into the air to frighten them further? Did Ariel become the guardian of his baby brother? Did they live out their brief lives together or separately? When Kfir spoke his first words, did they mock him, silence him, or pour the captors’ language into his mouth to erase his mother’s? I don’t know.”

How do you feel? Do you share my feelings or have experience different ones?