Every once in a while the heart falls silent and a pause imposes itself.
At such moments, I find respite in curating other people’s voices.
First, there is the fact that becomes truth:
In a Haaretz interview, Nathan Thrall, certainly one of the most astute and sensitive observers of Israel and Palestine, distilled the essence of the dilemma now–for both Israelis and Palestinians.
As Israel’s genocide in Gaza entered the starvation phase and photos of emaciated children began to go viral, Arundhati Roy illuminated an essential fact that jarred with the heartbreaking sight:
Her name is Mariam. Why is she upset, the journalist asks. Life is very hard, she explains. Za’atar (thyme) is all they eat. Her father recently left for heaven, and they are stranded in a school, she and her brother.
And then the tears. “We have nothing. We miss bread…white bread.”
Who will rebuild life anew from the wreckage of Mariam’s childhood? From the ruins of her sisters’ and brothers’ in Palestine, in Syria, in Lebanon, Sudan, Yemen, Libya…?
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