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You’re looking at Israel’s Ariel Sharon in full and, no doubt, very complimentary gear in Lebanon, in 1982.

It was May 5, 1982, exactly one month before Israel’s invasion of Lebanon. Nicholas Veliotes, Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs, and Adnan Abu Odeh, Jordan’s Minister of Information and one of King Hussein’s point men on the Palestinian-Jordanian dossier, were lunching at Dominque’s in Washington D.C. During the conversation, Veliotes offered this insight about Israeli policy towards the Palestine Liberation Organization

You’re looking at the St George Hotel in the 1950s.

A week ago, Saturday afternoon! They stood there, in the middle of the street, posing, this young man and woman. He was in a tuxedo, she was in a backless white party dress. He held her low as if to kiss her, she grabbed on to him as her long hair fell to the cobblestones below. Their three female friends, all in chadors, merrily snapped photos as he swayed her between this arm and that.

This past week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lashed out at the Biden Administration for presumably withholding weapons to Israel. Netanyahu likened himself to Churchill and Israel’s war on Gaza to World War II, declaring: “Churchill told the United States, ‘give us the tools, we’ll do the job.’ And I say, ‘give us the tools and we’ll finish the job a lot faster.'”

Two observations in Tom Segev’s recent Foreign Affairs piece, “Israel’s Forever War,” shimmer in a deeply dark text.

The Palestinians also hold on to the illusion of return, the principle that they will one day be able to reclaim their historic homes in Israel itself—a kind of Palestinian Zionism that, like Israel’s maximalist aspirations, can never come true.

Lebanon is a tad bit stranger than usual these days. Nothing too alarming suggesting anything imminent. But over the past few months, the tussle between the seriousness and frivolity of the country has acquired a sharper appearance. I say appearance because many of our Lebanese melees are both distraction and consequence.

Over the last few weeks, as student protests and encampments have erupted on college campuses across the US, trepidations have risen, especially among younger supporters of the Palestinian cause. One messaged me: “Congress will pass their new antisemitism law, everyone will be silenced, foreign students will be deported, visas will be cancelled, new ones will be denied. They will shut it all down.”

The Middle East, for its observers, is theater. A place of smoke and mirrors, as many a foreign journalist is fond of saying. It’s more sorry fate than cultural disposition. In coveted lands, conspiracies tend to thrive and, alas, everybody, inside and out, wants a piece of us.

So, we Arabs, from a very tender age, are conditioned to believe that what we see is almost always a lie, shadowplay, the purpose of which is to hide something sinister.

Joye Vailes Shepperd–Vailes to me since we were teenagers–is my best friend. We met in high school when I joined Holton-Arms in my junior year. She was an old timer and a senior, with all the comforts and familiarities that come with that; I was new, with all the discomforts and unease that attach to this.

Ever since those early days, she and I have been each other’s whisperers, editors, advocates, and critics–constant conversationalists across the spectrum of time and life.

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: