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The one word that kept running through my mind while listening to this book was 'powerless.' It was an eye-opening book regarding the war between Israel and Palestine. But the author goes beyond even that horridness, into much deeper territory, in my opinion. And yet I, as just another left-leaning citizen, can only hear the word 'powerless' continue on repeat in my mind.
The author does a great job of articulating the fact that there isn't another word for what is happening in Gaza other than genocide. But so many leaders here in the United States, on both sides, have been hesitant to use that term. Why? He makes excellent points about how, on one side of the political structure, you have a person who embraces their hate and the hate of their base, and on the other side, leaders who, given their lack of results, aren't doing much more than virtue signaling. He also describes how so many of us have exercised and therefore strengthened the muscle that helps us look away from atrocities, rather than the smaller muscle that needs to be built at this time in our world: resistance, in whatever form it can take.
I agreed with the author that this next generation may have the tenacity to reach for hope and peace by hitting back at any system or state whose only objective is to fill a seemingly bottomless pit of want. There is a significant difference between how much our current system takes and what we, as the citizens of that system, have to give. He also describes how end-stage capitalism typically follows a path of extreme extraction by the machine of the capitalistic world. Which, in turn, trains the givers to expect less and less while the system takes more and more. A job one might have done at one point full-time might now be referred to as a 'side hustle' within a system that would like its inhabitants to accept the idea that what they do through their own labor is worth less and less. Taking and profit for the rich increases on the backs of those who have been raised in a world in which giving seems the only viable option. But, there is hope that the young people of today may lay down some of our current conveniences and forgo some of the checklists that have been force-fed to us in the belief that those things make a better world.
I also agreed with the author that when you are living in a state of oppression, which I think Palestine has been, it's not uncommon for hate to grow in the form of a terrorist group, such as Hamas, and to admit that monsters don't materialize but are made. There is a contradiction in what it's called when the violence comes from oppressed groups, which differs from what it is called when similar violence is leveraged by the oppressor: one being terrorist action and the other a military strike. Both sides are fighting and delivering evil to the wrong group: the civilians.
I hold out hope that, at some point, there will be an opening to discuss nonviolence. But for now, that seems unlikely. This book was published before Trump secured his second term. And while the administration has created some form of an idea on a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, it still, to me, falls flat. To create the Board of Peace and then put a $1 Billion price tag for a permanent seat on that board indicates to me that any interest in reconstruction or aid will be primarily viewed through the lens of capital gain. But that likely depends on how you view the powerfully wealthy: as altruistic believers in the human race, or greedy, power-hungry opportunists, who, much like those that came before them, would agree to build something beautiful on the backs of stolen labor. Maybe something will ignite in all of us a desire to do something, anything, to leave behind the role of distracted consumer and embrace the role of disruptor. I highly recommend this book!
