Palestine Never Goes Away

I’ve never thought of my devotion to Palestine’s liberation as contingent on any kind of productivity.  It’s there whether or not I write about the occupation, whether or not I attend a conference, whether or not I argue with trolls on the internet, whether or not I read Electronic Intifada, whether or not I donate to Red Crescent, whether or not I do archival history, whether or not I buy revolutionary paraphernalia.  It doesn’t matter if I visit Palestine, avoid Palestine, ignore Palestine, or visualize Palestine. 

Palestine does not require outward validation.  It is atomized in my body and brain. 

Palestine’s struggle for freedom is entirely unaffected by my choices, anyway.  National liberation adheres to its own momentum.  You can only try to apprehend and honor its harsh necessities even when they conflict with dreams of upward mobility. 

Palestine’s indelibility isn’t limited to its indigenes and descendants.  Palestine inhabits the bodies and brains of its enemies, as well. 

In fact, of all the problems that Zionists face—receding support, systemic corruption, high rates of sunburn, moral rot—Palestine’s indelibility is the biggest one.  Nobody is forgetting Palestine.  Not within or outside the polity.  Not in the present or future.  Not in words or images.  Not in song or silence.  Palestine never goes away. 

I’ve been thinking about what does or doesn’t endure as I withdraw from many of the professional and political communities for which Palestine is so important.  Social media were a huge conduit for discussion of Palestine, but I rarely use them anymore.  Political writing also kept me tuned in, but I don’t do much of that anymore.  I spend a decent amount of time these days wondering how to express love and longing in spaces that grow emptier as I age.  And still Palestine never goes away. 

I write hundreds of things that don’t mention Palestine and yet Palestine is plastered all over everything I’ve ever written.  Its presence isn’t simply implicit.  It represents a set of values I attempt to vitalize through form and language. 

This can happen because in the end Palestine isn’t a profession or a pastime.  It is a devotion beyond pleasure and logic.  We like to think that a political commitment is activated when signing a petition or reading a book or attending a lecture, but a commitment is also present when knitting a scarf or cooking a meal or daydreaming by the ocean.  The devotion is both conscious and involuntary.  

Periodically, a friend will inform me that some Zionist doofus with the kind of credentials that suggest lifelong fealty to power was on Facebook or Twitter reheating a bunch of tired old slander or posting arcane hit-pieces written by other Zionist doofuses for corporate media.  It occurs to me in those moments that whatever I do, or don’t do, the association I have with Palestine is unbreakable. 

I’m proud of the association and recognize something in it more crucial than personal pride.  The Zionist obsession with our form and language is why I know Palestine will win.  And deep within their woolly brains, the Zionists know it, too.  They can’t stop themselves from facilitating our victory because they’re afflicted by the peculiar insecurity that besets all oppressors—an insecurity which impels them to claim the world as theirs without a corresponding sense of belonging.  The objects of their contempt also supply the raw material for their self-esteem.  The proof is in evidence every time they start another defamation campaign. 

They refuse to let us exist beyond Palestine.  They cannot tolerate us being anything other than Palestinian. 

Ignoring Palestine would set them adrift in a world without purpose.  And so they aim to destroy Palestine, instead. 

For the native, Palestine affirms the possibility of life in this world.  For the Zionist, Palestine negates a lifetime of false affirmations.  This distinction is precisely why our presence and absence will both forever haunt the oppressor.