"Back from the West Bank."

In answer to Chas Freeman's devastating question.

Shepherd village. South Hebron Hills, Palestine. (C.M., May ‘24.)

9 JUNE—Chas Freeman’s question has haunted me since he first articulated it three months ago in a conversation with Aaron Maté and Katie Halper on Useful Idiots podcast: 

Does Israel have a right to exist [is] a rather strange question because it does exist. I don’t know of other countries that run around asking whether they have a right to exist. But I think that question is being replaced now in much of the world by, “Does Israel deserve to exist?” 

By the time Freeman posed his question on the first Wednesday in March, Israel was five months into its unrelenting slaughter in Gaza. I knew my answer well in advance of my trip to the West Bank. The month I spent in Palestine confirmed a conviction that the only reasonable and just reply to that question, a reply now shared by increasing numbers of people, is an unequivocal no. 

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The reports I will soon be publishing—focused as they are on the daily experience of West Bank Palestinians—are stories of Jewish racism and supremacism, of the theft of land and culture, of Israeli brutality that has descended since 7 October into naked and depraved sadism. No other word will suffice. 

This extremity of violence is made possible in large part because there is almost no reporting coming out of the West Bank and because the West turned its back on Palestine. This is by design. Israel has made it nearly impossible to report on the occupied territories it continuously terrorizes. This is why I determined to go there as a citizen observer flying below the radar.

“Every Palestinian has a story,” every Palestinian I met told me. As I quickly learned, they are stories of almost unimaginable violence, loss, and suffering. Even so, the people I met were remarkable for their dignity and humanity, their composure and humility—and for their capacity for hope, when all hope seems lost. 

I cried a lot during my time in the West Bank, especially in the early mornings and late evenings as I reviewed my notes—a condensation of petty humiliations and ferocious atrocities. 

The people I spoke with were acutely aware of the impact their stories had on me. When my eyes filled with tears, or when, as in one instance, I was momentarily unable to breathe, they looked at me with the patient indulgence one grants to a child. And with a sympathy I found almost unbearable. 

Palestinians understand that their experience is unique for the exceptional and sustained degree of violence inflicted upon them, and for the indifference to their suffering. 

Inevitably I met with a few people who could not tolerate being in the presence of an American. The most painful questions where those from children who wanted to know why America was supporting Israel’s genocide. To be clear: These children know precisely what is being done in Gaza. They know that Israel and America are responsible for the atrocities being committed, and they want to know why America is killing Palestinian children.

Most often I met with expressions of gratitude, “Thank you for coming to Palestine. Thank you for caring. Thank you for telling our stories.” All of the people I met were aware of the student protests and found in them a cause for hope.

On my travels through the governorates of Al-Khalil (Hebron), Bethlehem, and Al-Bireh/Ramallah I spoke with students and teachers, artists and artisans, shopkeepers and laborers. I listened to community organizers and activists, shepherds, olive farmers, mothers and father, grandfathers and grandmothers, children, and elders in their 90s. 

I spoke with elected officials from various municipalities. In Al-Khalil I listened as a radio manager called one of his reporters from Gaza, and watched as the man began to cry. On my first day in the West Bank I met a doctor from Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza and on my last day I met a man who had been released from prison only three days earlier. He had lost half of his body weight and the entire right side of his face was black and blue from a vicious beating. His jaw had been broken.

The Arabs of Palestine, Christian and Muslim, are warm and hospitable people. Everywhere I went I was offered food and drink. I was served delicious meals by families that I knew were poor, my hosts filling my plate with generous servings of the best that was on offer. 

All of these stories and more I will be reporting on over the next several months. Above all, these are accounts of people who have retained their humanity despite being treated in the most inhumane ways. These are the stories of people in a land where surviving, preserving cultural traditions, and caring for others are courageous acts of resistance. 

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