Living with fear and searching  for hope


A boy is crying out in pain; only his head is sticking out. The rubble has trapped the rest of his body. Rescuers are trying to pull him out with their bare hands. One more day in Gaza. The year is coming to an end, but the pain is not. I change the channel, but the image persists.

With slabs of stone on his back, the head of a child looked like a turtle—an animal known for carrying its own home wherever it goes. Where will the "human animals" of Gaza go when the "lawn is being mowed" thus? The invaders want the "turtles" to move to the nearby deserts. "The life of refugees is not great, but millions of others throughout history have learnt to move on," says my once-favourite comedic icon, Bill Maher. He referred to Fiddlers on the Roof to mention how the Jews took it rather sportively while being pushed from one place to another. Norman Finkelstein, my new hero, thoroughly exposed the fallacy of Maher's claim. Finkelstein appears to be one of the few voices that resist the land-grabbing and systemic eviction, which are part of the vendetta mission triggered by the Hamas attack on October 7, which resulted in the deaths of 1,200 people. Even after the deaths of at least 21,822 Palestinians (according to Al Jazeera), there is no sign of let-up. The year 2023 will go down in history when it comes of age, leaving behind its naive understanding of