To Be Israeli

A short poem to commemorate one month since the massacre of October 7th.

To be Israeli is to be incongruent,

like shattered glass, broken and sharp.

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To be Israeli is to be the victim and the abuser,

the weak and the powerful,

the dove and the bull.

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To be Israeli is to be the indigenous and the settler,

rooted and uprooted, rooting and uprooting,

to “Go back to Palestine!” like the Nazis chanted,

only to “Go back to where you come from!” now.

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To be Israeli is to be where we come from,

to have no other place,

to have found refuge, finally:

Our homecoming, another’s Nakba.

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To be Israeli is to be Zionist, maybe Post-Zionist,

or better yet — conditionally Zionist,

to believe in one state, two states, or three states — or a confederation,

to be a Jew, an Arab, or a Christian,

A liberal democrat or a religious fascist.

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To be Israeli is to be only 0.1% of humanity,

But 2% of Nobel prize winners,

10% of global startups,

20% of the world’s attention,

And 45% of UN human rights condemnations?

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To be Israeli is to be community and abandonment,

the subject of commentary,

but unworthy to comment on the subject,

to be left wing but left out,

Our voice equal, so long as equal lives are lost.

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To be Israeli is to be painted into a picture,

Or a post,

Or a tweet:

A flat caricature without humanity.

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To be Israeli is to know there is a hierarchy of truth and evil,

that “facts” can be spun into myths,

and myths spun into a web of lies:

devoid of context, yet full of ulterior motive.

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To be Israeli is to be defeated and resilient,

a temple built and destroyed,

only to be built and destroyed again.

To be a phoenix reconstituted from the ashes,

Traumatized yet relentless, alone and brave.

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If we can be all these things,

perhaps you can see,

that we are just glass fusing back together,

transparent, multi-faceted, fragile and strong.