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Existence is a wholeness in which everything and everyone is connected in a hidden network, an interbeing. Whether we understand it or not, we are all participants in a silent discourse with our narratives. The words that emerge from us do not disappear but remain in an infinite space without a time limit. Thus, the suffering of one person affects us all and the joy of another person causes us to smile. This is the foundation of humanity.
لا ضرر ولا ضرار is one of the five fundamental laws of Islam. It means that no one should harm another, and that no one should respond to harm with further harm. From this belief, I write and speak, out of my ethical responsibility as a human being.
My name is Manal. I have a wonderful family, friends, hobbies, and a profession. Like every Palestinian living in Israel, the West Bank, Gaza, and around the world, I too aspire and plan for the future. The thousands of Palestinians killed in the war in Gaza, whose life stories we do not know, also had aspirations and plans for the future. But they are only counted as if they never existed; their numbers are added to the masses killed every day under the label “terrorists.”
Thus, the collective memory is intentionally and consciously constructed and shaped by omitting one side, and through memorialization processes for the other side in ceremonies and the bestowal of names. This results in the silencing of the Palestinian people, who are deemed irrelevant or destructive, and who then become the subject of collective oblivion. Forgetting is no less significant than remembering, serving social shaping, and justifying the existing order, an order established through the narrative of the occupation as “the liberation of the historic Jewish State”.
This is how the belief is created that there is ownership and entitlement to the occupied territory. The Palestinian side is not entitled to be treated like all other peoples, and even endangers the existence and security of the Israeli side. This is,