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The Dartmouth
July 10, 2025 | Latest Issue
The Dartmouth

Do You Remember?

To the Editor:

Do you remember when we used words like "peace"? Do you remember when we shook hands and promised to put the past behind? Do you remember when the hope of the future was enough to lift our spirits above the suffering of the present? Like a bird I soared, high above my shanty-town refugee camps, and I looked down on the land we inherited from our father Abraham. It looked so beautiful then. Did I fly too high and, like Icarus who also flew for the hope of freedom, not see my own destruction? What went wrong?

This morning while I awoke from that dream your tank came into my neighborhood while you were sleeping gently not far away. It wasn't much to take, but as your tank destroyed all that I ever knew I couldn't help but fall to the ground, and oh what a short fall that was! All I feel is anger and hopelessness for my loss. Anger and frustration for the vision of a street in Tel Aviv just like mine except void of tanks and road blocks and lined by houses with running water and electricity.

I feel more anger for a nearer sight, my "neighbor" -- the settler swimming in a pool filled with some liquid I'm not sure I recognize anymore. This anger fills all my being and, still on the floor, I grip my fist over a piece of our earth and throw it at your tank. For this you will call me a terrorist and hunt what is left of my family. For this the world explains it cannot help me; it never has!

Now I know something's coming, but I'm not sure what. It's getting darker, maybe it's the night. It's still Ramadan and the coming of the night used to be a joyous thing, but joy is not allowed through the road block and it waits far outside our refugee camps. Empty and lost, my eyes fill with tears. I'm not sure if my anger and hopelessness made these tears or if my eyes are still trying in vain to wash away the debris and memory of my home and my land, the first I fled from your armies in 1948 and the place I called home until today. It wasn't much, but that's all I ever knew and you've taken it away again, and again I can't help but cry. Bored of crying, there is no shortage of tears in the remains of this refugee camp, I think of you. Do you remember when things weren't so? Do you ever think of me, the way my hand felt in yours and the hope we once shared?