Top Tweets for #Intifadas

I come from a generation of Israelis who had the second intifada etched into their memory. Even prior, in 1997, my sister left Apropo coffee shop in Tel-Aviv a mere minutes before it blew up from a bomb in a handbag that killed 3 and injured almost 50 others. I remember seeing strewn body parts from the suicide bombings in the early 2000s. I remember the pain of pulling out of Gaza. The rockets. The multiple wars. Yet, even still, after all that, I retained hope that one day peace would happen. October 7th took all of those experiences and amplified them to infinity. The horrors were worse, far worse, than seeing those strewn body parts. The pleas to stop, the screams, the eyes of horror of innocent people — our own people — who experienced things out of Hitler’s wet dreams. Sure, we have our extremes, but not like that. Not with such virulent hatred. Such inhumanity. Only to be met with wide applause. They’re images that will scar a generation, likely more. They’re sounds that will haunt our dreams. But, we will prevail. Yet, some of you think, from your comfortable couch with your pumpkin latte, that you have an idea what we went through? That you, with your diploma and “read books,” can dictate what our response should look like? Our humanity is in check. Even through those horrors we still aren’t going to go beheading elderly and infants, or turning people into ash while laughing in glee. Hamas is going to hurt, and those who hated us will continue to hate us. However, I am done with people pontificating if our existence is just. I’m done debating about my legitimacy. So, if you don’t recognize my existence, my identity, my humanity, I don’t recognize yours either.