I am Pro-Palestine… and I Do Not Hate Israelis

Because to be pro-humanity means you do not hold hate for anyone.

Photo by Nina Strehl on Unsplash

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Dear friend,

How are you? And how is your beautiful heart?

I’ve had the pleasure of doing a few events this summer with my small arty business. I absolutely love meeting and connecting with human beings face-to-face. There is nothing quite like meeting customers and fans of your work in person, especially when you mainly run your business online.

Last summer, I held my first stall at the famous Portobello Road here in London. A day where I made a decent amount of sales but more importantly, a day where I danced with strangers in the rain to a live saxophone, got soaked through to the bone but wasn’t mad about it and met and adorned a number of humans from all around the world with my henna body art.

My first customers that day were an Israeli family. A mum and her two daughters, one around 11 years old and the other in her early teens. They looked as different as night and day to each other but had the same beautiful smile. Their innocence shone through it as they spoke to me in thick-accented broken English about their interests and the things that made them happy: one loved music, and the other loved art; one was an introvert, and the other more of an extrovert; one loved the henna design I had intricately painted on her skin, and the other became obsessed with it. They were genuinely very sweet girls.

Since October 7th 2023, I have thought of those girls often.

I have wondered what their life is like back in Israel. I have wondered if they are okay. If their family and friends are okay. I have wondered what they were thinking of me - if anything at all - as I painted their hands, with my brown skin the same colour as their Palestinian neighbours.

I have wondered whether they know their history or whether they too have been indoctrinated into believing that Israel has the right to exist on a land which was never truly theirs. A land stolen and built on the persecution and the blood of little Palestinian girls just like them.

I have wondered. I have thought of them often. And I have wondered.

Because since October 7th, and Israel’s biggest onslaught in their continuation of systematic genocide of the Palestinians which started back in 1948, what I have seen of other little Israeli girls has chilled me through to the bone. 

Starting conversations spitting “you love Israel?”, while sporting contorted devilish faces; spewing hate for Palestine and Palestinians as if it is completely normal to hate and dehumanise other human beings, and speaking so viciously and outlandishly with no trace of youthful innocence. If you’ve seen the videos, you’ll know what I’m talking about. I have wondered how you go from the sweet little girls I met that day at the market to what appear to be the devil’s children in disguise.

And then I remember. I think back to my A-level history studies when I was in college. Studying Nazi Germany and Hitler’s rise to power, I remember how the indoctrination of the German children in hatred and dehumanisation of Jews began from birth. I was fascinated by all of it. How the human being can be manipulated so deeply to the core that they begin to see fellow human beings as ‘the other’ - inferior and below them to the point that mass extermination is justified.

Hitler did that. And today, Israel is doing the same.

It’s interesting how history repeats itself, isn’t it? How the once oppressed become the oppressors. How the once tortured become the torturers. How the once mass murdered become the murderers. And so the cycles continue because we continue to hate and judge and condemn.

Those cycles will never end until we consciously choose to break them.

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Being pro-Palestinian to me does not mean that I am anti-Israeli. Being pro-Palestinian means the only thing that it can mean while bearing witness to all that we have since October 7th: I am PRO-HUMANITY. And being pro-humanity means that I do not hate, cannot hate and will never hate Israelis.

Here’s the thing: the two cannot exist hand-in-hand. You cannot simultaneously stand for one group of human beings while hating or condemning another. To do so means that you are enslaved to the same deep unconsciousness that causes genocides in the first place. To do so means that you are no different to the oppressors. To do so means that rather than helping in the healing of humanity, you are hindering it.

Some of our greatest lessons have been delivered to us through the plight of the Palestinians. In the example they have set for the rest of humanity. Despite everything they have been through since 1948, despite the horrors and the hell they have been surviving since October 7th 2023, not once have I seen them curse the Israelis. In every video and interview I have seen from those who have escaped and even those still trapped in this real-life horror movie, they show that they do not hate the Israelis. They seem to have a level of understanding that many of us can’t even comprehend.

Imagine? Your whole house and neighbourhood being bombed to pieces, your children being snatched away and tortured, having to gather the limbs together of your murdered baby into plastic bags, your bones protruding through your skin while aid trucks sit full just across the border. It goes on and on and on. I am forever scarred by the images and videos I have seen - so unbelievably evil and unbelievable - yet, a true reality that we can only bear witness to. It brings up such rage and deep sorrow from the core of my Being, and I can understand how that could so very easily morph into hatred and condemnation. Yet, this is not happening directly to me. The ones who it is happening directly to do not hate, so how the hell can I?

The be pro-Palestinian is to stand for the liberation of the whole of humanity - even those who appear soulless, heartless and evil to the core. Being pro-Palestinian is to wish for our neighbours what we wish for ourselves; it is to work for the freedom of every single human being, both outside and within. 

The systems of control in this world are what have implanted fear, hatred and division among us. This is what we must stand against. The oppressed must be liberated, but equally, the oppressors must also be liberated from this evil. We cannot be beings of peace if we hold hate in our hearts towards anyone. As pro-Palestinians, we cannot hold hate in our hearts for the Israelis - if we do, we are being played just as much as they are.

Nelson Mandela, in South Africa, understood this. Sheikh Ahmadou Bamba, in Senegal, understood this. Sir Martin Luther King Jr., in America, understood this. And that is why the effects of their liberation work are still rippling throughout the world today.

If we are to stand for humanity, we stand for the liberation of everyone.

Despite the sheer evil and injustice we see, if we are not able to hold compassion for every single person on this earth as a creation and manifestation of the Divine, we will never be free. 

And this is why I am pro-Palestinian, but I do not hate Israelis.

Free the Palestinians from their external horror. Free the Israelis from their inner hatred and conditioning.

Let’s free ourselves, truly, and stand for the liberation of the whole of humanity.

With Light, Love & Peace,

Sabah x

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