for the release of the hostages of the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks. PHOTO COURTESY OF AUTHOR
I have always wondered if I am privileged. I grew up with a happy family, even though we’d fight sometimes. We always had food in the fridge or the game we wanted. We have traveled abroad multiple times. I have a functioning body; I’m able to walk, talk and work out. I can hear and see our wonderful world. I met true friends along the way, and I’m studying my favorite subject. Does that make me a privileged person? I’m not so sure.
I also grew up in a war zone. In my reality, an alarm isn’t just an ambulance rushing to save lives; it’s a missile siren. When we hear an alarm, we run. We stop what we’re doing and run to the nearest bomb shelter to protect ourselves from another missile attack. When I traveled the world, I avoided the question, “Where are you from?” just in case the other person is antisemitic. Even if they hide it, they will act differently while speaking with me. In the place I grew up, you can’t enter a public place like a mall, a supermarket, a school or just a regular office building without having your bag and pockets checked. You’re on guard at a bus stop because of a possible car-ramming terrorist attack, such as one which killed one person and injured 17 others in Tel Aviv on Jan. 15. You dread the idea of seeing a lost bag on a random bench or in the street because it might contain a bomb. As a Jewish person from Israel, these are all daily dangers that I and my loved ones experience regularly. Does living life like this make me a privileged person?
People living in countries free from domestic or regional conflict might find this difficult to understand. Some of you are opposing the war in Gaza, advocating for a ceasefire or for “justice,” whatever that may look like. I wonder how many of you are able to travel to any country you want, or not to have to memorize the location of bomb shelters around you. I assume that it’s easier to protest from your safe university, surrounded by people similar to you and have the privilege to return to your normal routine after the rally ends.
To me, the Israel-Hamas war has changed the meaning of the word privilege. All the minor problems we have in life feel irrelevant in comparison. It doesn’t matter if your boyfriend broke up with you or if you forgot to submit some trivial assignment. As long as you’re not being held hostage by a terror organization — you’re good.
It feels like the news is concentrating on only one side of the story of the Israel-Palestine conflict. It is not interesting to post a video of a Palestinian child stabbing soldiers when the soldiers are from the Israeli army. It is also not interesting to post Arab students sitting in classrooms, earning degrees in Israeli universities. The world is so convinced that Israel is the bad guy that it remains blind to Israel’s remarkable actions for a peaceful life and for protecting all people living within its borders, not just Jewish. Just recently, Israel’s amazing defense systems rescued thousands of civilians from a deadly Iranian missile and drone attack.
Still, life in Israel is not privileged. We struggle with fighting for keeping our name of an honorable place that respects a variety of people, including Palestinians. Hamas made it difficult to prove while using the terrible situation of the Palestinians for its selfish purposes and by turning down ceasefire proposals while asking for the release of terrorists in return.
Despite all the difficulties that Hamas created for the Israeli people, it didn’t break our spirit. Perhaps this is what being privileged is all about, feeling loved and belonging to a supportive community.
I grew up in a beautiful country, surrounded by amazing people, with a happy family. I’m able to hear, see, talk and walk. I have loving friends, and I study my favorite subject. Yet, amidst all that, I live in a country surrounded by violent people and powerful enemies who are fighting to erase my people. So perhaps, after all, I’m not privileged because privilege is living without violence.
Amazing,
I have been enjoying reading this article.
Shut up zionist lol
Typical moron hiding without name,
Stupid.
Great to hear this writer’s perspective. Protection and full legal rights of minorities is one of the values that Israel espouses and it is unique in that part of the world, unfortunately. I sat next to an Israeli Arab on a plane recently who told me how Hamas is basically a bunch of gangsters. Perhaps one silver lining of Hamas’ October 7 attacks is that it is bringing Israeli people of all backgrounds closer together. It is disheartening to see US college students protesting and rioting in support of Hamas. Most are useful idiots for the gangsters’ cause- whether they realize it or not.
The audacity of this article is insane, reading this as a person of color who cannot safely exist in multiple countries without experiencing vicious racism, not to mention their ethnic country ravaged by colonialism. Not only are a majority of your sources primarily Israeli, given the occupation’s awful track record with objectivity and sensationalist misinformation, but your own personal anecdote is one of privilege. Leave it to the Israeli to plant themselves in the imperial core and get angry when the locals with an education, or at minimum critical thought, have a semblance of empathy toward folks being systematically murdered at large. The occupation you hail from is at war because it’s very existence is built on stolen land and the subjugation of the natives who’ve existed for millennia prior. Hamas is only an inevitable consequence of this fact. Its supposed selfishness is not the reason Israel chose to destroy the lives of tens of thousands of civilians, their children, and their entire cities. You can continue to exist safely in your privileged life knowing that you aren’t part of the current brown demographic being put through the imperialist slaughterhouse, or the activists facing state repression for daring to oppose imperialist interests. Your so called cause is backed unquestionably by administration, the police, politicians, the wealthy, and countless western governments.
Why do the privileged love to deny who they are? Take some pride in the fact that the occupation you come from is capable of incredibly asymmetrical warfare with the backing of the Western world to stomp on Palestinians and make them feel thirty-fold (plus much more) the pain felt on October 7th. It makes you look weak to play victim.