The Palestinians: Looking Through the Keyhole

I read this article with both interest and compassion:

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/ng-interactive/2026/sep/23/this-is-where-i-live-now-the-back-of-a-truck-a-day-in-the-life-of-a-grandmother-in-gaza

One of my mentors was a Palestinian attorney, displaced with his family from their ancestral home - which is now where the Knesset is situated. "Right atop my family land", he informed me, with tears in his eyes.

He educated me on the Nakba; on how his people to this day horde the rusty keys to what were their former homes.  Out of his wallet, he pulled a neatly folded UNRWA card which was issued to his family when they arrived in Jordan.  He simply stated,  "This card allowed us to receive milk."  He later trained as an attorney in Damascus, returned to Jordan, and then lived for an abbreviated time in the U.S. with his children.  But -  he emphasized the keys.  They were of great symbolic importance to him.

It is important we take that key, gently place it back into the Gaza grandmother's purse and look through the keyhole.  Because while the story of the Palestinian people is always adorned around their rough edges with adornments which soften the view, it is important we look at the greater world.

Keyhole:  Approximately 1.6 - 2.8 billion souls lack adequate housing today.  Africa and Asia have the highest concentrations of homelessness.

Keyhole: Displaced populations today include 41 million refugees, 82 million IDP's (internally displaced persons) and constantly in flux, the millions of asylum seekers across the globe.

Keyhole: The latest statistic from 2024 states that 685 million people were malnourished worldwide and Sub-Sahara Africa has the most significant prevalence of malnutrition with 22 % undernourished in that region.

Keyhole:  Human trafficking averages forty million souls a year with 24.9 percent coerced into forced labor.  So please, please don't bitch about the United States.  Don't bitch about the modern states which provide safety and prosperity for their people.  And don't bitch about Israel.

Save the screech for places like the Sudan.  I have great love for the Sudanese people, but now call Sudan by the kunya:  "Satan's Breath". Nobody cares about Sudan, and certainly nobody cares to live there.   I just watched a video with an RSF member holding a baby and threatening to beat him to death.  But to keep you from losing sleep, just a couple of images of foreign nationals being trafficked near Kassala city in Sudan.  It is not just the gold which is flowing to UAE and beyond.   Human freight is also lucrative.

But the Palestinians? The inability to look through the keyhole of Hamas is why, damn it, they are in the position in which they find themselves today.  Terror was seen as desirable.  And it is terror which they received in return.  But - Palestinians do not present as the only chaotic, miserable, God-forsaken scene when looking into the keyholes of other regions.  Because we have peace in the West, we can forget that much of the world does not resemble us.  But it does resemble something which we refuse to be.

Choice. Everything in life comes down to choices.

If... and only if... the people of Gaza can look to Israel as both example and what they aspire to be;  look to Israel with a view toward the modern nation's ability to protect them if they will but prove themselves trustworthy and neighborly...  if they can just frame the rusty keys as a reminder of a history long past... and look to Jordan... to Turkey... and not to Syria...  their grandchildren will stand a fighting chance.

Otherwise - they will be relegated to that which is common -  the vulgarity which can be viewed through the keyholes of much of the globe.