{"id":244,"date":"2024-11-11T07:30:19","date_gmt":"2024-11-11T07:30:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/what-i-tell-my-palestinian-son-now-that-trump-is-returning-to-the-white-house\/"},"modified":"2024-11-11T07:30:19","modified_gmt":"2024-11-11T07:30:19","slug":"what-i-tell-my-palestinian-son-now-that-trump-is-returning-to-the-white-house","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/what-i-tell-my-palestinian-son-now-that-trump-is-returning-to-the-white-house\/","title":{"rendered":"What I tell my Palestinian son now that Trump is returning to the White House"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

While Americans voted in their next\u00a0president on Tuesday<\/a>, the\u00a0message to us Palestinians remained as clear as ever: America\u2019s promises of freedom<\/a> and justice don\u2019t include us. But the election does have an outsize stake in our safety and survival.<\/p>\n

For my family and millions of Palestinians<\/a>, this moment is all too familiar: the fear, the helplessness, the resigned certainty that nothing ever really changes.<\/p>\n

And\u00a0still it hurts, because the stakes in this election couldn\u2019t be more personal. For us, the election of Donald Trump<\/a> isn\u2019t just a blip on the political radar or a shift in foreign policy. It\u2019s a challenge to sustain existence while the world seems intent on erasing us. It\u2019s about surviving 77 years under occupation and over a year of ongoing genocide \u2014 the very genocide I barely survived last December, when my family and I, including my elderly parents and 3-year-old son, were buried under the rubble<\/a> of what was once our home after it was struck by an Israeli-fired, U.S.-made missile.<\/p>\n

The trauma of that night, in both its physical and emotional toll, of my son\u2019s small, fragile hand clinging to mine, comes back to me now as Trump prepares to take power once more.<\/p>\n

The date: Dec. 7, 2023. Our bones were crushed beneath layers of concrete and twisted metal as we spent hours in the dark, buried together and praying to be pulled out in one piece. The trauma of that night, in both its physical and emotional toll, of my son\u2019s small, fragile hand clinging to mine, comes back to me now as Trump prepares to take power once more.<\/p>\n

After surviving the strike and escaping the war, my son stopped asking when we could go home. He\u2019s learned that \u201chome\u201d is just something we remember, something that crumbled with our walls that night. At 3 years old \u2014 or, per the language of Gaza, two wars old \u2014 he already knows to duck when he hears a rumble overhead, instinctively reaching for my hand.<\/p>\n

Our suffering in light of this election isn\u2019t some ambiguous concept. Every missile that reduces our homes to rubble, every sanction that chokes our economy, traces back to Washington. Policies that might seem like distant concerns of foreign affairs to many Americans have left millions of Palestinians trapped in unending trauma, where survival itself has become our only form of resistance.<\/p>\n

The Palestinian people have spent generations waiting for an American president who would care enough to hold Israel accountable \u2014 to see our humanity and put an end to this constant brutality.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve seen how American political leaders toy with the idea of change, how they dress up their campaigns with grand ideas about peace and justice. Yet each president brushes off our reality. Barack Obama promised hope and \u201cchange we could believe in,\u201d yet we got more bombs. Joe Biden offered a different approach, pledging unyielding support for Israel, leaving us to live through even more horror. Vice President Kamala Harris\u2019 niceties included no concrete promises to protect Palestinians, but she did pledge to continue financial support for Israel. And Trump\u2019s bluntness, as he promises to come back swinging, reminds us not to hold out hope for change.<\/p>\n

For decades, bipartisan U.S. policies have reinforced Israel\u2019s impunity, from unconditional military aid packages to diplomatic shielding at the United Nations, allowing the erosion of Palestinian rights to go unchallenged. Trump\u2019s brazen support for Israel<\/a> isn\u2019t a deviation but a natural progression of a legacy in which U.S. presidents have continually prioritized geopolitical alliances over Palestinian lives.<\/p>\n

\"Israeli<\/picture>
Smoke rises over destroyed buildings as civil defense teams conduct a search-and-rescue operation in Rafah, Gaza, on Oct. 12, 2023.<\/span>Abed Rahim Khatib \/ Anadolu via Getty Images file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

But Trump\u2019s comeback \u2014 and the Democratic Party\u2019s own failure to champion any real justice for us \u2014 unveils a stark truth: America\u2019s entrenched political system is built upon the erasure of our suffering. Every administration carries the same legacy of apathy, emboldening Israel\u2019s destructive agenda and casting aside our pleas. It\u2019s a bipartisan moral failure that reduces our lives to collateral damage, sacrificed to preserve strategic alliances. This isn\u2019t about just one election or one president. It\u2019s a policy anchored in decades of American complicity in our oppression.<\/p>\n

America\u2019s unwavering support for Israel reveals a deeper collapse of the ideals the country claims to stand for. Principles like freedom and justice now barely flicker, distorted into tools of control, hollowed out by years of hypocrisy. When those ideals ring hollow for people like us \u2014 oppressed and silenced \u2014 the democratic values America champions feel like just another weapon turned against us.<\/p>\n

America\u2019s unwavering support for Israel reveals a deeper collapse of the ideals the country claims to stand for.<\/p>\n

With Trump in the White House again, the weight of it all feels crushing, with even more to fear in the years ahead. His stance on Palestine is as entrenched and dismissive as ever. His first term, from 2017 to 2021, left a bitter legacy by empowering Israel\u2019s illegal occupation and writing blank checks for its military arsenal.<\/p>\n

By moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, he treated our lives as bargaining chips. Trump slashed U.S. support for Palestinian refugees, effectively pushing millions into greater poverty and reducing our access to even the barest necessities. (Biden in 2021 reinstated $200 million in aid<\/a> to Palestinians that Trump had cut.) Actions like these serve as solid proof, as elections come and go, that U.S. support for Israel is more ironclad than any candidate\u2019s promise of \u201cpeace.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump killed the two-state solution that was already hanging by a thread. And Biden? He\u2019s talked about peace and rights but in ways that mean little when he continues to green-light the horrors unfolding in Gaza. Under his watch, Israel\u2019s bombardments have only intensified. He provided billions of taxpayer dollars\u2019 worth of military aid to Israel. His empty promises of peace sounded cruel when our hospitals and schools were flattened. During his recent presidential campaign, Trump hasn\u2019t just promised unwavering support for Israel, he stated outright<\/a> that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hadn\u2019t gone far enough \u2014 a chilling endorsement of more destruction.<\/p>\n

\"Civil<\/picture>
Civil defense teams and locals carry out search-and-rescue operations after an Israeli attack hit the Shaqwra family apartment in Khan Younis, Gaza, on Nov. 6, 2023.<\/span>Mustafa Hassona \/ Anadolu via Getty Images file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Whether red or blue, Democrat or Republican, as Palestinians, we know we have to fasten our seatbelts and brace for yet another four years of survival \u2014 for a life of terror and deprivation, of invisibility, of being told, through silence, that our suffering doesn\u2019t matter, by whoever takes office.<\/p>\n

This is our world, created and forgotten by the U.S. <\/strong>The billions of dollars in military aid, the weapons, the diplomatic shielding, it all has translated to fear, to lifelong traumas, to endless nights bracing for another missile, to telling my son that the bombardments outside the house were fireworks as I try to comfort him during the night. I can\u2019t help but wonder: Will he see his next birthday? Will we see peace in our homeland? Will the homes of hundreds of others in Gaza be standing when morning comes? Will we ever feel the safety that so many American presidents have long promised us?<\/p>\n

There is no reason to believe Trump will stop the destruction in Gaza, nor the devastation for those in the West Bank trying to stand up against settler violence and the illegal seizure of their lands. The war in Gaza has raged for over a year now, and we aren\u2019t expecting a man who openly disregards our lives to bring an end to it.<\/p>\n

Frankly, Trump\u2019s comeback means more unquestioned support for Israel\u2019s war machine. And Palestinians will be there to pick up the pieces, over and over again, as we have for generations.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

<\/span>Mohammed R. Mhawish<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Mohammed R. Mhawish is a Palestinian award-winning journalist and writer from Gaza City.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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While Americans voted in their next\u00a0president on Tuesday, the\u00a0message to us Palestinians remained as clear as ever: America\u2019s promises of freedom and justice don\u2019t include us. But the election does have an outsize stake in our safety and survival. For my family and millions of Palestinians, this moment is all too familiar: the fear, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":245,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","category-trump"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}