Coda

Really can’t stand these tone-deaf “Merry October 7” posts from Westerners who’ve fetishized the resistance, consumed it like entertainment, and now talk about October 7 as if it were the pilot episode of some show they’ve become emotionally invested in. There are Palestinians, both inside Gaza and across the diaspora, who’ve spent their entire lives supporting the resistance and who still support it today, yet when October 7 comes around, they speak about it with a tinge of sadness. Not because they suddenly regret resistance, but because for many of them, it marks the last moment they remember feeling any real sense of joy, hope, or possibility before the entire world betrayed them and abandoned Gaza to the horrors that followed. This day should serve as a reminder of our collective failure, our impotence, and our weakness, and as motivation to be better and do better instead of leading lives where we’re constantly looking for the next compromise that’ll placate us. You can be unapologetic about it without sounding so gleeful and oblivious to the fact that countless futures were absolutely eviscerated in the horrors that followed while you cosplay as a revolutionary in the relative safety of the West. You’re watching this from thousands of miles away; they’ve had to live it, so have a little shame and show some decorum.