Preston Werner on Nostr: When I was a kid, and even into adulthood, I wondered how people could live in places ...

When I was a kid, and even into adulthood, I wondered how people could live in places where, down the street (figuratively or literally), horrors were being committed. How could they get out of bed? How could they go to work? How could they go to birthday parties and social occasions, dancing and singing while thousands of innocent people were being killed not 100 kilometers away? Isn't this a horrible complicity that reflects a deep moral failure?
I was reminded of this recently, reading a review of The Zone of Interest, https://jacobin.com/2024/02/zone-of-interest-holocaust-film

And here I am, living in Jerusalem, teaching classes, sipping coffee with friends, going to see movies, while the siege on Gaza continues.

It isn't that I don't feel guilty. It isn't that I'm not in shock and grief about the images and stories I read every day. But I feel so helpless, and I am scared to speak my mind for seemingly no benefit and only great social cost, and at some point that sense of helplessness became psychological distancing.

I don't want to think this is cowardice, but I really don't know. Maybe it is. I wish I were stronger, I wish I felt like I could do something, but I don't.
I hope some day in the future I am able to articulate what this has been like to go through. For now I don't have the words, except to say that I'm sorry. I don't even know for what right now, but I'm sorry.

#israel #Palestine #gaza #alienation