June 8, 2024
I am on day 10 of a voluntary hunger strike while
Palestinians in Gaza are being starved to death. It is estimated that 3,500
children are at risk of death in the coming weeks due to starvation. Two
million people are trapped in the besieged Gaza strip, almost half of them
under the age of 18.
There were roughly 1,000 aid trucks entering weekly
before May 6, 2024—grossly inadequate for the need—but since the start of
Israel’s ground offensive into Rafah, only a trickle of aid trucks have made it
through, deepening the humanitarian crisis and man-made famine.
I was recently a participant on the latest Gaza
Freedom Flotilla that aimed to bring 5,500 metric tons of lifesaving
humanitarian aid to Gaza, but unfortunately that mission was sabotaged by
Israeli interference with the country that flagged our ships.
Concerned civilians are not even allowed to carry
out our moral and legal obligation of delivering lifesaving aid when our
governments fail to do so. The aid we hoped to bring directly to Gaza ended up
getting delivered to Egypt to get in the miles-long line of trucks waiting to
cross the border, some of the perishable food rotting away in the desert sun.
Hoping there would only be a minor delay until we
boarded the flotilla, I made my way to the West Bank to be a human rights
observer. In my two weeks in the West Bank, it felt like I had stepped onto the
set of a horror movie. An acutely horrific phase of a fast genocide is being
carried out in Gaza, but in the West Bank, a slow genocide is happening—funded
and fueled by the United States and kept hidden away from the rest of the
world.
Palestinians in the West Bank are kept under the
Israeli Occupation’s thumb—their every move surveilled, their every step
controlled, their every word policed. The sense of being “caged in” is
inescapable. When I left the West Bank, I felt like I could finally take a deep
breath again.
After I left the West Bank while in Amman, Jordan,
in my seemingly helpless desperation about the sadistic suffering imposed on
the Palestinians, I thought about starting a hunger strike. I decided to begin
one upon my return to the United States and have that strike in front of U.S.
President Joe Biden at the White House.
Why Do a Hunger Strike?
People have asked me: Why do you do a hunger strike?
Do you really think you will change anything with
this?
Why don’t you just eat something?
And my explanation for being on a hunger strike is:
After being in Palestine, in the West Bank, you realize that the people living
there look at us like we have the power to change something.
Here in America we may think our voices do not
matter, but we have access to the people, the decisions, and the places of
incredible power that those in the colonized world could never dream of—inside
our Congress and across from the White House.
In Palestine, when people would hear I was from
America, in every conversation, they wanted to talk about the encampments on
college campuses. They were so proud of the students, and the encampments gave
them some hope after the occupation had taken just about everything from them.
What I saw and experienced in the West Bank was so
frightening that I knew upon my return I had to do all I could to amplify their
truth and fight for the liberation of Palestine and her people: I owed it to
them.
As many have reminded me, I am not famous, I am not
important. I am just one person—yes, I know this.
But how could I amplify my one small voice as loud
as possible to advocate for those suffering under this sadistic occupation? I
decided to go to the belly of the beast (D.C.) and protest in a way that’s not
the norm.
People look at me like I am suffering needlessly for
the cause, and I would point out that while I have not eaten in 10 days, I
still have every other comfort available to me, while those in Gaza do not. I
have clean water. I have a hot shower and indoor plumbing. I have a bed to
sleep in and a roof over my head. I am not being bombed.
We Cannot Be Comfortable During a
Genocide
So no, I am not suffering. Giving up the “comfort”
of food has been an incredible exercise in solidarity and something I would
recommend to almost anyone interested in trying.
Being too comfortable in our excess here in the West
has kept many from being true allies in this fight. We all need to get
uncomfortable. Discomfort is how we grow. Comfortable is stagnant, and we
cannot afford to be stagnant in this moment. Our world, our people, and our
future depend on it.
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