Israel bombed Damascus today.
I start today’s post with this because I want my non-Arab friends, communities, and peers to realize so clearly this is what Israel does, what it has been doing for 75 years, and it’s beyond time to wake up and unlearn what you’ve been force-fed through propaganda and media. While my family and friends in the area are safe, not too far away—at multiple borders and in many regions—plenty are not.
In 2016, I was blessed with the opportunity to visit Damascus after a long absence. The opportunity to see my grandparents, spend time immersed in my grandmother’s humanitarian aid work, and relish in a home that forever holds my heart under its spell, was a gift. Once upon a time, I wanted to move there, but when the revolution started in 2011, my grandparents told me not to.
What was supposed to be a few weeks turned into a few months in Syria and never have I regretted an extension there. Actually, it became my signature move. Whenever I travel now, people ask, “Are you going to extend your trip?” Because whenever I visited Syria, I did my utmost best to prolong my departure. As a child, I would spent the final 24 hours in extra prayers asking God to cancel the flight—and once it happened. Oh my god, I cannot begin to put into words the childhood joy of that drive back from Damascus International Airport to my grandparents’ home. We stopped and bought an enormous amount of pastries and drinks to celebrate. Till this day it’s still the best breakfast I ever had.
That airport shut down for a long time following the revolution. Every time we did get the chance to travel to Syria, we had to land in Beirut (Lebanon) and then go through their customs before taking a semi-long car ride across the mountainous border into Syria, where we had two more checkpoints and custom stops.
Only recently had the Damascus and Aleppo airports reopened only to be bombed twice, by Israel, in October. Then today happened, in the heart of the country. All while talks of ceasefire float like waste above an ocean. I wrote a series about my experience during Syria in 2016, and specifically one about the concept of ceasefire—how basically it’s a facade because even when there had been an agreed upon truce, I heard bombs and bullets all day and night at home. And it kills me that now, all I have are prayers to offer Palestine, when I ache to do much more. Even more so, I ache to see the quiet people say something. I sit in class and am still expected to be okay. I sit in poetry workshop and no one acknowledges a damn thing. Not even once. I have “friends” who still have yet to express a single thing to me—solidarity, support, prayers, check-ins.
A lot more people used to do that when Syria was a hot enough topic to hashtag, and I definitely recognize the hypocrisy. How non-Arabs (white folks included) will offer their pity and extend a hand when internal conflicts arise in a “foreign” country because it gives them a sense of white savior syndrome. But with Palestine, or even Israel bombing Syria and Lebanon, it’s either crickets or “but….”
Meanwhile, so many of us have to almost prove our humanity. Prove our worth. Prove the validity of our people, our country, and our heritages. Even if I wrote a library of books on the perfection of the Middle East, it would never be enough. EVER!
My mom recently bought a new laundry detergent and asked me if I noticed a difference—stronger scent or longevity of the scent. All I noticed is that it turned out to be a migraine trigger so we have to switch back. But it reminded me a lot of Syria, not the scent but the concept. I believe the best smelling detergent is the one in Syria. It smells like heaven, and I remember how as a child (and actually well into my adulthood) I’d be very strategic about my wardrobe after coming back to America from those summer trips to Syria. I would hide away two to three articles of clothing that I had taken with me to Syria that were washed and packed, and save them in my dresser or closet until about a week before my next trip to Syria, a year later. That way, from the moment of my return to the U.S. till our next flight back to Damascus, I could have a piece of my eternal love to inhale. To cry into when I missed it. Something to hold me over for a year until it was time to go home again.
