64 Things You (May) Have Missed

but it's not too late

64 Things You Have Missed is part two of a post I wrote here on K108 about things I didn’t know until after October 7, 2023.

In our spiritual community’s Slack workspace, we have a channel called leve-leve. It’s where those of us who are more deeply engaged in efforts to free Palestine from occupation and genocide support each other and share.

I asked the members of leve-leve to reflect on what they would have have missed out on over the past two years of the genocide in Gaza if they had remained oblivious or poorly informed and unengaged. Here’s what we wrote.

I will update this post with more things—so please add yours in the comments!

64 things we would have missed

1. I would have missed learning about the real history of Zionism and the occupation.

2. I would have missed having my whole world view shaken.

3. I would have missed how it changes you to to experience simultaneously the depth of horror and the deepest virtue that humans are capable of every single day for nearly two years.

4. I would have missed learning about Palestinians’ beautiful culture and enjoying the care and love they show for their land and each other.

5. I would have missed seeing clearly what a danger U.S. liberalism is to our well-being and how it enables supremacy.

6. I would have missed experiencing the realities of genocide day-by-day. If humans are going to commit genocide, I don’t want to hide from it.

7. I would have missed the poetry of Fady Joudeh, Mosab Abu Toha, Hend Jouda, Refaat Alareer, Dareen Tatour, and Samih al-Qasim.

8. I would have missed having more clarity about the US government, both broadly around it being an imperialist power, and more narrowly around my belief that the Democrats were going to save anyone.

9. I would have missed Hamada Sho’s cooking videos, and just Hamada Sho. Amazing human being.

10. I would have missed learning from the resilience of the Palestinian people, their boundless generosity, kindness, love of family, and faith in God even in the face of unimaginable violence.

11. I would have missed knowing about the deep ties between Palestinian resistance and the Black Power movement, and the way advocacy and activism form a global, interconnected network, a living web, that is not only inspired by Palestine but also guided and mentored by it.

12. I would have missed the exposure of Zionism as a harmful social project—a cult-like ideology rooted in racism and sexism that ultimately harms everyone.

13. I would have missed being forced to grapple with the fear and complicity and silence of people I love.

14. I would have missed the revelation of Germany’s profound complicity: not truly reckoning with its harm to the Jewish people in the past while also participating, alongside other nation-states, in the ongoing genocide of Palestinians

15. I would have missed knowing that U.S. Democrats are in bed with Israeli lobbying interests. But also wtf is up with Evangelical Republicans being super into Israel?

16. I would have missed witnessing the staggering disconnect and complicity of celebrities and the ultra-wealthy in genocide.

17. I would have missed understanding disturbing truths about our industries and who we choose to elevate.

18. I would have missed seeing the deafening silence of the U.S. philanthropic sector in the face of this atrocity, and of course grassroots organizations still doing the work.

19. I would have missed the beauty of everyday people finding ways to connect with Gaza.

20. I would have missed the creativity and art that have emerged from this solidarity.

21. I would have missed reading If I Must Die by Refaat Alareer.

22. I would have missed knowing the hypocrisy of European governments.

23. I would have missed the realisation that no government or institution is going to save us. Any meaningful change we want to see in the world has to come from us, regular people, in our everyday actions.

24. I would have missed learning how to remain a soft-hearted human in extremely difficult circumstances beyond my imagination.

25. I would have missed feeling the power of the collective when we unite to condemn oppression.

26. I would have missed reading powerful words and poems—piercing courageous words with the power to dismantle our naive fantasies.

27. I would have missed learning how oblivious I was to Western media’s biased coverage of Palestine—all the headlines blaring about six people killed in Jerusalem, lots of space given to Netanyahu’s reaction, no mention anywhere of Israel’s latest assaults on Gaza City, blowing up high-rises and mosques and killing dozens overnight.

28. I would have missed that Israel intentionally bombed every university in Gaza early on in the campaign.

29. I would have missed that very young Israeli children are taught to hate all Palestinians and wish violence and death on them, sometimes through songs or rhymes.

30. I would have missed learning about the awareness that the Palestinian people have of other people's struggles around the world and how actively and vocally they support all efforts toward liberation

31. I would have missed having my mind blown seeing US power and impunity so glaringly exposed.

32. I would have missed seeing the misogyny, antisemitism, and colonialism underlying Zionism.

33. I would have missed the tenderness of Palestinian men.

34. I would have missed knowing how embedded higher education is in the military industrial complex.

35. I would have missed all the music, poetry, food, storytelling, dancing, and journalism, from Palestine.

36. I would have missed Ahmed’s students’ music being forever imprinted in me.

37. I would have missed grieving together.

38. I would have missed seeing how deliberately Israel has allowed polio and other infectious diseases to spread.

39. I would have missed hearing Palestinian children crying in hunger, how can we not turn towards that sound?

40. I would have missed the layers of helplessness in myself and others.

41. I would have missed the refuge of care, community, art, movement, God.

42. I would have missed this opportunity to really open up to the oppressor in myself and see where that shows up in how I try to control others and manipulate situations to keep my concepts intact.

43. I would have missed Gaza stripping away so many concepts I held about humanity. It has helped me to get honest and to know what kind of human I want to be.

44. I would have missed hearing and reading the words of Francesca Albanese, Ali Abunimah, Nora Barrows-Friedman, Craig Mokhiber, Gabor Mate, Abubaker Abed, and Ilan Pappé.

45. I would have missed the history lessons.

46. I would have missed the journalists. Oh my god. The tender fierceness of the journalists.

47. I would have missed learning how to feel for joy in the midst of the deepest suffering. The Palestinians have shared their joys with us, right along with their suffering during a genocide. Where is my courage? Where is my honesty?

48. I would have missed learning how to be with people in their suffering, even if it's just reposting something they have asked to be reposted on social media. I would have missed answering that call.

49. I would have missed learning how to be with my own pain more fully, to find refuge in god, to be honest, and to keep doing it day in and day out until I die.

50. I would have missed experiencing people who love so deeply and tenderly.

51. I would have missed the invitation to know death more fully.

52. I would have missed the invitation to know fear more fully.

53. I would have missed seeing the biggest soup kitchens, cooks, jugglers, acrobats, artists, poets, musicians, medics.

54. I would have missed the courage, defiance, and beauty of young men doing parkour in the rubble of their bombed cities.

55. I would have missed hearing the words and sharing the lives of so many ordinary Palestinians coping with the most extraordinary and difficult circumstances.

56. I would have missed feeling and seeing the doctors, the nurses, all the healthcare workers in Gaza. Their skill, their bravery, their ethics.

57. I would have missed praying, begging, pleading and the deepest gut wrenching desire for freedom.

58. I would have missed how Gaza is teaching us all how to grieve again, how to be in relationship with one another, to hold one another.

59. I would have missed participating with millions around the world in this momentous turn in human history.

60. I would have missed buying za’atar at the local food Coop and Palestinian olive oil online and being in the extremely weird position of cooking with these while Palestinians are being starved.

61. I would have missed getting to know the brave activists on the freedom flotillas.

62. I would have missed forming friendships with Palestinian poets, artists, and journalists.

63. I would have missed the capacity of my heart being tested and expanded each day—the ache, the poignancy, the yearning for humans to be more loving, brave, and clear-sighted, and the recognition that some of us are.

64. I would have missed a gift of clarity. We have a choice to make right now. Palestine is demonstrating that we have only two options: continue with supremacy and die or find wisdom together, love each other, and live.

Thanks to: Kaden, Belén, Tania, Sol, Matri, Krys, and Sahaji

with infinite love,

Shambhavi

I will update this post with more things—so please add yours in the comments!

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