I just can’t. When it started, I followed everything. I read up on it. I followed the news. I tried to reason with the people in my life. With some, I succeeded. Others, not so much.
But as this has carried on, I’ve distanced myself more. Every time I open Twitter or tiktok and see the videos and the comments and the news my heart just breaks and I have to close the app. The less said about Reddit the better. I’d still follow it, and still try to counter the irl propaganda, but not as much. I started watching old shows and other stuff. I needed to get my mind off it. That’s what it was for the past week. A conflict is happening. Innocents are dying. You donate, you support irl when there are protests, you counter some propaganda but you try to live your life.
But since today I’ve not been able to do anything. I can’t cook. I can’t talk. I break down into sobs. opening the apps or reading the news leaves me paralysed. The entire day all I did was move from the bed to the sofa. There is a genocide happening and I can’t do anything. I can’t get my mind off it. All our governments are supporting it. I knew, of course, that this happened in the past. Even this century. But seeing it happen in front of your eyes is… I just can’t.
I don’t know how journalists at places like Al Jazeera or online steamers like Hasan have been able to cover this news for the past 20 days. Above them, I don’t understand the bravery and courage and I don’t even know, the human spirit, of Palestinians, who’ve survived and continue to survive.
I’m not religious or spiritual but I wish and hope and pray that there is a heaven for everyone who has suffered and a hell for every Zionist and imperialist who has cheered on this genocide.
At a certain point I believe that committed activists need to lean into a sort of jaded attitude that comes from overexposure to these things. Hear me out before you judge what I'm saying though.
You sound like you're probably reaching a threshold where you either continue on your current path and burn out completely or you close your heart to the suffering and retreat into denial. Or maybe the former and then the latter, in that order.
Neither are viable options imo. So, what do?
My position is that you've already seen enough and heard enough. At some point, consuming media about this has become counterproductive and it's sapping your ability to effect what little change you're able to with regards to the ongoing genocide against Palestinians.
If it's killing you then you need to kill it.
I would encourage you to consider actively disengaging from media about this and to lean into being jaded. You've already seen just about the worst that Israel and its enablers have been able to do. For what you haven't yet heard of and what hasn't yet happened, you're completely able to believe that they're capable of it. So, is it truly necessary for you to learn any more about it?
Personally, I don't think so.
Acknowledge that there are no lengths that Israel wouldn't go to in order to achieve their dreams of a complete genocide of Palestinians. Reconcile yourself to this reality. Then disengage from media on this and focus on achieving what change you are able to effect in your own life. This will likely take some time before you're able to do so because you're likely going through a process of grief and you need to allow yourself the grace to experience this first.
What Palestinians need is people who are able to speak out and to take actions to support their struggle for survival and for liberation. I don't mean to diminish your suffering at all but ultimately if you are sidelined because of the psychological anguish you are experiencing then you are not in a place to be able to be an advocate and an activist for Palestinians and so, paradoxically, being completely across all of the atrocities committed against the Palestinian people is counterproductive to what they need from you.
Same. Eventually you get numb and just keep on going, maybe have a devastating emotional breakdown every few years. Try to focus on the long term instead of each new day of horror.
personally, i just sat down and cried. it's a horrifying thing beyond my fleshy brain's capacity to comprehend, a scale of tragedy i'm literally not wired to understand except as snippets of individual suffering and the knowledge that it's actually happening. i needed to drop the masculine stoicism for a bit, cry, and just mourn. it's awful i have to do that in private because people would think i'm being ridiculous for crying over something happening in the news an ocean away, but even so i still have to at least process this.
Alot of leftist and anti-imperialist positions need to be pushed with a cold "goes without saying" approach.
It seems to be up to the Palestanian ambassadors to be cool and collected when defending their right to exist on CNN or the BBC days or hours after a relative or friend of theirs has died. They know preventing any more carnage is hopeless but they also know it's a long game and that they only lose when they just quit.
We will need the same approach to climate change and ecological breakdown. Whatever damage is done. We need to take what is left and carve out some sort of a equitable future.