The cost of conscience: I lost friends for defending Palestinians

Al Jazeera

28-05-2025

I have written a lot about the heart-piercing trials and tragedies of Palestinians for a long time.
I have treated every word of every column that has appeared on this page, devoted to Palestine's precarious fate and the indefatigable souls who refuse to abandon it, as an obligation and a duty.
It is the obligation and duty of writers – who are privileged to reach so many people in so many places – to expose injustice and give pointed expression to gratuitous suffering.
I have made it plain throughout: Here I stand. Not because I am the all-knowing arbiter of right from wrong – any honest writer is aware of how exhausting and foolish that can be – but because I am obliged to tell the truth clearly and, if need be, repeatedly.
I consider ending what has happened and continues to happen to Palestinians to be the moral imperative of this awful, disfiguring hour.
It requires a response since silence often translates – consciously or by neglect – into consent and complicity.
Each of us who shares this sense of obligation and duty responds in our own way.
Some make speeches in parliaments. Some lock arms in demonstrations. Some go to Gaza and the occupied West Bank to ease, as best they can, the pervasive misery and despair.
I write.
Writing in defence of Palestinians – of their humanity, dignity, and rights – is not meant, nor can it be dismissed, as a polemical provocation.
For me, it is an act of conscience.
I do not write to mollify. I refuse to qualify what has happened and is happening to Palestinians as 'complex' to provide readers with a convenient and comfortable ethical exit ramp.
Occupation is not complex. Oppression is not complex. Apartheid is not complex. Genocide is not complex. It is cruel. It is wrong. It must yield to decency.
Writing about Palestinians in this blunt, uncompromising way invites all sorts of replies from all sorts of quarters.
Some readers praise your 'courage'. Some thank you for 'speaking' for them, for not flinching, for naming names. Some readers urge you to continue to write, despite the risks and recriminations.
Much less charitably, some readers call you ugly names. Some wish you and your family misfortune and harm. Some readers try, and fail, to get you fired.
All you can do as a writer is to keep writing, regardless of the reaction – whether kind or unkind, thoughtful or thoughtless – or the consequences, intended or not.
Still, one of the casualties of writing about Palestinians can be the loss of the reassuring constancy and tender pleasure of valued friendships.
I suppose I am not alone on this sad score.
Students, teachers, academics, artists, and so many others have been exiled, charged, or even jailed for refusing to ignore or sanitise the horror we see day after dreadful day.
In this context, my travails, while stinging and disconcerting, are modest in comparison. Departed friends, however dear, are, it seems, the price for candour that unsettles.
Those friendships, built over decades through sometimes happy, sometimes sad experiences and shared confidences, have evaporated in an instant.
I understood that this rupture could happen. I did not fear it. I accepted it.
Yet, when it did happen, it pricked.
It was abrupt. Phone calls went to voice mail. Emails went unanswered. Inevitably, the absence and quiet grew until they became an unmistakable verdict.
So, I did not ask for explanations. That would, I reasoned, be futile. A door had been slammed shut and bolted.
Friends I admired and respected. Friends I laughed with, trusted, whose counsel I sought and who sought mine.
Gone.
I wish them and their loved ones well. I will miss their wise ear and, from time to time, their helping hand.
Some of them are Jewish, some are not. I do not begrudge their choice. They have exercised their prerogative to decide who can and cannot be called a friend.
I once met their litmus test – the one we all have. Now, I have failed it.
I know that some of my former friends have deep ties to Israel. Some have family who live there. Some may be grieving, too, worried over what comes next.
I do not ignore their fear or uncertainty. I do not deny their right to safety.
This is where, I suspect, we confront the unspoken cause of the irreversible divide.
Israel's security cannot be achieved at the expense of Palestine's freedom and sovereignty.
That is not peace, let alone the elusive 'co-existence'. It is domination – brutal and unforgiving.
This kind of loss, profound and lasting, gives way to clarity born from rejection. It sharpens your appreciation of loyalty and authenticity in relationships.
Perhaps the people I thought I knew, I did not know at all. And perhaps the people who thought they knew me, did not know me at all.
There is a reckoning under way. Like most reckonings, big or small, near or distant, it can be messy and painful.
We are trying to navigate a pitiless world that, on the disagreeable whole, punishes dissent and rewards compliance.
To those friends who have opted for distance, I say this: I am convinced that you believe what you're doing is right and just. So am I.
I write not to wound. I write to insist.
I insist that Palestinian lives matter.
I insist that Palestinians cannot be erased by edict, force, and intimidation.
I insist that mourning should not be a daily ritual for any people.
I insist that justice cannot be selective and humanity must be universal.
I insist that Palestinian children rediscover the fullness of life beyond occupation, terror, and grief.
I insist that Palestinian children, like our children, have the chance, again, to play, to learn, and to thrive.
I insist that the killing lust that has gripped a nation like a fever that will not break, has to be broken.
Too much damage has been done.
Can we agree on that?
When I have stopped writing, the account will show that in this obscene moment of slaughter and starvation, I was not among the silent.
It will find me – for better or worse – on the record.
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial stance.