How to leave your country in the middle of war
These days, I toggle between heartbreak and rage. Every night, I wake up at 2am, and again a few hours later, to read the news coming out of Lebanon. To see if Lebanon is still standing. Just as I did for many months last year, when the genocide against Palestinians started. I realized, after three months of restless sleep and grinding teeth, that my insomnia was doing no one any good. So I implemented a late-night news-detox and tried to sleep. And now we’re back to where we started — one year later.
This violence doesn’t end. Rinse and repeat.
I am now out of Lebanon. Sitting on my desk next to my keyboard is a white plastic bag. It assumed this position fourteen days ago, the day I returned from Beirut. And it will remain as long as the violence remains. Meaning, probably a long time.
This is the story of the plastic bag.
Exactly two weeks ago, I unwillingly left Lebanon on a pre-dawn flight bound for Paris. It’s hard to explain to those on the outside — I didn’t want to leave.
The airport was calm, and disturbingly orderly. It’s not usually quiet. We’re hardly ever quiet. We’re chaotic and charming and chatty and loud. This time, we’d been muted.
Some flights were cancelled — not mine. I could hear the same conversations everywhere, spoken in whispers.
What now?
What next?
What should we do?
What will they do?
Over and over.
And there, at 5am, in the unusually- empty halls of the Rafic Hariri International Airport with its signature Godfather theme song playing softly in the background and “We are pleased and honored to have you in our city” on the loudspeaker on repeat, I did what everyone leaving Lebanon in the midst of war would do: I bought nuts.
I was traveling with only a carry-on. Besides, I was coming back in two weeks, right? Or so I thought. I left all my stuff behind — the outfit I was going to wear for a TEDx talk I was giving, a gorgeous new bathing suit for a day at the beach, a few dresses for dinners and the inevitable nights out. I left it all behind.
More importantly, I left friends, colleagues, my father. They all stayed. Most had no choice. Even some who had a choice chose to stay. They are still there.
Let me say that again: My father is still there.
I stood frozen in front of the Rifai stand, Lebanon’s signature nut company, fattening us up (good fat, surely!) since 1948.
“Bonjour,” said the petite woman barely visible behind the glass case of nuts. “I’ll help you?”
“Are these new?” I asked her, holding up a bright red bag of mixed nuts with chili-lime flavoring.
“I think so,” she responded with a smile, probably wondering why it mattered that I was keeping up with new nut flavors.
After lingering a little too long, ogling the display of nuts in the case, I bought the chili-lime.
“Do you want a bag?” She asked, handing me my change. I don’t know why, but I said yes. I never take plastic bags. So there I was, in Beirut airport before dawn, with my little carry-on, and one bag of nuts inside a plastic bag. Of nuts.
The pager attack had happened two days prior. Pagers. I hadn’t even thought of them since the 90s. And now they were… exploding. We had to quickly piece together that this was an act of egregious violence, targeting innocent civilians.
Pagers are carried in pockets. By all sorts of people. They go to the grocery store, to the hospital, to pick up their kids from school. They walk in the city, they sit in their homes, they are in their car in traffic.
This was a direct attack in the middle of a busy city against a civilian population. A targeted cyber attack by our unfriendly neighbor to try to make us feel insecure, vulnerable, exposed. Victims. A new kind of technological warfare we’d only seen in movies. A terrorist attack.
Innocent people were killed. Children were killed.
This attack was not only gruesomely physical. It was an attack on our sense of safety. The target was our fear, to amplify our sense of vulnerability.
I was near a hospital in a congested area in the middle of Beirut when it happened. I saw the ambulances, the chaos. I saw a man holding his bloodied hand in his hand.
Suddenly, Lebanon shifted into geo-political focus. Palestine, meanwhile, never left. There, the violence continued. That very same night, Israeli forces turned their venom onto Gaza again, burning homes, killing families, causing a woman to miscarry from fear.
And more settler violence in the West Bank. And more Palestinians denied their rights to be safe and free. Denied their rights to exist.
Violence on multiple fronts.
We fear for our own safety, yes. But deeper still, we fear that we’ll turn on each other. Lebanon is already fragmented. The tensions of our sectarian system that fueled a 16-year Civil War remain just below the surface — all we need is a little scratch and we could be at it again.
The best we can do is stand together, hold onto each other, hold onto Lebanon, and brace for what is to come.
And no one will come to save us. We — both Lebanese and Palestinians — no longer expect solidarity from other countries. We are now used to this level of betrayal. Even among Arab countries — we will not wait for support. It will not come. Everyone has been bought.
Even the UN will issue its “strong condemnations” while remaining impotent, paralyzed by a Security Council driven by the interests of only five countries, and blocked by the US at every turn. At every turn towards peace, that is.
Sure, this isn’t the first time, nor are we the first region to be screwed by the system, but how many more failures do we need before we take action?
If we are impotent in the face of death and destruction, we have failed.
I’ve dedicated my decades to institutions I am now struggling to believe in. One thing hasn’t changed — my belief in individuals. When the institutions set up to protect us are failing, we need to step in. It’s up to us now. If the world’s leaders — whose duty it is to represent and defend us — refuse to protect us, then we’re going to have to do it ourselves. No one is coming to save us except us.
So I’ve been standing up. And there are many others with me.
When I spoke out for Palestine — MY country — I was called anti-Semitic, pro-Hamas, anti-American, terrorist-supporter, a “bad feminist,” and much more. I lost friends and jobs. I was — and still am — “a liability.”
Now I’ve been speaking out for Lebanon — also MY country. What names will I hear?
Here is what I say to that: When it is your country being attacked, will you sit by and watch it happen? Will you stay silent? Will you allow your own extermination? Or will you speak out? Will you courageously face insult and isolation to speak the truth? Will you demand your rights and safety and freedom? Will you fight for your own life — or just stay quiet?
I know what you would do.
That’s what I’m doing too.
That’s because I insist on living in a world where the word “ceasefire” is not controversial, but essential. This killing only fuels more hatred, more resistance — on all sides. How can we expect different? Enough.
Maybe for it to be different, we have to do different. How about this for a change: Freedom. Equality. Equal rights. Dignity. Respect. A right to exist. And PEACE PEACE PEACE PEACE PEACE.
This is so obvious we shouldn’t have to say it. But there you go. I’ve said it. May we NEVER be neutral in the face of injustice.
The morning after my first sleepless night in Spain, where I now sit, a bird flew straight into my too-clean window. The outline was unmistakable. I was afraid to look outside. Would the bird be dead? Or did he survive? I didn’t want to know. And then I sat down and cried. Sobbed. For the perhaps-dead bird.
You see, we are all this bird, slamming our bodies into the glass, desperate for the peace we cannot find.
It has been a year of unprecedented violence. Of bloodshed and butchery. Watching my two home countries destroyed by an evil I do not wish upon anyone. And watching my third sorta-home country enable it all. I’ve watched lovers, friends, colleagues turn into genocide supporters (perhaps they always were?) and I’ve watched the institutions to which I’ve dedicated my decades (and my soul) behave with shameful impotence in the face of it all. They have failed us. They have failed humanity.
I’ve seen my share of shit. Over two decades in humanitarian emergencies. Twenty countries. Working to prevent and respond to sexual violence. I have seen the absolute WORST of humans. (It’s a miracle I still like any of you!)
And yet all these years have not made me hard. Just the opposite — so incredibly soft and sensitive to it all. And so fucking tired. Sure, I don’t work on the frontlines anymore. But the frontlines are in my face.
I went into this line of work because I believed — perhaps naively — that I could do something good. This is the first time I doubt. I remember when I left Afghanistan in 2006 after four years there. I asked an Afghan woman: “Do you think Afghan women will find their freedom?” And she said: “I have hope but I have no faith.” Hanging onto hope these days is a very hard thing to do.
I’m not going to stop worrying about that bird. I’m not going to stop worrying for all of us. I hope we all survive, but I’m not so sure.
If you’ve got a country you can safely sleep in, wake up in, and stay in — consider yourself lucky.
If you’ve got a population that isn’t living out a trauma-response-nightmare on repeat — consider yourself lucky.
If you can hear a loud bang without wondering who did it, how close it is, who’s been hurt — consider yourself lucky.
If you don’t have to constantly keep tabs on those you love, wondering where they are, how they are, and how close they were to whatever just happened — consider yourself lucky.
If you’re able to make certain plans for a certain future without wondering what will happen between now and then — consider yourself lucky.
If you have a home you don’t have to fight for, explaining yourself each time you come and go, in and out, hide and reappear, wondering if your home will last until your next visit — consider yourself very, very lucky.
People love to tell Lebanese that they’re “resilient.” I hate that word.
We are only “resilient” because we have to be, because we have no choice, because we have no peace, because we have no space to exercise our freedom, because we have no ability to plan for a tomorrow we aren’t sure of, because the world doesn’t see us as deserving of moments to not be resilient — but rather to simply exist.
Being resilient has become a curse, a catch-all, and a way to dismiss everything the world throws at us — as if we have no choice but to endure because we’re “resilient.”
Every day for 51 weeks I’ve reminded myself of the same things, all the things, all the time.
It is ok to be raging mad.
It is ok to be devastated and sad.
It is ok to feel depleted and paralyzed.
It is ok to feel isolated and alone.
It is ok to not stop screaming.
It is ok to stay quiet.
It is ok to seek the comfort of the community.
It is ok to hide in our cave.
It is ok to feel guilty for being safe, away, ALIVE.
It is ok to lose work, friends, and anyone else who does not understand.
It is ok to find whatever ways to cope.
It is ok to lose faith in the world.
It is ok to have faith when strangers wear a keffiyeh and you salute them like a weirdo.
It is ok to think nothing will change.
It is ok to want EVERYTHING to change.
All this is normal, I tell myself, because nothing is normal in a time of genocide and violence. This just isn’t normal.
There is nothing I can do or say to you that will make you understand what it feels like to be a child of war. I have two right now — one genocide and one invasion. TWO. And my heart is in two million pieces.
The thing is, war is baked into my DNA.
I was born in the middle of escalating tensions in Beirut that would shortly lead to its Civil War. In my first few months, my parents spent many nights carrying me down six flights of stairs in the dark, to a makeshift bomb shelter where building residents would seek refuge and drown out the sounds of battle with offers for cake and tea. My first word was “banana,” but my second was “boomboomboom!” It was the sound of bombs falling, destroying everything around us, and our lives along with it.
I should not be so used to this. No one should.
I was supposed to be flying back to Beirut today. But I’m not. Instead, I’m at my desk staring at a plastic bag and writing this blog. As I write, hundreds of people have been killed, and over a million displaced. In a population of 5.5 million. And this isn’t over yet.
I put the plastic bag with my nuts into my carry-on, and rolled on through the airport and onto the plane. Boarding was uncharacteristically quiet. If you ever want to take the pulse of the Lebanese, measure the volume of chatter. I cannot stress enough: we are NOT a quiet people.
We talk just like we live — loudly. We do everything in extremes. We celebrate each moment with an enthusiasm that borders on madness. Because we know better than most what it means to lose everything. Over and over again.
The chili lime flavored nuts are long gone. They barely lasted a day. Had I known, I would have saved them. Savored them. Or kept just one, lonely in its bright red bag, not to be touched until I board my return flight to Beirut.
Now all I have is the plastic bag the nut-lady gave me.
It says: NUT A GOODBYE.
Lebanon needs help. There are many great organizations, but start here:
- Lebanese Red Cross on the frontlines doing the hard stuff: https://www.redcross.org.lb/
- Lebanese American University caring for its students, and anyone in need of healthcare and support: https://www.lau.edu.lb/emergency-lebanon/
- INARA — International Network for Aid, Relief and Assistance — supporting Lebanese and Palestinian children: https://inara.org/
- Circle of Wellbeing for women in Bekaa, Lebanon: https://www.circleofwellbeing.net/
- ABAAD — Resource Center for Gender Equality — providing gender-based violence lifesaving support in Lebanon: https://www.abaadmena.org/
- Free Shop Lebanon — a community-based charity donating supplies to vulnerable families: https://www.thefreeshoplb.org/
