In an essay at The New Yorker, Palestinian journalist Mohammed R. Mhawish explains the political reality on the ground in Gaza and insists that self-determination is the only viable path forward
Reconstruction that restores roads but not representation will only re-create dependency. The next phase of Gaza’s life must be shaped by those who have lived through its collapse. If the world tries to govern Gaza from abroad, Palestinians must insist on governing themselves from within. The rubble is already being cleared for a new administration. The question is whether Palestinians can transform the ruins of a political order into the foundation of another that belongs to them.
In December, 2023, an Israeli air strike destroyed my home in Gaza, and it collapsed on top of me and my family. I fled to Egypt in 2024, and have been living in exile since. I have lost family members in Gaza. I have lost friends and colleagues. Even so, I count myself among those who have lost the least. I am not asking for pity, or charity, or anything in return. None of us is. The world will not make it up to us, and we are not waiting for it to try. What matters now is a restoration of Gaza’s political life. In my lifetime, Palestinian political participation has been almost nonexistent. Older generations in Gaza have voted once or twice, but I have never had the chance to take part in any political exercise. Most young people have had no say in who leads them or how policy is made in Gaza or in the West Bank. The only thing we ask for now is the right to chart our own political future on our own terms.
There is no faster poison than despair declared permanent. For Palestinians, refugee camps have hardened into towns, and checkpoints into landmarks. The ration boxes meant to feed the hungry have become a generation’s economy. We grew up knowing walls better than schools. We were instructed to believe that ruins were homes, breadlines were governance, and silent misery was “calm.” Fear has been institutionalized—budgeted, distributed, sold as peace. Submission was repackaged as maturity. The cruellest occupation is not of land but of the imagination.
We as Palestinians are often congratulated for our resilience. It has become the badge pinned on us—the costume of the noble victim. Our ability to breathe under rubble is praised as a virtue, when it’s actually an indictment of the world that put us there. If it does not lead to freedom, resilience delivers only another day of captivity. Survival is the most meagre inheritance. To call us resilient is to praise the caged bird while ignoring the cage’s latch. Surviving destruction is not the same as defeating it. There’s cruelty in this praise. It tells the world to marvel at our strength while ignoring the cost paid in blood and hunger. Our pain is romanticized, and our survival treated as the whole story—when it is only the beginning.
Read the rest of Mwhaish’s essay here.
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