Dear Mr. Trump,
I write to you as a Palestinian and survivor genocide, which was born and grew up in Gaza – a city of love and resistance.
I read your gaza statements and honestly, I’m confused.
You claim that you are a “peacemaker”, but you encourage Israel to continue your genocide, calling for “all hell” to fall apart if your requirements are not fulfilled.
Mr. Trump, we have already gone through hell. We lost 60,000 martyrs in it.
You require a loan for an agreement on the termination of fire, and yet your government – one of its guarantors – refuses to press Israel to fulfill all its obligations under it.
You call the gauze “a place to demolish” but fails to appoint a criminal – at the same time supplying it with multiple bombs, financing and diplomatic coverage.
You talk about the Palestinians “safe” and “happy”, and yet you call us as if we were a burden to move to Jordan, Egypt or any country that wants to take us.
Claim that “we want to be only in the gaza belt because [we] I don’t know anything else. “
Mr. Trump, I think you have deeply misunderstood who we are and what a gauze is to us.
You may consider us a mere obstacle to your vision of luxury resorts, but we are a people with deep roots, long history and inalienable rights. We are the legal owners of our country.
Gaza is not your business venture and is not for sale.
Gaza is our home, our country, inheritance.
And no, it’s not true that we want to stay here because “we don’t know anything else.” Although the 17-year-old Israeli siege made our lives incredibly difficult for us, some of us still managed to travel-for education, treatment or work. But these people are still coming back because Gaza is home.
A strong example is Dr. Refaat Alareer, an inspirational figure, which Israeli occupation of targets and killed in 2023. He studied a master’s degree in the UK and later a doctorate finished at Universiti Putra Malaysia.
Although he had the opportunity to stay abroad, he decided to return to Gaza, where he taught creative writing and literature at the University of Islam. He also confronted that they were not counting, the initiative that paired young Palestinian writers with experienced authors to reinforce their voice and resist the occupation through the storytelling. One of those votes is mine.
Last spring, I had the opportunity to leave, but I decided against it. I couldn’t leave my family, friends and Gaza in the middle of a genocidal war. However, like many others, I plan to travel to finish my education and then come back to help renovate and support my people.
This is the Palestinian way – we are looking for knowledge and capabilities, we do not leave our homeland, but to build it and strengthen it.
Speaking of construction – talk about your plans to turn Gaza into a “Riviera of the Middle East”. The point is that Gaza was a Riviera of the Middle East. Our ancestors incorporated it into the flourishing of the trade center, the port of the city and the Cultural Center. It was “magnificent” – to use his words – until Israel was created and began to destroy it.
Yet, after every brutal Israeli attack on Gaza, Palestinians would be restored. Despite its Israeli violence, limitations and thieves, Palestinians still made sure that Gaza would be a safe place with a pleasant pace of life, where his youth did his best to follow decent means of life, where families were happy and together and where have progressed homes.
Israel has now tried to reduce all the gauze to the ruins and death, so we can no longer live in it. You have picked up the idea, effectively supporting our ethnic cleansing under the vanic veneer of humanitarianism.
No, Mr. Trump, we will not be “happy” and “safe” elsewhere.
But I agree with you about something else you said, “You have to learn from history.” Indeed, history teaches us that the colonialism of immigrants in modern times is unsustainable. In this sense, your plans and plans of Israel have been doomed to failure.
We, the people gauze – like any natives – refuse to be rooted. We refuse to be arranged. We refuse to be forced into exile so that our country could submit to the highest bidder. We are not a problem that needs to be solved; We are rightly a people to live in our homeland in freedom and dignity.
No amount of bombs, blockages or tanks will forget us. We will not move, move or replace.
Power and wealth will not decide on the fate of Gaza. History does not write thieves – it was written by those who resist the will of the people. Regardless of the pressure, our connection with this country will never be interrupted. Surrender and abandonment are not an option. We will honor our martyrs with resistance, nurturing this earth with love, attention and memory.
Wishing you all the best in your futile quests,
Hassan Abuqamar
Gaza, Palestine
The views expressed in this article are the author’s and do not reflect the editorial position of Al Jazeere.
