He watched his son, who was 18 months old, standing near the three-point line, happy, babbling, fascinated by an older boy playing basketball. Maybe the boy was this woman’s son, Ash thought, and now she was coming closer, and she began to speak.
The tone of her voice surprised him. It was firm and direct.
Two weeks from now, in a courtroom, a prosecutor would summarize what Ash said he heard:
“You support Hamas.”
“They kill babies.”
“Your baby should die.”
“You’re a terrorist.”
That morning, it was one month into the Israel-Gaza war, and as the woman came closer, Ash asked himself what was happening. He scanned the playground, and now the facts of the situation came to order in his mind: Around his neck, he was wearing a kaffiyeh, a Palestinian scarf. He and his son had brown skin. They were not Palestinian — Ash was Punjabi, born in London — but they might look Palestinian to the woman, whose voice was getting louder now. Ash took a few steps back. He grabbed his son. He grabbed his phone inside his jacket pocket. And then he made a decision that would cascade outward in the weeks ahead, testing what he thought he believed about accountability and compassion.
At 10:19 a.m., he pressed the record button.
“Go away,” the woman said.
MAHER WAS DEAD ON...WE R SHITTY PEOPLE. Read the entire narrative of the sad saga....
homeagain wrote:
MAHER WAS DEAD ON...WE R SHITTY PEOPLE. Read the entire narrative of the sad saga....
"We"? You have to remember that Hamas started all of this, like they always do. They raped and decapitated people and children in front of loved ones and are still holding many people hostage (if they are still even alive).
While the consequences of Israel's justified retaliation are horrific, those consequences are 100% the fault of Hamas. There will never be peace and Hamas made sure there will never be a Palestinian state. The only hope for the Palestinians would be if neighboring Muslim countries would take them in, which they won't.
It was always the women, and above all the young ones, who were the most bigoted adherents of the Party, the swallowers of slogans, the amateur spies and nosers−out of unorthodoxy
