my experience with israel

Warning: Mentions of violence

Hello!

I have been wanting to talk about this for a while now, but never quite found the courage, but now I can finally share my experiences which I have been wanting to for a long time. So when I was 11 I moved to Israel (2021 august -2025 may). I moved there because of my dads work. Now why does this matter? Well I am pro-Palestinian even though I lived there all those years and I just wanted to put all my thoughts here. 

The genocide de started when I was about 13 years old. I remember waking up to sirens on October 7th and being extremely confused. Before moving to there I knew nothing about the constant conflicts in the middle east and it was that day that I found out what was really happening in the region. Immediately the adults around me started spewing hate speech about Palestine and being 13 years old (and incredibly stupid) I took their words as facts which now is my biggest regret. I did no research and only listened to the oppressors side of the story. 

The war continued on and I kept living my life there in ignorance until December 2023. I walked into humanities class where the teacher was doing her 'news segment' like she did every week. She gave us updates about the conflict, but it took a really quick twist about 2 minutes in. She was reading the Palestinian civilian death count at the time (devastatingly it was somewhere in the thousands) and instead of my classmates listening in silence or paying respects to the lost lives they started to applaud and cheer. I believe this is the first time of many that I (noticed that I) stared into the face of pure evil. 

Everyone was acting like this was just a normal thing to do. I excused myself and went to the bathroom where I cried for the rest of the lesson. I couldn't comprehend how a grown adult and a bunch of 13-14 year old children could be this heartless and cruel. That night when I went home I started to actually research. I read countless of articles, statements and interviews from actual Palestinian people. I read about their history, their heritage and their story. I was in disbelief that the pro-Palestinians who were characterized as a violent mob by israeli media and people were right this entire time. 

When I went to talk to my parents about it, they brushed me off, telling me that it was all propaganda, but was it? There are giant iron walls all around the West Bank and Gaza that are guarded by the idf trained to keep those innocent civilians in a ruthless war and ongoing genocide. From that day I actually started to become aware, I constantly fought my classmates which ended up getting me bullied (don't care it was for a valuable cause). It was just strange seeing the government who preaches 'never again' every year just to continue the same pain that was inflicted onto Jewish people in history. 

Every summer when I came back to my home country I pleaded my parents to just let me live in my home country. I still to this day feel guilty that I used to live in a regime that is to this day systematically killing innocent people. The least I can do is to support the pro-Palestinian movement in the hope that one day Palestinians can and will be free from their oppressor. 

Now I know that if this post gets popular there are going to be israelis and pro-israelis are going to jump me and for all of you I have a simple message: Open your eyes. I know what I saw, the applause incident wasn't the only one that happened during the time I lived there. I have seen Palestinians getting beat up and being against discriminated on the street and in general.

I acknowledge that there are some people who live in israel currently who are in the same situation as I was. If this is you, don't be afraid to speak up, since that's the only way the regime can change. 

Now the aftermath of the whole thing: I developed ptsd which sounds really dumb since I was living in Tel Aviv which was relatively safe. I still get flashbacks to the bombings, to the explosions, to the sirens, so I can't even begin to imagine what those living in Gaza are feeling like at the moment. Once a military base blew up that I was living about 40m from and I will never forget the feeling of my house shaking and threatening to collapse while my ears rung from the explosion. I had the chance to go away while Palestinians did not and that is what is bothering me the most. I know that I never hurt a civilian, but just the idea that I was once affiliated with the country is enough for me to feel extremely guilty. 

Please, if you have the resources educate yourself and speak out for those who can't. 

Thank you for reading,

Vortex