Robert Azzi is a photographer and writer who lives in Exeter. His columns are archived at theotherazzi.wordpress.com.

In 2014, I wrote “In Palestine today oppression and occupation continue. Jerusalem’s streets are alight with rebellion and resistance and a new Intifada threatens peace and security.”

Today, nearly ten years later, I have written eight columns in a row on the current war between Israel and the Palestinians, commentary focused mainly on Gaza. As the death toll there now exceeds 20,000, with thousands more missing, I am at this moment reminded of questions Jean-Paul Sartre posed in his introduction to Frantz Fanon’s “Wretched of the Earth.”

“How come [the colonizer] cannot recognize his own cruelty now turned against him, How come he can’t see his own savagery as a colonist in the savagery of these oppressed peasants who have absorbed it through every pore and for which they can find no cure? … he is convinced that the domestication of the “inferior races” is obtained by governing their reflexes ...”

This week, as Christmas approaches for the Christian world, I really wasn’t looking forward to writing this column. It’s not that I dread writing, as challenging as it is I love writing; it’s just that daily waking to news from Gaza of ever-escalating ethnic cleansing and genocide being inflicted upon the Palestinian people is nearly unbearable, especially as some of those victims may be Palestinians whom I know, or know about.

It’s just that writing about war crimes, imperial hubris, settler-colonialism, and prejudice while surrounded by menorahs, ‘Season’s Greetings’ banners and endless repetitions of Christmas carols strikes me as discordant and hypocritical. However, in spite of all that — or perhaps because of it all — I feel compelled to share with you my belief that to not act at this very moment is a betrayal of our collective humanity.

Patience is not an option: How come we cannot recognize our own cruelty? How come we cannot recognize that violence is manifest not just in kibbutzim savagely attacked by Hamas or in a Gaza leveled by Israeli Defense Forces but throughout the whole of the occupied territories?

Patience is not an option: The ugliness of oppression and prejudice is a pestilence we cannot ignore, especially as its targets are peoples whom we know and love.

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How can we not unite against the erasure of The Other, of the Palestinian / Arab / Muslim voice: not unite in recognizing that the marginalization, disenfranchisement, and delegitimization of academics, medics, artists, critics, journalists, writers and others in the Public Square are acts as violent as bombs dropped on hospitals, schools, cemeteries, churches, mosques and libraries in Gaza City or Khan Yunis.

How can we not unite against injustice? How can we not recognize that, as Bishop Tutu said, “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.”

The Arabic word Intifada specifically means “shaking off” or an “uprising” against oppression and has no relationship to antisemitism or to calls for genocide against Jews, just as the popular call “From the River to the Sea, Palestine Will Be Free” chant as I have previously explained, is an aspirational chant for freedom and liberation for all, not a call for ethnic cleansing.

Intifada has been used for decades in protests, not just in Palestine but throughout the Arabic-speaking world, and its manifestations include mass protests, sit-ins, general strikes and economic boycotts. While such actions have sometimes erupted into violence that is not the intent of the call.

Intifada is to my mind a call to rise up against Israel as an occupying power; that international law recognizes the right of occupied peoples to resist occupation and given that the West Bank including East Jerusalem, and Gaza, are illegally occupied territories the right to resist occupation and colonization, specifically excluding all attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure such as those launched by Hamas on Oct. 7, is the legitimate right afforded all occupied peoples.

On the sixth of December a leading Palestinian voice in that struggle, Refaat al-Areer — poet, writer, scholar and teacher adored by his students — was martyred, killed by a targeted Israeli strike.

But Refaat got the last word: just five days before his assassination he posted on social media:

“If I must die,

you must live

to tell my story

to sell my things

to buy a piece of cloth

and some strings,

(make it white with a long tail)

so that a child, somewhere in Gaza

while looking heaven in the eye

awaiting his dad who left in a blaze—

and bid no one farewell

not even to his flesh

not even to himself—

sees the kite, my kite you made, flying up

above

and thinks for a moment an angel is there

bringing back love

If I must die

let it bring hope

let it be a tale”

Today, we must live to tell Refaat’s story.

I am told that for Christians these “... are the darkest weeks of the year. Jesus promises us that what is said in the dark will be heard in the light. So grab hold of God in the darkness and tell him everything. Don’t hold back. Let it all out.”

I am guided, too, by a letter from a loved one who shared “... I decided this year lighting the Hanukiah (STET) for me means that I am lighting a light of hope for miracles... My prayer is for the miracle of hope itself. Hope when all feels hopeless.... Sending you my prayers for the miracles of hope.”

So, together, let it all out. Let’s stand in the light and not hold back; together let us buy a piece of cloth and some strings and think for a moment an angel is there bringing back love.

Today, as I finalize this column on the shortest day of the year I am reminded of the brilliance of James Baldwin, who never fails to remind me that “One discovers the light in darkness, that is what darkness is for; but everything in our lives depends on how we bear the light. It is necessary, while in darkness, to know that there is a light somewhere, to know that in oneself, waiting to be found, there is a light...”

Together, let us pray for light, for the miracle of hope.