I am asking like a child

We are waiting for the missiles to approach people. First they give a date, then they will give an hour... We are waiting for the hour they will bomb... I cannot remember how many times in recent years I have tried to reach acquaintances who are trying to live under missiles and bombs.

While Palestine was being bombed, I first wanted to reach my doctoral student in Gaza... I also wanted to reach Jerusalem, whose pain never ceases and cannot be shared... To the silence I visited in January 2023 and listened to anew in every sacred place; to the uniqueness of encountering a different culture on every street...

I wanted to reach back, to before the bombs...

The day before, when 8 children, 1 elderly woman, and many civilians were killed, I was in Ramallah; the next day, during the synagogue attack where civilians were killed, I was only two streets away from the synagogue. It seems a person thinks of their child first in such times.

Well, how many children have we been distant from for years? How many children has the world bid farewell to death?

Now Iran... Before that, Ukraine... For weeks, I had been trying to reach my artist friend in Iran. Today, internet access was provided with an apology(!) to the public, and I read the first line they wrote with tears in my eyes:

“We put our son to sleep in the safest place in the house and are waiting for the morning.”

Missiles are approaching people. Like a normal course of events. We are still waiting for people to approach people... I am asking childishly, to the promise made in my childhood: Wasn't there supposed to be no more war? Wasn't war supposed to be cold? War was supposed to remain in books, in movies...

I was a child when I believed that war was now an archival object. Today, some children certainly do not believe this. They only ask, “What is the war for?” I am asking too, I guess I haven't grown up that much, I still don't understand...

What is the war for?

I know the answers, I read the answers... Some are from here, some are from there... Some are long, some are short answers... Forgetting them all, I suddenly become a child in those lands.

I scream why... Why?

They are silent...

They have many answers for “what for.” But why? After finding the “what for,” is it hard to find the “why”? This is humanity, after all, the reasons are lined up... The stage is set... The play begins... “This is war, you are underestimating history,” someone says from across. “History is full of wars.” I laugh while crying, I say, “Really?” I know war is a big game, and it starts against a small child's game for the sake of its own game. War is, most of all, against children, against the innocent... I am not underestimating it. I just want it to end with all my dreaminess, I want the children to have their toys back.

The missiles have approached people. Bombs are in the streets.

We are expected to accept the existence of war as a fact, to even forget the dream of a world without war, to stop opposing it and to burn in its darkness. If this is what is expected, I am against war, stubbornly, like a child in the middle of it...

I don't understand the reasons either, come on, explain it to me from the beginning!

Stop it like an adult if you have the power...