Once upon a time, many years ago, I stood for election to the Scottish Parliament. But it’s just as well I wasn’t elected. I cry too much, about too many things, to be an effective politician.

We still live in a world where no matter how important or valid a point you’re making, if you cry when you’re making it, people find that point easier to dismiss. They write you off as emotional, rather than rational. They say that you’re letting your feelings get in the way of the facts.

I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve cried over the last month.

I’ve cried on the phone to a staffer in Foreign Minister Penny Wong’s office, as I pleaded with that staffer to pass on the message that there is widespread support in the community for the Minister to demand a ceasefire in Gaza.

I’ve cried while walking the dog with my son, as I tried to explain to him why Palestine is something I have big feelings about.

I have cried sitting at my desk, watching footage of bodies pulled from under rubble, of bloodied limbs strewn across streets, of tiny premature babies carried in the arms of their doctors when there is no fuel left to power their incubators. I have cried learning about the existence of non-incendiary bombs that don’t explode on impact but instead discharge six metal blades that are capable of slicing through steel and concrete and destroying everything in their path. I have cried watching the forced displacement of many thousands of people – many of whom did exactly what they were instructed to do but ended up being shot anyway. And I have cried at the endless, awful stories of the children we have lost. Yahya, the boy who wanted to become an astronaut. Eileen, the girl who dreamed of owning a Lego toy. Ward, whose name stems from the Arabic word for flower.

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I’ve written about Gaza on this blog before – in 2012, when it was under attack from Israel in the eight-day Operation Pillar of Defence. I’ve also written about the time I spent as a student leader visiting the West Bank and Israel.

I don’t think either of those blog posts changed anyone’s position on the occupation – and I doubt that this one will either – but sometimes it’s important to state your position anyway. Sometimes it’s important to have some words on paper – or typed out on your corner of the internet – so there’s a clear place to direct people to when they ask about your big feelings. A place to hold some of those tears.

Where to start?

Maybe start with the open letters from lawyers: one signed by more than 1000 lawyers in the UK calling on the UK Government to act urgently to fulfil its international legal obligations; another signed by more than 1000 lawyers in Australia, calling on the Australian Government to do the same. Both letters demand that our governments use their influence to call for a ceasefire.

Maybe start with this letter signed by more than 800 scholars and practitioners of international law, conflict studies, Holocaust studies and genocide studies, which warns of the possibility of genocide being perpetrated by Israeli forces against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Or this article in Jewish Currents by genocide researcher Raz Segal – himself an Israeli – which is titled A Textbook Case of Genocide.  Or this clear-minded interview with a former prosecutor from the International Criminal Court. Or this resignation letter from Craig Mokhiber, former Director of the New York office of the UN high commissioner for human rights, who says “Once again we are seeing a genocide unfolding before our eyes and the organization we serve appears powerless to stop it.” Or this crowd-sourced document containing more than 130 referenced examples of genocidal and dehumanising language directed at Palestinians.

Maybe start with this interview with Ta-Nehisi Coates, who states that no-one comes back from visiting the Occupied Territories unchanged (I can confirm that this is true); or with this article about UN Special Rapporteur to Palestine Francesca Albanese, who spoke unflinching truths to power during her Press Club talk earlier in the week.

Start with this deeply moving op-ed from the editor of Jewish Currents, We Cannot Cross Until We Carry Each Other; or this post – A Lot of Things Are True – by Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg; or this incredible essay Memory Voids and Role Reversals by Palestinian Scholar Dana El Kurd.

Or start with these posts by Israeli writers, giving us a better sense of what is going on in the country itself. Noam Shuster writes: Israeli leaders are ignoring our calls for a ceasefire. You shouldn’t. Orly Noy writes: Listen to Israeli survivors: they don’t want revenge. Uri Weltman writes: Grief is fueling repression and racism in Israel. But our movement for peace is growing.

Everything I’ve linked to comes from a different perspective. Some have a legal or academic slant, while others focus on personal experiences. But they also have one thing in common.

They are written or collated by people who believe that a Palestinian life has equal value to any other human life on this earth. If we can agree on that, we have a starting point. We have a shared understanding. We have hope.

If we cannot agree on that, we have nothing, and there is no point continuing this conversation.

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One of the things that has happened over the last few weeks, because I have been vocal about my big feelings on social media, is that I’ve been getting emails and messages from friends asking questions about Gaza. About the history. About the politics. About activism. About the involvement of our own governments.

I haven’t known all the answers. Far from it. But more often than not I have known where to direct them to find the answers.

And then some of those friends have used those answers to take action. To email their MP, or to make a donation, or just to buy a book so they can learn even more.

I am so very proud of the friends who have stepped outside their comfort zone to do this.

But in those conversations, something else has become really clear to me.

There are two key reasons why people don’t feel able to speak out about conflict in Palestine in the same way they do about other conflicts. People who are usually more than happy to sign a Save the Children petition or stick an I Stand with Ukraine badge on their social media profile don’t do the same when it comes to Gaza.

The first reason is that they are concerned about accusations of antisemitism.

I am forever grateful that the people who first introduced me to the situation in Palestine, back at university, were themselves anti-Zionist Jewish activists.

I was in awe then, and am in awe now, of the courage, resilience and strength of those activists, whose actions sometimes came at great personal and professional cost. We all know that it’s harder to stand up and take a different position to our own families and friends than it is to argue with a stranger.

Because of them, there has never been any confusion of the two issues in my mind. It’s never been a hard distinction to make. Criticism of decisions made by the Israeli Government and Military – absolutely fine, have at it. Discrimination or violence against, targeting of, or dehumanizing of Jewish people living in Israel or anywhere else in the world – absolute vile, unacceptable and needs to be called out every time you see it.

There is a really good, clear explainer that Jewish Voice for Peace has put together on this that helps unpick the definitions further.

The second reason people feel unable to speak out is that they believe the situation is too complicated to have an opinion on. That unless you’re conducting postdoctoral research in Middle Eastern studies, you don’t get to say what you think.

Of course there are complexities. Of course there is debate and discussion to be had about potential ways forward from here – even among people who have dedicated their life to understanding it.

But there are also fundamental truths that you can speak without being an expert. If we go back to the belief that a Palestinian life has equal value to any other human life on this earth, that is a great place to start.

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There are a lot of reasons why I have big feelings about what has happened in Gaza over the last month.

As a mother, I am so deeply distressed thinking about what the impacts of trauma will be on an entire generation of children and young people. Children make up 47 % of Gaza’s population – that’s almost half the population who weren’t even born when Hamas came to power in 2006. Even before this most recent conflict, a 2022 Save the Children report noted that 4 out of 5 children in Gaza said they were living in depression, grief or fear due to the blockade, while a 2021 report from Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor reported that 91% of Gazan children suffer from PTSD.

As a writer, I am terrified by the targeting of journalists and the regular communications blackouts that mean there is no news coming out of Gaza. As of November 15^th, the Committee to Protect Journalists had recorded 42 journalists and media workers confirmed dead. Like many people, I now start my day on Instagram checking the accounts of photojournalists on the ground – people like Motaz, Hind, Plestia and Bisan – now so well known that their surnames are unnecessary.  I want to see what the latest news is… and I want to make sure they are still alive.

As an environmentalist, I am horrified to see the physical impacts of the war on Gaza. The buildings flattened first by bombs and then by bulldozers; the water tanks and solar panels and fishing boats rendered useless; the chemical weapons discharging their toxic substances into the soil. Just as with the destruction of olive trees in the West Bank, these do not strike me as the actions of people who love the land.

Whatever perspective your concern comes from – health care worker, engineer, teacher, father, or simply human – that is your entry point for taking action.

You don’t need to be an expert on the entire conflict. You just need to reflect on what you already know, consider how what you know informs what you feel, and then use that as the motivation to do something about it.

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What might that action look like?

Good question.

Taking action looks different for everyone. We all have unique skills. We are artists and writers and speakers and organisers. We are strategists and bureaucrats and social media addicts. We are marchers and educators and fundraisers. We are drivers and lawyers and Excel spreadsheet nerds. We love speaking on the phone and cooking for large groups and taking notes at meetings.

We all have something to offer.

I saw a lovely quote the other day that said the reason for singing in a choir is so that when your voice gets tired, there are others to carry the song until you’re ready to join in again.

That is true with campaigning and activism too. In order for the people who are tired right now to have a rest, we need to have more people joining in. A lot more.

The good news is that every action counts – even if it’s as simple as helping beat the algorithms by hitting the like button every time you see something related to Palestinian solidarity on a social media feed.

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I’m going to finish this post with an extract from the speech that my dad made at my wedding, which was in 2007.

“Scotland is a country of three areas, and Ruth has actually lived in all three.  The Borders, the Lowlands and lastly the area to the north and west – the Highlands and Islands. I believe this area represents the heart, the soul and possibly even the conscience of Scotland. Ruth is a child of the Highlands and Islands and this is reflected in her. It makes me very proud.

During the last two years, Ruth has travelled to Palestine and to Greenland and on her return from these places we had our usual long telephone discussion. If you know Scottish people, you will know that we are obsessed with the weather so I expected to hear about the sun, the heat and the dryness of Palestine, and the cold and snow of Greenland. 

Wrong. 

Instead, she spoke passionately about the people and how she felt about her perceived injustices to the ordinary folk of these diverse areas. That made me very very proud.”

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I’m not sharing that to give myself a pat on the back. I’m sharing it as a way of illustrating that Palestine – both the place and the people, because the two are inseparable – is something I’ve been having big feelings about for a long time.

And when I was there, when I asked what I could do, the one thing that every single person said was: ‘Talk about us. Tell our stories. Don’t let the world forget about us.’

That’s exactly the same message that’s coming from Gaza, seventeen years on.

Social media has given Palestinians the ability to tell their own stories to a greater extent than ever before. But right now they are asking for our help. They need the rest of the world to boost their voices. Join the choir. Let them rest.

They need us to have big feelings. 

And then they need us to act on them.

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The image at the top of this post is from the Just Seeds website, which has made two downloadable bundles of Palestine Solidarity graphics.