The Anger of Recognition: Witnessing Gaza and the Pain of Belated Solidarity

Recent polls show growing support for Palestine—especially among Democrats, where support has risen to 59% and continues to grow. Even among Republicans, only 16% now support U.S. military aid to Israel. These numbers should fill anyone in the movement for a free Palestine with hope—but for many of us, they don’t.

Not because they aren’t significant. They are. But because numbers don’t hold the urgency of lives. Of children. Of hunger. Of grief. We’re watching a genocide unfold in real time. So while public opinion shifts in the right direction, our people are still being starved, bombed, and buried. Support is rising—but so are the death tolls. So is the silence from those with power.

It’s not that we’re not hopeful. It’s that we’re holding our hope alongside unbearable loss.

In my case, I’ve been struggling with anger. For almost two years, I have witnessed my people in Gaza endure unspeakable horrors, their lives reduced to statistics, their suffering met with global indifference. The anger I feel is not new, but it has transformed—deepened into something I can only describe as qahr.

In Arabic, qahr is a term that encapsulates more than just anger. It embodies a profound sense of oppression, a grief so intense it becomes a part of one’s very being. As described by Palestinians, qahr is “when you take anger, place it on a low fire, add injustice, oppression, racism, dehumanization to it, and leave it to cook slowly for a century. And then you try to say it but no one hears you. So it sits in your heart. And settles in your cells. And it becomes your genetic imprint.” The word was made popular by Khadija Muhaisen Dajani who took the definition to another level and reached millions in expanding its meaning.

Qahr: word definition in arabic

Now, as the world finally begins to acknowledge the genocide in Gaza, I find myself engulfed in a new wave of anger—not just at the atrocities themselves, but at the delayed recognition by those who now, because it is safe, choose to speak out. Their newfound awareness feels like a betrayal, a reminder of the years spent shouting into the void. Psychologically, anger is often seen as a progression from the paralysis of grief, a step towards healing. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s model outlines anger as a natural stage in processing trauma. But what stage accounts for the fury directed at latecomers to a cause? What explains the resentment towards those who now wear solidarity as a badge, oblivious to the weight we’ve carried?

This is not just anger; it’s the manifestation of qahr—a collective, inherited anguish that doesn’t dissipate with time. It’s a reminder that while others had the privilege of ignorance, we bore witness, we mourned, and we resisted.

In Arab mythology, healing from such profound anger isn’t about forgetting or moving on—it’s about transformation. The phoenix, or Anqa, rises from its ashes, not unscathed, but reborn. A metaphor that we have overused in our history of rising from the rubbles, yet what else are we expected to do, but rise? Our path to healing lies in channeling this qahr—this inherited, collective anguish—into acts of creation, education, and unwavering advocacy.

Our strength lies in our wisdom and thousands of years of knowledge embedded in our stories, our bones and in our land.

This is why I wrote A Woman is a School: to honor the stories of my ancestors, to give voice to the generational pain that has long been silenced, and to offer a way forward rooted in the ancient wisdom of our lands. It’s a testament to our ability to transform even the deepest anger into a force for healing and liberation. Through storytelling, we remember. Through remembrance, we resist. And in the act of sharing these stories, we reclaim the knowledge and power that has always been ours.

Nothing seems to pull me out of this wave of anger. I try—on and off—to anchor myself in gratitude, in presence, but that moment flickers quickly into guilt… and then back into rage. How could it not? How does one stay still while our people are being erased in front of the world’s eyes?

Words fail. Language has collapsed under the weight of what we’re witnessing. My only solace is in action—in showing up with the full weight of my being. Designing, documenting, writing, witnessing, teaching, amplifying—doing everything I know how to do in service. But even that feels like trying to sew shut a wound that is still being torn open in real time.

And still, I return to the only clarity that remains: stopping this genocide is the singular goal. Seeing a free Palestine in our lifetime is the compass. Because that’s when the real work begins. When the walls fall, we will need every ounce of imagination to rebuild what was stolen. To heal the land and those who survived. To love through the pain. To unlearn the machinery of oppression and begin again—rooted in justice, in reciprocity, in memory.

Until then, I keep channeling the fire into motion. This anger is a current. Let it move us forward.