Deepest gratitude for the wisdom
of Mo Husseini. 🙏 Molly
A Teaching Without Comfort
One holds the keys.
One asks for permission to pass.
One builds where it wishes.
One watches its homes reduced to rubble.
One controls the water.
One rations what remains.
Each says, “I was wronged here.”
And both of them speak the truth.
But the wrongs are not equal in their present form.
**
The teaching says:
That which you give shall return to you in kind.
But the return is not immediate.
And the return is not proportional to present power.
**
The powerful give:
Checkpoints. Permits. Demolitions. Siege.
“For security,” they say.
And this, too, is fact and not fiction.
They remember bombs on buses.
Cafes turned into graves.
Children murdered in their beds.
They remember a history where weakness meant annihilation.
They remember being hunted, everywhere, always.
Their fear is not imagined.
Their fear is inherited.
But fear, once armed, becomes policy.
**
The powerless give what they can:
Stones. Rockets. Rage. Bodies.
“For survival,” they say.
And this, too, is fact and not fiction.
They remember land taken, futures closed, movement denied.
They remember soldiers deciding who may pass and who may not.
They remember law arriving as force, not protection.
They remember that patience has never been rewarded.
Their rage is not spontaneous.
It is taught daily.
**
The Law replies:
Your justifications do not change the gift.
If you control a people’s movement, food, water, and future—what do you think you are teaching their children?
If you are denied movement, food, water, and future—what do you think your children are learning?
**
The one with power says:
“We must have security first, then peace.”
The one without power says:
“We must have freedom first, then peace.”
Both are saying:
“The other must change first.”
And so nothing changes.
**
The one with greater power bears greater responsibility.
Not because their grievance is lesser.
Not because their fear is invalid.
Not because history is simple.
But because power creates the conditions.
**
The strong choose whether to show restraint.
The weak act within the constraints the strong have set.
**
When the strong say, “We are also afraid”—this is true.
When the strong say, “We also suffer”—this is true.
But fear with an army is different from fear without one.
Suffering with sovereignty is different from suffering under domination.
**
Can the jailer and the prisoner both be trapped?
Yes.
Are they trapped in the same way?
No.
**
The teaching does not deny the fear of the strong.
It asks what that fear has been made to justify.
The teaching does not sanctify the rage of the weak.
It asks what that rage has been made to destroy.
The teaching does not promise justice.
It promises only consequence.
**
If you build a system that requires another people’s subordination, you will get resistance.
If you crush that resistance with greater force, you will get greater resistance.
If you teach a generation that they have no future, they will act as if they have no future.
Security built on another’s unfreedom is not security.
It is a wager that force can be sustained forever.
It is the assumption of a debt that will be repaid.
History does not favor that wager.
The Law applies always, but it operates on the scale of generations.
**
The question is not “who is right?”
The question is “what is sustainable?”
**
The answer has been shown again and again:
Domination is not sustainable.
Humiliation is not sustainable.
Permanent control is not sustainable.
You can win every battle and still lose.
You can have the greater army and still be destroying yourselves.
You can be justified in your fear and still be creating the future you fear most.
Restraint from a position of power is not weakness.
It is the only path to actual security.
Rage born of injustice does not make every action righteous.
Resistance born of oppression does not make every choice acceptable .
The innocent you kill do not care about your justification.
Their deaths become weapons in the hands of those who oppress you.
When the oppressor uses your violence to justify the system, and you choose it anyway—what are you building?
The oppressed do not have the luxury of perfect choices.
**
But choices remain choices.
And consequences remain consequences.
Both peoples must decide what they are willing to live with.
**
Not what is just.
Not what is deserved.
Not what history demands.
**
What is actually possible
between two peoples who cannot leave,
cannot separate,
cannot wish each other away.
The alternative is visible to all:
More of what has already failed.
**
The Law does not offer comfort.
It offers only consequence.
**
Choose the gift.
Receive the return.
And know that the children are watching both.
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