I met Islam on October 10, 2025. Two years after the genocide started, 77 years after the first Nakba. In many ways he is an exceptional character. But from my perspective, one feature of his stands out the most: He is the same age as me. Islam is a hard-working and generous host who goes out of his way to show his guests the places that bring him joy in his home city of Tulkarem. He took us to his favourite cafe, the ice cream place his friend works at, and a small art gallery hidden away from most unknowing foreign visitors. And he is kind. But most of all, he is the exact same age as I am: twenty-four years. And I know that for many, this may seem like a relatively banal thing to focus on– but it struck me deeply.
When I look at Islam, it is like looking into a mirror. In him, I see the life that I might have lived and the person I could’ve become if I had been born Palestinian. The things I would have endured. In Islam, I see how angry and frustrated I would be, were my entire home and neighbourhood demolished to the ground by the IDF.
I met another person close to my age, Fade, who is 23-years old. He is a talented artist and plays the Turkish guitar beautifully. All of his guitars were demolished by the IDF. He has a foul mouth and cheerful attitude, and like many other refugees in Tulkarem, he smokes a lot. I am left to wonder, were I in his shoes, would I also become a smoker? Something in me tells me I would.
When I look at Fade and Islam, I don’t just see a mirror showing who I could’ve been, I see a mirror reflecting the world that I come from. The ugliness of it. I see how justice is a right reserved for the few and select, myself included. I see how “human rights” is merely Western rhetoric, not something that would, on any concrete level, extend to Palestinians. I see the mounds of privilege I sit on and do nothing with. I see the mounds my friends and family sit on, doing even less.
I come face to face with the rage that this realization awakens in me. In Tulkarem, I met my Palestinian mirror. And for the remainder of my life, I will try to face the reflection that I saw. The reflection of my society became so much clearer in those moments.
Just the other day, someone told me, “Oh you’re so brave to be there.” “Brave how?” I asked. Brave to be a visitor to misery in which others live their whole lives? Brave to dip a toe into what others were thrown in as children, seeing if they’d sink or swim? I am not sure if I want to call that bravery. But I do think it is important, and I have been forever changed by it. I think that it is something we should all be willing to do at least once in our lives.
Alex Oksanen from Finland
October 2025