A Letter to Donald Trump From Gaza
Abubaker Abed, a young Palestinian in Gaza, writes an emotional letter to the US president.
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Dear President Donald Trump,
You have a son almost my age. I am sure he lives the nicest life any young man desires and passionately and ambitiously pursues his dreams. I wish eternal peace and happiness for him and every young man around the world. Nonetheless, have you ever told him how the young men of Gaza, like me, are living? Have you once mentioned the staggering death toll among students of his age in Gaza?
During the last 16 months, Gaza was turned into an abattoir where we were immolated, starved, bombed, and displaced into the streets and tents, freezing to death. We have also been kept hostages for over 17 years, but you, with millions of people around the globe, haven’t cared a whit about us. We are indeed still hostages. If the lives of some hundred Israelis, many of whom were soldiers, are important, the lives of over 2 million people – half of whom are children – also matter.
When you were inaugurated, your duty was to make America, not Gaza, great again. We, Palestinians in Gaza, know how to make Gaza great and beautiful again. We never came after the recent wildfires in Los Angeles to say: “Los Angeles is an incineration site. It’s the city of ash. I think all people should leave it, and we will rebuild it again.” Gaza is our Los Angeles. Just as many Californians can't – or don't want to – leave California, we can't leave Gaza. After all that we’ve endured over the past 16 months, which was financed by your predecessor, our roots have grown stronger because our sacrificed blood is priceless, and our right to our homeland is irreplaceable.
Since your first inauguration in 2017, you’ve been selling my homeland live on air before the eyes of the entire world as if it were your own.