hope, and perseverance

For the past 100 years, the strongest weapon for us Palestinians has been hope.

The worst enemy for the Zionist genocidal movement has been hope.

They want us to feel defeated, despair. With ethnic cleansing, occupation, apartheid and genocide, they want us to believe that is the end. But we know that we are on the right side of history, on the side of humanity, and we keep fighting, powered by hope.

"When I see the grey dark sky, I choose to stare at the rose growing through the cracks of a wall and I say, what a wonderful day"*.

I stood in Trafalgar Square 20+ years ago with a few hundreds chanting "we are all Palestinians" and I felt hope. Years have passed and I marched through the same spot with hundreds of thousands chanting "we are all Palestinians." I saw hope grow to turn the pages of history time after time and I never give up, will never give up.

As a Palestinian I know, they demolished our village, ethnically cleansed my people and said: "The old will die and the young will forget."

How wrong they were. How wrong they are. 

The old grew older as roots of trees grow deeper into the memories of the land of Palestine. And the young flourish like poppies, filling every corner of the world with friends, all chanting: we are all Palestinian.

But friends, this is not the time to rejoice— not yet, this is the darkest hour in our fight.

Hope alone cannot pierce through this night.

We need more than prayers, we need more than dreams,

We need our voices louder than thunder, our presence felt in every space.

Palestine, should be our compass, how we shop, who do we vote for, and how we measure people's ethics by. 

Friends, 

Speak louder, reach deeper, let no silence remain,

Support stronger, boycott wider, break every chain.

More action, more passion, more fire in our call,

More organizing, mobilizing—we must give our all.

Ahmad Baker 

August 2025

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*Note: The rose imagery references Mahmoud Darwish's poetry.*