"Expecting the out bombed Palestinians to just go away and settle somewhere else, like every other defeated folk might be willing to do (looking at the utter devastation of the cityscapes), they say "Now more than ever!"
I am reminded of Geronimo and the contest with the US cavalry they endured. The whole of the Apache tribe Geronimo led moved teepee, child, and grandma ~100 kilometers/day over terrain cavalry could not traverse, and continued to forage on the way in one of the most hostile environments on Earth, for five years.
Thanks!
Alex Krainer just reminded me of my own irritation I felt when I visited the US in the video I'm linking here. People there didn't seem to feel any pain or loss when they had to move somewhere else for a job, even if it was a thousand miles away. Families live apart from each other, scattered across the vast country. I never felt comfortable imagining that. I'm much more attached to where I live, and my family isn't so far away that a two-hour drive wouldn't be enough to overcome the distance.
With the Palestinians, I agree with you, it's more like the Apache tribe you described - they know the land, they know the soil, they know how to grow food and how to get by, and they are much more deeply rooted with their ancestors. I can empathise with that.
I am now. I was raised far from extended family, however, and didn't even understand what an uncle, cousin, or such concepts signified for most of my formative years. While I have no extended family I know, I have valuable relationships with friends and neighbors here today, and reckon such value of far greater worth to me than mere emuneration. I have had money and property and friends and goodwill, and the former can be taken from me. The latter cannot.
We couldn't have grown up more differently. I was brought up in a small town, surrounded by a huge number of relatives, with numerous aunts, uncles, cousins, my grandparents, as well as a large number of Russian-Germans who moved to the same place, although there are more of them all over the country. For me, it was normality to be embedded in this kind of community and I never really thought much about it until I realised that my normality was not the same for everyone else.
That is a good thing to be able to say. I congratulate you on this. To have confidence in the friends you made, is something not too many people can say of themselves.