I HAVE A DREAM

Nathan Ponnan

they ask me.  

are you pro-palestine ?

are you pro-israel ?

and i look them in the eyes,

and i say:

i am pro-life.

i am pro-peace.

i am pro-humanity.

because i will not choose between the blood of a child in gaza and that of one in tel aviv.

because the bombs don’t ask for ethnicity.

because a bullet does not check your passport before it kills.

because every scream, whether hebrew or arabic, echoes in the same voice:

the voice of the innocent.

i stand not with governments,

i stand not with militias,

i stand not with regimes that turn children into martyrs or soldiers.

i stand with the father who lost his family.

i stand with the boy whose dreams turned to dust.

i stand with the girl who fears the sky, not because of storms, but because of missiles and drones.

you speak of hamas ... and yes, i condemn violence masked as resistance.

you speak of the israeli government ... and yes, i condemn occupation masked as defense.

but we must learn:

condemning the extremes does not mean condemning the people.

condemning the powerful does not mean erasing the powerless.

do not tell me palestine does not exist ... it breathes in the broken homes, in the olive trees, in the prayers of the forgotten.

do not tell me israel should not exist ... it lives in the trembling of survivors, in the memory of ashes, in the dream of safety.

to deny either is to deny humanity.

we live in a world drunk on division, where loyalty is demanded, and empathy is punished.

but i say this:

peace is not treason.

compassion is not weakness.

balance is not betrayal.

i do not dream of a wall that divides.

i dream of a bridge that connects.

i do not dream of a ceasefire that ends on paper.

i dream of a silence so deep, even the dead can rest.

i dream not of victory, but of healing.

not of flags, but of families.

not of borders drawn in ink, but of hands joined in peace.

so ask me again ...

are you pro-israel?

are you pro-palestine?

and i will answer with my chest lifted high,

with the truth burning in my bones:

i am on the side of the innocent.

i am on the side of peace.

i am on the side of the future.

and yes ... i have a dream.

a dream that one day,

children from both lands will play in fields free of landmines,

where lullabies replace sirens,

and home means safety, not survival.

i have a dream ...

that history will not be written in ashes,

but in unity.

that justice will not come from the barrel of a gun,

but from the beating of a collective human heart.

i have a dream.

Nathan Ponnan, a freshly trained architect (from India's Manipal School of Architecture) working in Kuwait and rooted in  Kerala, writes in his spare time to understand our shared condition as much as to express it. He pursues small truths: moments where thought, faith, and emotion meet, to leave behind something worth reading twice.