They will ask: what started this? The answer depends entirely on where you start the clock. Start it on October 7, 2023. The answer is: Hamas terrorism. Start it in 2007, when Gaza was placed under blockade. The answer is: a civilian population subjected to collective punishment, confinement and deprivation. Start it in 1967, when the occupation began. The answer is: generations living under military rule, settlement expansion, displacement and political domination. Start it in 1948, when more than 700,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled from their homes and the overwhelming majority were never permitted to return. The answer is: a people dispossessed of their homes, their land and their political future, with that dispossession never resolved. Palestinian history did not begin on October 7. Palestinian suffering did not begin on October 7. And Palestinian resistance did not emerge from a historical vacuum. The clock's starting point is the argument. Everything that follows is the conclusion that starting point was chosen to produce. When someone begins the story on October 7, they are not merely choosing a date. They are choosing which suffering counts as history, and which suffering is supposed to disappear from it.