Summary

Chapter Nine, “Leavetaking,” begins with a list of circumstances in which Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli military, including in their beds, while swimming in the sea, and with their hands raised in surrender. The narrative moves to Portland in the year 2024. Akkad spent time alone in the woods grieving the suffering in Gaza that he watches online. He recounts the death of Aaron Bushnell, a man who set himself on fire outside the Israeli embassy in Washington. His last words were, “Free Palestine”. Akkad criticizes coverage suggesting that Bushnell was mentally unstable and compares it to coverage of the death of Mohamed Bouazizi who set himself on fire in Tunisia in 2010 in a moment that is widely considered to have sparked the wave of protests across the Middle East known as the Arab Spring. Akkad suggests that Western...