I come bearing an olive branch in one hand, and the freedom

Host: The night was split between flame and silence. Beyond the ruins of a once-crowded square, a fire burned low — its glow licking the faces of two figures seated amid rubble and ash. The air smelled of smoke, iron, and rain, the heavy perfume of a world that had fought too long to remember what peace felt like.

A torn flag flapped weakly in the wind, and somewhere in the distance, the faint sound of a muezzin’s call mingled with the lonely ring of a church bell — discordant, but not hostile.

Jack sat with his back to the fire, his rifle laid beside him, his eyes reflecting embers and ghosts. Across from him, Jeeny knelt beside a broken wall, cleaning the dust from her hands, her face streaked with exhaustion but still luminous beneath the soot.

Jeeny: “Yasser Arafat once said, ‘I come bearing an olive branch in one hand, and the freedom fighter’s gun in the other. Do not let the olive branch fall from my hand.’”

Jack: “A poetic way to justify contradiction. A man asking the world to forgive his weapon as long as he still holds a symbol of peace.”

Host: The firelight flickered across the crumbling stones, dancing between them like a restless spirit. The wind moaned softly through the hollow windows of what had once been a home.

Jeeny: “Or maybe it’s a confession. The truth that peace and defense are two sides of the same trembling hand. He wasn’t justifying — he was pleading.”

Jack: “You always find virtue in violence if it’s wrapped in poetry. But a gun is a gun, Jeeny. No olive branch can make it gentler.”

Jeeny: “And no olive branch can survive without protection. Look at history. Gandhi carried no weapon, and he was shot for it. Martin Luther King dreamed without armor, and he fell for it. Arafat knew the world listens to peace only when it’s armed enough to be feared.”

Jack: “Then peace becomes extortion. A peace that survives only because the gun still trembles in the background — that’s not peace. That’s exhaustion.”

Host: The fire crackled, sending sparks into the air — brief stars burning out before they could rise. The night hummed with the low, distant growl of a passing convoy, and both turned instinctively toward the sound.

Jeeny: “Maybe peace isn’t a state. Maybe it’s a negotiation — between survival and surrender.”

Jack: “So you justify blood for balance?”

Jeeny: “No. I acknowledge it. You can’t erase the violence of birth, Jack — not in nations, not in people. But you can decide whether to stay loyal to the wound or to the healing.”

Jack: “You talk like there’s a moral way to wage war.”

Jeeny: “No — only a moral reason to end one.”

Host: The firelight trembled, painting their faces with flickers of red and gold. Jack’s eyes were grey steel; Jeeny’s, dark earth. Between them, the flame was the color of conflict — burning, but still fragile.

Jack: “You think Arafat’s olive branch meant peace? It was strategy. A symbol to soften the world’s conscience while the gun kept the dream alive.”

Jeeny: “Maybe. But even symbols bleed truth. He didn’t say I drop the gun. He said, don’t let the olive branch fall. That’s a warning — that peace is everyone’s responsibility. It slips not when the soldier grows tired, but when the world grows indifferent.”

Jack: “You sound like you pity him.”

Jeeny: “I pity the world that makes such words necessary.”

Host: The wind shifted again, carrying the faint smell of jasmine from somewhere unseen — a stubborn fragrance in a place too familiar with smoke. Jack picked up a piece of broken stone and turned it in his hands, watching the light catch its jagged edges.

Jack: “You know, the tragedy isn’t that people fight for freedom. It’s that freedom always seems to demand blood before it listens.”

Jeeny: “And sometimes after.”

Jack: “You think peace can ever come without a gun?”

Jeeny: “I think peace starts when someone finally dares to put one down. But it doesn’t last unless others protect that choice.”

Host: The silence deepened. The fire hissed softly, shrinking lower, a fading heart between them. The stars overhead began to pierce through the smoke — faint, like hope seen through grief.

Jack: “You ever notice how every flag is born out of battle? As if nations can’t exist without enemies.”

Jeeny: “Because nations are mirrors of their fears. People build borders to define themselves. But one day, maybe we’ll realize the truest border is mercy — where my freedom ends exactly where yours begins.”

Jack: “That’s a beautiful dream.”

Jeeny: “So was peace, once.”

Host: Her voice broke slightly on the last word — not with despair, but with the fatigue of faith that refuses to die. The wind gusted, scattering the ashes from the fire, a brief grey storm rising between them before settling.

Jack: “Maybe that’s what he meant — that both the gun and the branch are temporary. Tools of transition. You fight to survive, but only so you can live long enough to lay the weapon down.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. And the tragedy is that some die holding both, never getting the chance to choose which one to keep.”

Host: The flame sputtered, its last embers clinging stubbornly to life. Jack leaned forward, poking it with a stick until it flared again, weak but warm.

Jack: “So the olive branch is hope, and the gun is history.”

Jeeny: “Yes. One grows, the other remembers.”

Jack: “And we need both?”

Jeeny: “Until the day we don’t.”

Host: A long pause stretched between them — the kind that holds more truth than speech. The sound of the distant convoy faded. The air settled, heavy with the scent of ash and rain.

Jack: “You know, Jeeny, I used to think peace was the end of war. But maybe it’s just the courage to stand between fury and forgiveness and keep holding both — praying the branch doesn’t slip.”

Jeeny: “That’s exactly it. Peace isn’t the absence of conflict. It’s the refusal to let hatred become your only language.”

Host: The camera of the mind would have pulled back then — two figures small against the vastness of the ruined square, surrounded by the relics of a civilization still trying to remember its humanity.

The fire flickered one last time, then dimmed into a soft, amber glow. The sky above them cleared — just enough for the moon to break through, silver and solemn, like a witness.

Host: And in that stillness, Arafat’s words took on their true weight —
that the world forever teeters between grace and rage,
that every soul carries both a branch and a gun,
and that the measure of peace
is not in how loudly one fights,
but in how tightly one dares to keep
the olive branch from falling.