It is high time that the Palestinian people restore their freedom

Host: The evening sky hung heavy over the city, bruised with hues of purple and ash. A slow wind moved through the narrow streets, carrying the scent of dust, smoke, and distant bread ovens. The cafés were closing, the lamps flickering like tired stars. In the heart of the old quarter, Jack and Jeeny sat on the edge of a stone wall, overlooking a vast, dimly lit valley where the lights of human struggle shimmered like restless embers.

A faint radio played from a nearby window — a reporter’s voice, cracked and solemn, reciting words from Mahmoud Abbas: “It is high time that the Palestinian people restore their freedom and independence. It is high time that the decades, the long decades of suffering and pain would stop.”

The wind carried the final syllables away, leaving only silence — the kind that feels like waiting.

Jeeny: “You hear that, Jack? He said ‘It is high time’. There’s so much weight in those words. So much patience stretched to its breaking point.”

Jack: “Patience? Maybe it’s just another performance for the cameras. Politicians have been saying the same thing for fifty years. Nothing changes.”

Jeeny: “That’s cruel, Jack. You talk like hope is a disease.”

Jack: “Hope without progress is a disease. It eats away at people until they confuse endurance for freedom.”

Host: Jeeny turned toward him. Her eyes, dark and fierce, caught the reflected glow of the streetlamps. Her hair whipped gently in the cold air, and her voice, though soft, carried an unyielding rhythm.

Jeeny: “You speak like someone who’s never been occupied — not by force, not by history, not by grief. You don’t understand what it means to wait for freedom you’ve never felt.”

Jack: “You think I don’t? I’ve seen people trapped in systems they didn’t build — corporate cages, economic wars. Not all prisons have walls.”

Jeeny: “But some do, Jack. And those walls are real. Concrete, barbed, and built by hands that never plan to leave. For the Palestinians, those aren’t metaphors. They’re morning shadows.”

Host: The lights from the valley flickered like dying fireflies. Somewhere far off, the faint sound of a train horn echoed — lonely and unending.

Jack: “Every generation says it’s time for justice. And every generation ends up bleeding the same way. Don’t you ever get tired of the same story being rewritten in different ruins?”

Jeeny: “Tired? Yes. But not numb. That’s the difference. The moment we stop feeling tired for others — the moment we stop believing their freedom matters — that’s when we become part of the walls ourselves.”

Jack: “And yet empathy doesn’t change borders, Jeeny. Guns and politics do.”

Jeeny: “No. But empathy changes the heart, and that’s where history starts. Gandhi didn’t lift a gun. Martin Luther King didn’t build walls. But their voices cracked empires because they spoke truth wrapped in humanity.”

Host: Jack turned his gaze downward, toward the valley of lights and shadows. The silence stretched like smoke between them, thin and fragile.

Jack: “You’re quoting saints to solve geopolitics.”

Jeeny: “No, I’m reminding you that freedom isn’t a policy. It’s a heartbeat. It’s not about borders on a map — it’s about the right to breathe without fear.”

Jack: “But reality doesn’t care about heartbeats. Power does.”

Jeeny: “And yet power falls. Always. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow — but every empire that denies humanity eventually drowns in its own arrogance. Rome. Britain. Apartheid. Don’t tell me injustice lasts forever.”

Host: The wind picked up, swirling dust around their feet. A child’s laughter rang out faintly from a nearby street — a momentary light in a landscape of shadows. Jeeny’s eyes followed the sound, softening.

Jeeny: “You know, I once saw a photo — a Palestinian boy flying a kite over rubble. His home was gone. Everything broken. But that kite — bright red — was climbing higher than the ruins. That’s freedom, Jack. Not politics. Spirit.”

Jack: “That’s symbolism. You can’t live on symbols.”

Jeeny: “Maybe not. But you die without them.”

Host: Jack’s jaw tightened, but his eyes softened — a flicker of thought beneath the armor of cynicism. The air trembled with the tension of two truths colliding.

Jack: “So what do you want me to say? That I believe peace will come if people just hope enough? That oppression collapses under poetry?”

Jeeny: “No. I want you to say that you still care. That you haven’t given up believing human beings deserve the dignity of living their own story. Because if you stop believing that — you stop being human.”

Host: A long pause fell. The radio cracked again, replaying fragments of Abbas’s words. “...long decades of suffering and pain would stop.”

Jack exhaled slowly, his breath visible in the cooling air.

Jack: “I used to believe in that kind of justice. When I was younger. Thought the world would learn from its wounds.”

Jeeny: “And then?”

Jack: “Then I saw how the wounds became excuses. How countries profit from conflict. How peace itself gets traded like currency.”

Jeeny: “You sound like someone who’s seen too much news and too little humanity.”

Jack: “Maybe. Or maybe I’ve seen too many dreams turned into slogans.”

Host: Jeeny leaned forward, her voice trembling but firm.

Jeeny: “Then don’t let the slogans kill the dream. Freedom isn’t a headline — it’s the sound of a mother not worrying if her son will come home. It’s a girl reading by candlelight in safety. It’s dignity. Can you honestly say anyone deserves less than that?”

Jack: (quietly) “No. I can’t.”

Jeeny: “Then you understand.”

Jack: “I understand that freedom always demands a price. And the ones who pay it rarely get to spend it.”

Jeeny: “True. But the fact that they pay it means the dream is alive. Every generation that rises, even in despair, proves humanity refuses extinction.”

Host: The streetlights buzzed faintly above them. A car passed below, its headlights slicing through the dark. Jack rubbed his temples, tired. Jeeny looked toward the distant hills, her face caught in the light — calm, resolute, almost sacred.

Jeeny: “You know, sometimes I think the world doesn’t need more power — it needs more witnessing. If people saw the faces behind the words — not numbers, not politics — just faces — they’d understand what ‘high time’ really means.”

Jack: “And what does it mean to you?”

Jeeny: “It means no more waiting. No more ‘someday.’ It means now — right now — human beings deserve to live without chains, without checkpoints, without the humiliation of survival. It means finally saying: enough.”

Host: The air seemed to still after her words, as though the city itself was listening. Somewhere, the muezzin’s call began to rise — long, haunting, beautiful. It echoed through the hills, through the bones of old buildings, through the hearts of two strangers on a wall.

Jack: “You really believe peace is possible?”

Jeeny: “I believe justice is inevitable. Peace is just its echo.”

Jack: (after a pause) “Then maybe it is high time. Maybe I’ve been too blind to see that patience isn’t weakness — it’s resilience.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. The longer the night, the stronger the dawn.”

Host: The moon lifted from behind the hills, casting a pale silver over the city. In the distance, the lights of life still burned — stubborn, defiant. Jack looked at Jeeny, and for the first time that evening, there was no argument left, only understanding.

The radio crackled one last time before fading to static. Neither of them spoke. The wind whispered through the alleyways, carrying a faint echo of children’s laughter — that fragile sound of tomorrow.

And in that quiet moment, beneath a wounded sky, both Jack and Jeeny realized:

Freedom is not granted — it is remembered, fought, and reborn every time someone dares to say, “It is high time.”