Lost in Las Vegas as the Bombs Begin to Fall; a reflection
Written 10/23/23 by Miguel Louis
As an author, it has been some time since I have written directly to the reader in my weekly updates that used to be my work. In that time, I finished my first novel and held two great events, the first being invited by Moe Bowstern, the author of a new zine series based upon her daily reflections of the day by day of 2020, from the lockdowns, to mid 2021.
This is what called me to write this piece, as we watch the world descend into further conflict. The question came up in the questions and answers, as to why we wrote these pieces. Both Moe and I did our best to tell our personal stories throughout what felt like a dark time for the nation. I begin with the murder of George Floyd in the midst of the lockdown. She begins with the lockdown, which for many of us was the dawn of another era.
In essence, that time was so compelling that one felt the need to write about it. This time feels no different. Instead of a global pandemic, and the lockdowns, alongside the George Floyd Uprisings, caused by a fascist as a president and the need for racial justice… Now, we have a new president, who promised to solve those issues. And Biden has failed, and the time for racial justice is nigh.
At the time I type this in my house, with a warm coffee and a cardigan on, the world is on the verge of chaos. The previous year, as I moved to Portland, the Russians began the outright invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. We have watched as the war has drawn to what many are considering a war of attrition. While I critique the Ukrainian government and the embrace of fascism throughout Eastern Europe, they must defeat the Russians, and win back their land. Russia is more fascistic and threatening the world. As are we as Americans.
Then as of September 2023, West Africa had a series of coups d’etat across nations in the region. While undemocratic, they promise to challenge the French control that remains since colonial times, and the people support these rises to power. Regardless, the Western Powers watch and are considering how to back their own interests on the African continent.
But what compels me to write now is not these wars in far off lands, it is the new war that threatens to break out across the world. And it isn’t a war even, it is a genocide which we are paying for through our taxes.
On October 7th, HAMAS began a brutal attack on Israeli settlements on Palestinian land. The scenes were harrowing and intense. Paragliders, ground forces, and even an amphibious landing worked in tandem to attack Israeli Defense Forces and civilians and begin a mass kidnapping. Others worked to destroy the border fence that had kept civilians entrapped for a decade, without a way to leave. Sources report 1,400 dead and about 200 hostages.
The Israeli response, and the action of the government for 75 years prior, has been horrific. One which explains the violence unfolding across the region. This attack and the subsequent response has ignited conversation across the world. A conversation I had while drunk at a bar in Las Vegas last weekend.
Immediately after the first attack, the bombs began to fall on Gaza. A week before a friend invited us on a boy’s trip to Las Vegas, I watched the news grow more and more dire. The number of the missiles from Israel increasing. Other factions now becoming involved. America sending its military to the region. Like many, I felt a deep anxiety about a world growing more and more chaotic, on the verge of catastrophe.
For years I have supported the plight of the Palestinians. While I grew up conservative, in a Mormon household, once I began to read on my own, I understood what the Palestinians resist. That Israel is an apartheid state. That the land belonged to the Palestinians. That for centuries Jews and Muslims lived in peace in the region until 1947 and the Nakba. That Gaza is an open-air prison. That the Israelis seek genocide against the Palestinians who resist a brutal occupation.
So you can imagine, in the week before Vegas, I could do nothing but watch the news and bite my nails waiting for what was to come and to hope that Palestine would survive. And when we boarded the flight at 9 AM, from PDX, it’s all that filled my mind.
To note, this trip was my first visit to Sin City. Before, I had been too broke and uninterested. However, a friend with a gambling problem is always a good excuse to visit. Especially when a flight is covered.
Regardless, once we landed in Vegas, I began to drink. Something to drown out the unease that filled my mind. While not much of a gambler, I decided to embrace it when in Vegas. All the while, we began to take in the sights of a city built for spectacle.
You can imagine the strangeness I felt in being in the midst of Las Vegas, as Israel began to bomb Gaza without mercy. It wasn’t only the glamor and glitz of this metropolis in the middle of the burning desert. It was the people I watched walk by me, the visitors.
Everywhere you looked, people tried to drown out their worries in a world in disarray. Old women spent hours feeding money into slot machines in the hope that this time they would hit the jackpot. Off-duty cops played hand after hand of blackjack, no doubt to cover their alimony payments. Drunk frat bros that probably couldn’t point out Palestine on a map, let alone spell it. People that looked far-right, that would call me a terrorist if I uttered Free Palestine. The men who looked like they were currently spending their bonuses from Boeing for the Gaza bombings on the baccarat table.
Vegas is a city of decadence, of excess. (A fun fact shared by our generous host, although one may not know it’s one of the most sustainable cities for water use in the world). I joked often that this is what the founding fathers fought for, that the wanton gluttony in the Nevada city was what this nation was all about. My remark was only half in jest. Vegas is a tribute to capitalism and its lavishness.
Meanwhile, I couldn’t help but notice the amount of police that flooded Vegas like an occupying force, with green uniforms shaded much like the Israeli Defense Forces. Only to remember that the IDF trains with many major metropolitan police departments. Their riot control measures are often taught by Israeli nationals. Tips they learned in oppressing Palestinian children.
All I could take in was the overindulgence of this center of civilization. A shrine to capitalism and what American influence has created. After all, Israel would not exist without us, and in many ways, without our support of the proxy state, our lifestyle of luxury and exploitation would be less secure.
How does one zone out ongoing genocide? How does one embrace their vacation fully, and refuse to check the news? How does one dissuade their guilt at not being in their home city, on the streets with those who stand against genocide?
These questions rolled through my mind as I wandered through Vegas in a drunken haze. I couldn’t. So all the while, as we gambled and drank, and ate a dinner made with Guy Fieri’s own hands, I continued to scroll through my phone. I’d update my companions with news from Gaza, pictures of the strikes and the sheer atrocities committed against the civilian population.
I had fun, and worked to focus on the experience at hand. Yet a sense of guilt set over me. How could I waste so much money on degeneracy, while the people of Gaza starve?
At one point, I decided to wander around to a store for some liquor. In the end, I decided to sit at a casino bar for a while. One thing I won’t dislike about Las Vegas is the ability to light up a cigarette wherever one so desires. It was at this point the middle aged man next me, with an Astros hat on, decided to ask me about the posts I was looking at. A little tipsy, I had turned on a video showing protests across the world, with flags for Palestine far and wide.
The man stated he meant no offense and that he merely wanted to understand why college kids like me cared so much about Palestine. He then asked me where I was from. When I said Portland, he was not surprised and began to laugh. “Just curious bud, don’t get upset with me,” he joked.
I laughed too and told him I really didn’t mind answering the question. And that unlike some others I was willing to discuss my point of view. I admitted my Mormon upbringing, and how much my faith and family told me to defend Israel. Then I discussed what led me away from that blind devotion to a new country, and why.
Part of my move away from Israel was the realization that while many evangelical Christians stood by the State of Israel, it wasn’t for its longevity. It was the notion that without the Jewish faith restored to their homeland, the apocalypse could not happen, and the world would not end. He laughed and declared his family had been lapsed catholics, and that this motivation to defend Israel in the midst of violence seemed pretty dark.
Then I described the reasons to stand for Palestine. I gave him a drunken chronology of the events at hand, from Israel, to the Crusades, to Mandatory Palestine, to 1947, to the Nakba, to the Six-Day War, to Gaza now… All in all he was patient as I gave him a basic rundown of what I understood and he nodded as if he were paying attention.
He asked me about the recent attack and what I thought. I told him the chant we had yelled the week before I left for Vegas; “Resistance is justified, when people are occupied!”. Of course I condemn the extreme tactics of HAMAS. It must be remembered as well that whatever missiles shot from Gaza are apprehended by a multi billion dollar Iron Dome defense system. And one of the most advanced militaries. Against kids throwing rocks at the wall. I asked him what he would have done in their same shoes. He asked me what I meant.
I described the situation in Gaza. Israel is an apartheid state that denies the basic humanity of Palestinians. Gaza, where the civilians are kept in an open-air prison, the whole strip walled off, and their right of movement denied. Gaza, where over half the population are children. Gaza, with no water, no oil, no food, no electricity in the wake of the Israeli response. Gaza, under occupation and blockade for over a decade.
Then there’s the West Bank, where, while not as apocalyptic, the IDF and settlers murder innocent civilians and continue to raze their homes in order to create living room for more jewish nationals. West Jerusalem, where whole families are continued to be pushed out, in the hope that they are eradicated. None of these people able to return to the homes stolen from them or abandoned after the violence of the Nakba in 1948.
All the while all Palestinians are under apartheid, forced into ghettos and segregated communities. How is this not apartheid?
The man named Michael nodded along and continued to take it all in. He then asked why we used the loaded term genocide. I repeated everything I had stated already about Gaza. Then I reminded him that while over half of Gazans are children, the IDF continues to bomb indiscriminately. Israel responded to the attack by denying water, food, medicine, oil, and electricity to all in Gaza, in a city already on the brink of death. They bombed a border crossing, all the while telling civilians to flee their homes so they would bomb them to the ground. They bomb mosques, schools, and hospitals.
These are war crimes. War crimes upon an already vulnerable population. What do we think Israel means when their leaders declare they want to bomb Gaza to the ground? What do they mean when they declare that Israel has a right to all the land east of the river? These are statements being declared by ultra-nationalist leaders like Netanyahu, to the settlers participating in the dispossession of the remaining Palestinians in the West Bank. Videos show Israeli settlers screaming that a new Nakba is needed. These words are not said in silence. They are backed by bombs and tanks. The bloodlust leads to genocide.
In the end, as I continued to drink, he thanked me for talking. He told me he doesn’t see it all the same way. But he did acknowledge that he has criticized Israel for this full blockade. The man was kind enough to pay for my drinks, and shook my hand. I stared at the clock, it was still early.
I smoked another cigarette and thought. While the conversations were meaningful, what good could it really do? Then the guilt of my inaction throughout all of this set in. The other emotion I felt while wandering amongst the Las Vegas lights, was one of passiveness. Not that I did not feel for the people of Palestine, but that I felt powerless in any of this.
I wandered back to the hotel room, where alone, I drank some more liquor and laid down to switch on the television. I watched the news, knowing that whatever media outlet I watched would be pro-Israel. Still I longed for answers for what this all meant, and needed to know what the news brought. It was much of the same.
With that I changed the channel to watch mind-numbing television on Adult Swim. This proved to be my best move, as I fell asleep early and in peace that evening, and got some real rest.
In the end, while lost in Las Vegas, drunk and content, I found some sense of calm. I woke up ready for a new day and to explore more of the Strip and Las Vegas.
Recognizing my inability to change this right now, alone, helped me to reach a space of solace. Not in the world. The world is still in a fraught position, on the brink of exploding into war. Nor do I state that we cannot stop the genocide and demand a cease-fire, merely that I cannot allow myself to bear this weight on my shoulders. I learned to focus on the fun instead of the fear of broader war. A good distraction to an atrocity you cannot solve right now can be a stiff drink. Cutting myself some slack for a week was allowed.
This of course is not the end. It was an opportunity for me to recharge, to resupply my sense of self, to reignite my revolutionary desires. While we must participate in this ongoing struggle, we are allowed to rest. I judged myself for spending a week drunk in Vegas as the bombs fell. But what I realized was that many of us really are doing our best to survive while a world war looms. And that it is what I needed for my return to activism, to prepare to fight fascism come 2024.
We cannot look away from the genocide, we cannot stop speaking up. But we are allowed to sleep and to dream of a better future. One in which the violence ends, the land is given back to the Palestinians, and we learn to live in peace.
From the River to the Sea,
Palestine Will Be Free.
