Saturday, October 21: Two Weeks of Genocide
But 75 years of occupation, apartheid, and injustice
Two weeks of ethnic cleansing, financed by the US and supported by politicians around the western world. Two weeks of Palestinian suffering in front of the whole world, after 75 years of being persecuted and ignored by an apartheid regime. Over 4,000 Palestinians murdered, over 10,000 gravely injured, over half a million displaced, and endless skewed coverage from media outlets doing everything they can to avoid recognizing Israeli war crimes for what they are.
Earlier today, 20 trucks of humanitarian aid finally were permitted entry into Gaza via the Rafah crossing in Egypt. These 20 trucks, despite not making even the slightest dent in the urgent humanitarian crisis developing in Gaza, crossed from North Sinai into the Gaza Strip as the first supplies to be delivered to Gaza’s population of 2.2 million Palestinians in nearly two weeks. Sadly, these 20 trucks will do very little to change the material realities of collective punishment being pursued by the Israeli regime.
The problem with seeing “both sides” of the ongoing genocide is that it implies these are two equally legitimate struggles, which they are decidedly not. To help paint a picture of just how unreasonably one-sided this “conflict” is, let’s briefly entertain a few hypothetical scenarios:
Imagine for a moment, that every year, Hamas had recruiters on US college campuses, persuading young students to join their struggle for liberation. Imagine these Hamas recruiters gave thousands of American college students free vacations to Gaza where these students were force-fed pro-Palestinian talking points in a hedonistic yet wholesome, summer-camp like atmosphere. Imagine if during this vacation, Hamas tried to sell these students on coming to Palestine permanently, settling on land that was already occupied by Israeli citizens. Imagine if Palestinians had full control over the movement of goods and people in and out of Israel, and imagine they patrolled Israeli streets, harassing, insulting, and indeed murdering children on a regular basis. Now imagine this has been happening for decades, with near unlimited support and funding by the US, to the point where Hamas could do no wrong. Imagine any of their methods or tactics of “self defense” were justified and permissible and any international laws or regulations were inapplicable to them. Were all of these things true, then we could start talking about “both sides”.
If your existence as a nation-state requires intentionally bombing hospitals, schools, mosques, churches, and any other places of refuge, at some point you might have to start questioning your so-called unequivocal right to exist. If your right to self-defense requires the murder of 1,500 children in two weeks, maybe it’s time to reconsider whether it truly qualifies as self-defense.
Open your eyes and look at what’s become of Al-Quds Hospital, the last refuge of thousands of people among a besieged populace. The hallways lined with families seeking shelter; some praying, some trying to entertain children, others trying desperately to contact their loved ones. But none of this has stopped Israeli occupation forces from phoning the hospital administration and telling them to evacuate, as if it were that simple. As if telling a group of people with nowhere left to go that the bombs are on their way, get out while you can. Get out and go where exactly?
On one hand you have a technologically-advanced and well-armed military, on the other hand, you have children like this brave young girl, featured in the 2002 documentary “Jenin, Jenin” (full film with English subtitles), who manages to express more courage in 37 seconds than any apartheid defending soldier could ever hope to muster. How can any of us give up hope when this is the resolve of the Palestinian people? What can any of us do but stand back up and continue fighting against the oppression and the ethnic cleansing that the Israeli regime wants us so desperately to think of as justified or inevitable?
All this talk of freeing Palestine when in reality Palestine has been freeing us. Egyptian protesters were able to storm Tahrir Square yesterday for the first time in 10 years, shouting their support for the liberation of an oppressed people. French citizens turned out in numbers to show their solidarity, despite a national ban on Palestinian protests. Americans of all backgrounds have finally begun to understand the depth of propaganda being fed to us by western media, and the complicity of our elected officials in a genocide unfolding in front of our eyes.
How interesting that here in the US, student loan payments are resuming at the same time Biden wants to send billions of dollars to fund Israeli ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. I’m sure it’s just a coincidence. Biden’s dusty old geriatric ass has Americans financing two wars simultaneously while none of us get adequate healthcare or free education or child tax credits or paid parental leave or anything really. Our country is a sick joke, and all of us are the punchline.