I've resisted writing about the horrific situation in Gaza because of the difficulty of dispassionately examining any situation in which children are being slaughtered in unfathomable numbers. In a sense, nothing has changed; I cannot view this situation dispassionately, and I doubt I ever shall. Moreover, I've come to believe that should I ever reach a place in which such outrageous crimes can be considered or contextualised rather than felt, I will have lost my place in the human world. I will have lost my very soul.
To that end, it is clear to me that those in Hamas who orchestrated the murderous attacks on (and abductions of) innocent Israeli peoples, along with those in Israel who've enacted reprisals that have claimed thousands of innocent Palestinian lives, have lost touch with the very essence of what it means to be human. The killing of children is the most inexcusable of human atrocities. It is thought that Hamas kidnapped and killed around thirty Israeli children. In retaliation, Israeli Armed Forces have killed more than 4,000 Palestinian children.
Four. Thousand. Children. And that number is rising every day.
I am angered by those who argue that calling for a ceasefire is tantamount to supporting Hamas Terrorism. This is a sickening and self-serving act of conflation designed to exculpate murderers from any sense of moral culpability. There is no crime of earth that can justify killing the most profoundly innocent in a retaliatory act, in which they are thrown into the pit known as collateral damage. There isn't a religion on earth that excuses it. Surely those who believe in God know that no God could forgive it.
Hamas is a terrorist organisation because they have committed an egregious act of terrorism. That Palestinians have been poorly treated by the Israeli Government’s actions in the West Bank isn't disputable if one is aware of the facts, but their response to such oppressive conduct is utterly unjustifiable. Correspondingly, the Israeli Government's response to Hamas's intolerable act is equally inexcusable. Benjamin Netanyahu is a war criminal. Because if authorising and undertaking military action that kills thousands of children isn't a war crime, we should do away with the idea that human life has any value at all.
It is not criminal nor morally wrong to defend the defenceless, whomever they might be. In fact, it is the only logical, rational act. The extent to which responses to the situation in Gaza have been globally framed along lines of national interest and ideological entrenchments is sickening. Conflicts on this scale can only beget more conflict because they instil rage. They cause people to cry out in pain. The suffering caused erodes all rationality.
There are limits to the value of viewing the present through the lens of history. The Holocaust remains - and must forever remain - key moment of the human story. It must forever stand as a monument to the worst of what we can collectively be. But it must not be invoked in the face of legitimate criticisms directed at the Israeli government. It is wrong that innocent people are targeted and scapegoated for the actions of their governments in all forms. It is always wrong. History is a narrative. It isn't a defence. Right now, the situation in Gaza is beyond dire. It is Hell on Earth. Israel has suffered much. But how much suffering will it allow itself to inflict?
At some point, world leaders are going to decide where to draw the line. They must decide when enough is enough. Collectively, a solution must be found, and found urgently. The great shame is the inevitability; the inevitability that at some point, both sides are going have to do what they were always going to have to do.
Sit down and talk.
To those with the power and responsibility to do this, I beg you; let it happen now.
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