The moral end of the world as we know it?

The horror, loss, and despair we are witnessing in Gaza is beyond my comprehension. I am starting to feel like what we are seeing in Gaza is the moral end of the world as we know it.

A ceasefire in Gaza?has never been more urgent. Last week the Israeli Military began its bombardment of Rafah, the most densely populated area on earth, where 1.5 million people, half of which are children have fled to safety, after being told it was the only safe place left. There is nowhere else they can go. Many of the hospital staff have been killed, injured, or forced to evacuate from the area. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has just reported that shockingly only 5 doctors remain at Al Aqsa hospital. More than 300 healthcare workers have been killed since Oct 7th, 2023. That’s more than the total number killed across all countries in conflict in any year since 2016. Hospitals and medical staff have protected status under international law. It is unthinkable that in 2024 the thousands of injured and dying, half of whom are children, have nowhere safe to go.

Hospitals are not a target.

Medics are not a target.

Civilians are not a target.

Children are not a target.

I’ve tried to be diplomatic and cautious about how I share publicly about what’s happening in Gaza and I am sad because I know that this post might make some of my Jewish friends feel betrayed by me. I know that antisemitism is real and I believe that trauma is being weaponized and used as a way to justify what is happening in Gaza. I will not be engaging on this post about the hostages - of course they should be released; and Hamas - at this point is is very clear that the destruction of Gaza and Palestinians in Gaza is the goal of the state of Israel. If you call what Hamas did 'terrorism' but what Israel is doing 'war' please reflect on that. What’s happening here is beyond terrorism.

The Middle East is the epitome of trauma begetting trauma. We inherit what generations before us needed to know in order to survive. This includes both what their nervous system leaned into as when as what it recoiled from. What is keeping me up at night is the ways our traumas reinforce one another. For every Jew that shouts “never again” an Arab feels hated and erased. And for each person who yells “Free Palestine” a Jew feels hated and erased. Our traumas are mirrors to each other.

“If something traumatic happens to you, the march of time will decontextualise it. Trauma in person over time can look like personality. Trauma, decontextualised over time in a family, can look like family traits. Trauma, decontextualised in a people, can look like culture.” Resmaa Menakem

What I know is that a traumatized nervous system cannot hold the both/ and. Let’s tend to our wounds and heal so that we can hold our trauma and the trauma of the “other” until there is no other. This is the only path to healing. The story of us and them, good guys and bad guys annihilates compassion at its source. Unless we heal our trauma, both collective and personal, we will only perpetuate more of it. The cycle will only end when we can see each others humanity and stop making excuses for violence. If you find yourself justifying mass violence, please examine that. It is a trauma response. This is not easy work.?

At this point, you either care about the sanctity of all human life, or you just don’t. Bombardment. Starvation. Massacres. All by a government now with clear impunity. I’m sick to my soul with it.

If I was a spiritually fully realized being I might be able to feel the universal love for the people involved in this massacre. Yet, I am not capable of rising to it. I can understand intellectually, but experiencing love in that sense I must confess is beyond me. And mostly what I was feeling lately was rage - a rage rising out of an utter helplessness. For all the speaking and sharing that people do is not saving a single child.

What is left in me is just hope, or trust that speaking is better than silence, that witnessing is better than everting our eyes, that there is a potential that human beings awaken to reality and when there is really time to grieve, humanity can maybe grieve together. Rumi said that 'grief can be the garden of compassion': we plant seeds in the cracked earth of our broken hearts.

So if you cannot raise your voice for the beautiful innocent children, women, men and families of Gaza, then do it for yourself. And there is no claiming whatsoever here, either for myself nor anybody, for any kind of moral superiority. It is just that something in my life made it impossible for me to excavate that heaviness .. because I love something and I think it is the love of truth. "Security is not at the side of comfort, but at the side of truth" a spiritual teacher of mine once said. And when you love the truth right now you will be in pain. No one right now should be turning away. If this can happen live streamed to our phones during the Super Bowl and good people decide to turn away and do nothing… I can intellectually understand it but some part of me just doesn't get it. I honestly think it is a moment the moral axis of the world might shift forever.

And I think it is ok to be angry, because I honestly don't know how not to feel that anger. But I think a loving thing to do is to experience that anger without projecting it outward! So maybe the question should be: Can I speak lovingly to people who just don't get it? I think it is a worthy goal.

I stand with the humanitarian community demanding an immediate and permanent ceasefire.

Please consider to support organizations like Doctors without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières), who are on the ground supporting people in the world’s most harrowing crises: they are turning their grief into love-in-action, and we can do the same by supporting their work.

#ceasefirenow #releasethehostages #humanitarianaid