When The Bombing Stops, Part 1

What is happening in Gaza is not complicated. The vast majority of people and nations of the world are justifiably calling for an immediate ceasefire, and an end to Israel’s blockade on the strip. This is the bare minimum.

However it is also only the beginning.???

If there is a ‘silver-lining’ to the naked, horrifying inhumanity of Israel’s ongoing genocide on the Palestinian people in Gaza, it is that no objective observer can any longer reasonably suggest it is too complicated to identify the real victims of this aggression. It is equally obvious that the sheer breadth and diversity of critical voices–spanning religions, ethnicities, and nations–proves that antisemitism cannot be the driving force of criticism.?

Even proponents of a “proportional response” to Hamas' attack on October 7th have been forced to admit that what is happening in Gaza today has far exceeded any rational reaction; the statements of countless Israeli officials, documented in detail in the South African appeal to the International Court of Justice, are clearly genocidal in character and belie any claim that Israel’s endgame is not the complete destruction, or at least dispersal, of the Palestinian people “from the river to the sea”.?

Despite the best efforts of Western media and governments to ignore or downplay the atrocities, the suffering of the men, women, and children of Gaza is on full display all over social media and those news sources that aren’t simply mouthpieces of their pro-Israel or anti-Arab owners.?

Thanks to platforms like TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and (to my surprise) LinkedIn, even in the United States–where the vast majority of people have been thoroughly indoctrinated by pro-Israel, anti-Palestinian propaganda–the narrative is slowly beginning to shift as people see, with their own eyes, livestreams of the collective punishment Israel is imposing on the people of Gaza.

If you are paying any attention at all you have seen the statistics and video evidence of the massive death of civilians and devastation of the landscape. The record-breaking number of medical personnel, journalists, teachers, and children who have been killed. The schools, hospitals, homes, shops, and even complete villages flattened by 2000 pound dumb bombs.?The children with missing limbs.

This did not start on October 7th, 2023.

In his statement on October 9th, for which he was roundly criticized by the Western politicians and media, UN Secretary-General António Guterres made this incontrovertible observation:? “This most recent violence does not come in a vacuum. The reality is that it grows out of a long-standing conflict, with a 56-year long occupation and no political end in sight.”

At the same time, the whole debate over when the conflict started might be a fool's errand at best, and a deliberate distraction at worst. I don’t recommend trusting Wikipedia for a nuanced analysis of the conflict, but look up any one of the many confrontations from the past decades (for example Operation Protective Edge) and you will see many thousands of words have been spilled, and you could get lost for weeks in the footnoted references (637 of them at the moment).????

A detailed historical analysis of the conflict is difficult for all the reasons any historical analysis is difficult. Conflicting sources, lost evidence, propaganda and disinformation, etc. What is happening right now in plain view of the whole world is indisputable. The state of Israel is decimating Gaza’s infrastructure and indiscriminately killing and terrorizing Palestinian people, while depriving them of food, water, medicine, electricity, and internet access.??

I want to be as clear as I possibly can that when the bombing stops and the blockade is lightened (since lifting is unlikely), people, especially in the US, are going to stop paying attention.

When people stop paying attention things will go back to a “normal” of subjugation and suffering that must not continue to be normal for the Palestinian people.?It is time for the Western world to stand up for the values we claim to have.

Continue to When The Bombing Stops, Part 2

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