Sign Up!
Login
Welcome to HiddenMysteries
Thursday, March 28 2024 @ 09:12 PM CDT

I remained silent

Spiritual

We mustn't look the other way when blood of some becomes worth less than others

Laila M. El-Haddad

"Withdrawing" implies, in whatever vague and euphemistic sense, an end, or at least, a waning of hostilities. But yesterday I woke to discover that the Israeli army has perpetrated a massacre on a scale unseen in Gaza for a long time: 18 dead, including children, women, and the countless faceless others.
All members of the same family. Brushed aside as unfortunate mistakes, with a generous dollop of regret, from an otherwise morally superior, well-intentioned army.



Israeli human rights groups have said it again and again, and it bears reminding once more: There can be no good intentions deriving from an army ordered to fire heavy-grade artillery shells within 100 meters of civilian areas. None.



And I am sick to my stomach. I am sick of hearing the "we regrets" and "sorries" and the empty promises of investigations that never materialize and whose only purpose is to exonerate the accused. I am sick of the well-intentioned "moral" army of "defense" routine, the army that only attempts to attack "militants", as if to imply the entire occupation is justified if sustained by this absurdist rhetoric. I'm just sick of it all.



We want an end to the occupation. Period. To quote Peace Now, instead of apologizing, stop the war against us. So much energy and enthusiasms devoted to death and destruction and debilitation and asphyxiation and occupation - so little devoted to ending it all.


When such a massacre occurs, in addition to the anger and frustration, I cannot help but feel lonely and abandoned and afraid.



It is the feeling we all have as Palestinians, the feeling which boils inside of us, sometimes drowning us with its complexity and force and unrequitedness. To quote Mahmoud Darwish:



“We are alone. We are alone to the point

of drunkenness with our own aloneness,

with the occasional rainbow visiting.”



And don’t think for one moment that this somehow does not affect you, whoever you are, as you recoil in your comfort zone, choosing consciously to look the other way. It affects all of us - Israelis, Palestinians, humankind - when humans become less human, when their blood becomes worth less than ours. Niemöller’s poem rings truer than ever:





"They came first for the Communists,

and I didn't speak up because I was not a Communist.

Then they came for the Jews,

and I did not speak up because I was not a Jew.

When they came for me, there was no one left to speak out."



Let us add to the famous poem:



"Then they came for the Palestinians, but I remained silent, for I was not Palestinian".



Laila M. El-Haddad is a journalist who lived in the Gaza Strip and author of the blog Raising Yousuf

http://www.ynetnews.com


Story Options

Main Headlines Page


* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
A word from our sponsor

   

Check out these other Fine TGS sites

HiddenMysteries.com
HiddenMysteries.net
HiddenMysteries.org
RadioFreeTexas.org
TexasNationalPress.com
TGSPublishing.com
ReptilianAgenda.com
NationofTexas.com
Texas Nationalist Movement

0 comments



* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
A word from our sponsor

   

CNBC's War on America


My Account





Sign up as a New User
Lost your password?

?

Latest Lineup of Hard to Find Books

Think!

?

Look at Me

What's New

Stories

No new stories

Comments last 2 days

No new comments

Links last 2 weeks

No new links

Media Gallery last 7 days

No new media items

FreeThinkers


For Mature Thinkers Only


Add this News Scroller to your Website



Just use this snippet of code!/