I've been shot three times in combat; I'm pretty tough. This gets me every time ... because ... to what you're saying, the dehumanisation... And what I want to say to the American people and to the people of Israel: I've been there! I have touched them, I have talked to them! The civilians in Gaza that are getting the food, they are starving. They are not animals. They're human beings! And they're being treated like animals. We treat these civilians in Gaza worse, with less dignity than we treated the ISIS fighters that surrendered in Baghuz Fawqani in Syria in 2018. This young boy... This is on May 28 on Secure Distribution Site number 2. The aid had been distributed, a lot of people had left [..]. This little boy – his name is Amir – [...] he walks over [...] and he puts out his hand, and at first I thought he wanted more food or something and I felt bad cos I didn't have anything, and I was like, 'Oh, I have nothing', but he puts out his hand and I beckon him to come to me. [...] And he reaches out and he holds my hand, and he kisses my hand, and he says, 'Shukron' [? unclear]. You can see in this picture that he's not wearing any shoes. His clothes are falling off of him cos he's so skinny. I put my hand on his left shoulder, and I looked at him, and he's looking at me. We're looking each other in the eyes, and I say to him: 'People care. You're a human being, and people care about you. The world cares.' That's not Hamas. That's not a Hamas fighter. And I looked at him and I said, 'The world cares.' Source. (Amir was shot by an IDF soldier shortly after he left the green-beret US soldier who recounts this tale.)
Words fail us in the face of such horror. At Econosophy for many years now I have been promoting the immeasurable value of wisdom, love and health. In a moment like this, my effort feels cruelly insufficient, meaningless, barren. Netanyahu and his fellow cabinet ministers, as well as a sizeable majority of Israeli citizens are apparently ok with the forced starvation of millions of their fellow human beings. Netanyahu and his fellow travellers assert that Hamas steals food aid, and sells it for profit.
How does Hamas do this? What sort of freedom does Hamas have to sell food aid, and who are their customers? And why do so? Doesn't Hamas recruit from the very population it is allegedly deliberately starving en masse? Wouldn't the Palestinian people know this was happening? To me this assertion would mean that the whole point of Hamas is just to make a little money and then implode as everyone in Gaza dies, to be followed soon by the residents of the West Bank.
I can't believe Netanyahu's assertion, but someone is doing it, and whatever group of people is responsible are human beings. In other words, none of us should be happy that humans are capable of this terrible act of cruelty: forced mass starvation. And yet I get no sense of sadness or sympathy from Netanyahu and his supporters. To me they seem smug. Their smugness sickens me. And in this I include all Western leaders who do not condemn this genocide, who also seem to me to exude a similar aloof smugness. In the case of Netanyahu, I sense something psychopathic at work. Trump has the air of a very odd, narcissistic and deeply insecure human being whom history and relentless ambition have thrust into the US presidency for a second time. It is proving to be a tragic turn of events. As for Netanyahu's fellow Israeli travellers, there seems to be a mix of religious fanaticism, propaganda and an ugly mass hysteria at work, an hysteria that dare not look in the truly clean mirror of its own actions for fear of what it would see. It has to be those inhuman barbarians over there, not us! WE are the good guys!!!
Is this to dehumanise them, my fellow (Israeli) human beings? What is the correct response in the face of such relentless misery and suffering? I see the images, hear the stories, and cry. So what! So f*cking what. It just carries on. Asking for the correct response is like changing channel on the TV to find the right station. Or searching my mind for the right words. There are none, and yet I write these. As the saying goes, you've got to do something.
For what it's worth, I care as much about whoever is responsible for this horror as for those that suffer and die. That is not to compare sufferings; that would be a monstrous thing to do. It is simply to recognise the complexity of humanity, the highs and lows we can reach.
There is too much hate. There will be more hate. There is a snowballing hunger for more and more hatred. Somehow, it's up to all of us to change this. Always was, always will be. It is, I feel, the hardest challenge of all to be faced with a power 'elite' that is capable of any depravity, and seems to revel in its freedom to act with impunity. I have spent years trying to understand why history works like this, have identified what I feel are the right questions to ask as well as the relevant qualities both of human existence and of the nature of reality for bringing about radical system change, as have hundreds and thousands of others. But tragically it seems the locked-in nature of history's entangling momenta has us in its grip and won't let go. I know that makes us sound passive, but that is how we're behaving, that is the conclusion the evidence supports. Humanity, or the systems that govern it, is racking up a piss-poor score card, and this despite the astonishing bravery, beauty and courage of so many doing their best to help in whatever way they can. Because their heroism is not enough, just like it wasn't in Nazi Germany, Cambodia, Rwanda, etc. Perhaps the internet's ability to communicate these horrors to a global audience will make a deep difference this time. Perhaps we will accept and remember our shame forever, and from that really want something better, something decent, beautiful and good.
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