I have spent the last few days covering the air strikes on Gaza. 10 days after the air strikes began, over 230 people have been killed – mostly women and children – thousands injured, hospitals, schools and homes destroyed.
I have spent the last few days talking to many people about this. The more we talk about it, the clearer the message is – we will not let the people of Gaza go down. Let me make one thing clear though – this is not about religion. What the Israeli military is doing does not align with the Jewish faith. I have posted about Jewish people condemning these acts of violence on my Facebook page, including this one and this group of people.
As much as people would like to deny it, Muslims and Jews are linked with almost identical beliefs. This is not about fighting against one another. This is about jointly fighting against the tyranny of Israel, in unity.
This morning, I was alerted to a post titled ‘A decisive conclusion is necessary‘. I have been sent many, many articles, which I didn’t feel the need to respond to. But this one was on a whole other level and can be summarised as follows:
“The residents of Gaza are not innocent, they elected Hamas. The Gazans aren’t hostages; they chose this freely, and must live with the consequences.
We need to flatten entire neighborhoods in Gaza. Flatten all of Gaza. The Americans didn’t stop with Hiroshima – the Japanese weren’t surrendering fast enough, so they hit Nagasaki, too.
There should be no electricity in Gaza, no gasoline or moving vehicles, nothing. Then they’d really call for a ceasefire.”
If you can stomach it, I suggest you read the whole thing. I left a comment under the post, but it’s likely that it will be deleted, so I’ve added it below:
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Is this post a joke?
“Life under such a rain of death is no life at all, and we cannot allow ourselves to become resigned to it.”
You are absolutely correct, my friend. Israel has occupied Palestine for almost 70 years, and the Palestinians have lived under a rain of death that entire time, so that Israel has had a reign of death, if you will.
You talk about Gaza as a state, as though they are a sovereign state with rights and resources. Let’s clarify that, shall we? Gaza has no military. No airforce, no navy. Gaza has access to basic supplies – building material, food, medical supplies – only when Israel feels like it. Gaza is not a state. It’s an open-air prison. The Palestinians have sat down and protested peacefully for decades, only to have more and more of their lands absorbed into the Israeli occupation.
“Why do our citizens have to live with rocket fire from Gaza while we fight with our hands tied?
Excellent question – why should the Palestinians have to deal with occupation and air strikes with their hands tied, only to suffer more and more attacks. They are finally defending themselves with what little resources they have.
You’re talking about completely wiping out a densely occupied stretch of land, where the media age is 15. You are essentially calling for a mass genocide. Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined that the very people who faced one of the worlds largest travesties, at the hands of the Nazis, would be the very same people who would call for the genocide of another people. It is outrageous. It is vile and evil. There are actually no words to describe it.
“There is no middle path here – either the Gazans and their infrastructure are made to pay the price, or we reoccupy the entire Gaza Strip.”
Your idea of a middle ground is wipe everyone out or reoccupy them? The Israeli blockades aren’t bad enough for you? The deaths of children aren’t widespread enough?
How’s this for a middle ground – leave the Palestinians to live with rights that are equal to the Israelis. Let the Palestinians finally know what it’s like to not be an oppressed group of people. Let there not be millions of displaced Palestinians live their lives as normal human beings, who are able to build homes that aren’t destroyed by Israeli tanks.
How disgusting of you to suggest that the people be destroyed. You haven’t even mentioned the option of these people fleeing. You want them dead. But you and I know that there is no fleeing – Gaza’s borders are closed off. They’re not fleeing into occupied Israeli territory, they’re not fleeing into Gaza. They have the sea to drown in and that is all.
I am outraged that anyone in their right minds would think that killing over a million people is the solution to their problems.
What an absolute disgrace upon humanity. There are no winners in this situation. The only way for there to be peace for Israelis and Palestinians is for the occupation to stop. This must stop.
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Unveiled Thought 
I am not a Muslim, and I am as far from the conflict as you can imagine ( I am an atheist Hispanic woman living in the USA), but I thought it would be of some comfort for you to know that there are people who see this situation for what it truly is: an exercise in tyranny.
Trapping people in their own land, leaving them to live in poverty and fear for decades is immoral. Using military power to attack defenseless people is immoral. What is even more disgusting is the rhetoric government officials use to rationalize this brutality.
It’s very similar to how Serbia used Yugoslav military power and orthodox nationalism to conduct ethnic cleansing in Muslim villages in Bosnia. It makes me sick to think that were the target a different population, the world would be crying in outrage. What makes the situation even worse is that the more powerful countries in the end helped Bosnia and (somewhat) sanctioned Serbia, but nobody is willing to stand up to Israel. I am ashamed of our double standards.
You are doing a good job standing up for the persecuted and the abused. I am so sorry we are all just letting it happen. I cannot believe they are getting away with this.
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Thank you so much for your words of support. This is definitely a situation where your religion, ethnicity or location don’t matter – it’s just an awful show of injustice that anyone on the planet can see as being horrific.
I think you are right – if this was happening anywhere else or if the roles were reversed, we’d all be offering assistance. Right now, the defenseless are being treated like the oppressor and the oppressors are seen as having no other choice.
I think in this situation, all we can do is make sure that people understand what is happening and the real facts – people have been shocked when I told them that the median age in Gaza is 15 or that the Palestinians did peacefully protest etc. The more people who are aware of the facts the better.
I appreciate your comment and support so much. Thank you very much.
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