OPINION | APATHY | PALESTINE
(Not a Medium member? Read full article here.)
My 1970s illustrated children's Bible had one most disturbing image. Two Roman-like soldiers are holding a baby upside down from his ankles, while a third soldier towers with a sword held high, ready to split the baby in half. Beyond looms the pointed index finger of King Solomon, the wisest king of the ancient world. This image from I Kings 3, too frightening for a child, seems to have spawned an erroneous line of reasoning in Western thought, one equating fairness and good judgment with an even division of property, guilt, or responsibility.
"Both sides are to blame,"
Say the armchair philosophers, who stoically endure the pain and misery of others. Fusing the wisdom of Solomon with that of Pontius Pilate, they absolve themselves of any responsibility to seek the truth. From Charlottesville to Gaza, this moral relativism presents knowledge as a murky grey sea of towering complexities, to be avoided at all costs. From here, both-side-ism descends into an abyss of "neutrality" and the contorted phrases it vomits: 'conflict,' 'cycle of violence,' 'died amid clashes,' 'it's complicated,' or 'all lives matter.'
We cannot split the difference between truth and falsehood.
This pisdom turns into a mass psychosis, as the world powers and the United Nations draw partition plans and borders where none existed.² Two people (one of whom those same powers have implanted) fighting over one land? Easy, split it in the middle. Settler colonialism, displacement, and genocide are lacquered with an invisible 'two-state solution.' Such a fair division when the usurper and the victim share the blame. Fair to further punish the indigenous owners for resisting the usurpers, by halving their share of the land.³ Then halve it again, and again, ad infinitum, in a paradox that shames Zeno's.
Then the king said: "One woman claims, 'This, the living one, is my child, and the dead one is yours.' The other answers, 'No! The dead one is your child; the living one is mine.' " The king continued, "Get me a sword." When they brought the sword before him, he said, "Cut the living child in two, and give half to one woman and half to the other."
I Kings 3:23–25 (New American Bible)
The Solomon of the Bible was no fool. Of course he knew that the baby could only have one mother. Both women could not be right. His judgment to split the baby was a mere ruse to uncover the truth.
Somehow this bit of common sense escapes today's Solomonites.
Both sides have the right to be heard, to express their views freely. However, both sides cannot be right! We cannot split the difference between truth and falsehood.
Seeking Truth
There are ways of finding the truth. Dig, investigate, study the history, ask critical questions. Who rushed to grab the land the UN had assigned to the other? Who keeps occupying and displacing? Who maintains a 20:1 kill ratio? Whose leaders consistently spout dehumanizing language?
If you find that approach too cumbersome, wait–there is an easier way. "Easier," but only in the mental facility with which Truth can be grasped. In reality, I stopped for a while at these words because the ones to follow are too painful to write.
Where is Hind?
Look at what is happening today in Gaza. Don't shy away from the tweets, the images, and the videos — especially the videos. The images of destruction and gore are bad enough, but on the videos you hear the voices of bystanders and those recording. Many are seasoned war reporters or medics, yet their voices cannot hide the trauma they've been living 24/7 for the last four months.
Look at these two children.
Hind Rajab, only six years old, was in a car with her family when an Israeli tank blocked their way. She was the lone survivor, trapped in a crushed car with five dead bodies. Remaining on the emergency line for hours, she plead for help, yet no one came. The Israelis had destroyed the ambulance coming to rescue her. Her body was found two weeks later. I cannot imagine the horror she endured while taking her last breaths, horrors no child should bear.
Sidra Hassouna was 12 when Israeli bombardment pushed her family out of Gaza to the safe zone in Rafah, where they slept for months in the misery of tents and scarce UNRWA handouts. Then Sunday night, while the world was watching the Super Bowl, Israel bombed Rafah, leaving her body hanging by the neck from a high wall, her legs incinerated.
These two children had a right to life just like the rest of us. Instead, they perished experiencing deliberately inflicted cruelty. Those are only two children out of 13,000 or more who perished in Gaza, so far. I'll stress this point: "So far!" No end is in sight for the killings. Meanwhile, the one million children still alive in Gaza have been physically and psychologically tortured beyond comprehension, from bombardment and hunger and homelessness and sleepless nights, if nothing else.
130 Days of genocide. Look at Hind. A six-year-old who calls an emergency line for help should expect to be rescued. Human society has failed her. This means you and me. All of us!
Look at Sidra. "No child should be crucified!" Is that too much to ask? Or is being born in Gaza a death sentence?
The Genocide in Gaza is not only a crime against Palestinians, but against the whole world. Children throughout the world are traumatized watching and hearing about Gaza. Your children.
As I write this I hear news of a mass shooting in Kansas City. Isn't it natural that exporting death brings back only death? Don't you think that every would-be mass murderer in the world is studying the Israeli Telegram channels? What goes around comes around, America better remember.
It's Day 130. Anyone still on the sidelines is supporting the atrocities. Movements and ideas are best judged by their consequences. Gaza made the truth of Zionism clear. An ideology that crucifies children has surrendered any and every claim to legitimacy.
With love,
Ramsey Hanhan Author, Fugitive Dreams
¹ The photo reminded me of Biden's anti-Semitic trope about 'beheaded babies,' forty to be precise, as if his speechwriters took a page from Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, despoiling Arab heritage to dehumanize Palestinians with fake news the White House later retracted.
² The League of Nations redrew the borders of the 'Middle East' at the end of World War I, forming Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, and Jordan out of provinces of the Ottoman Empire. In 1947, the United Nations passed a resolution to partition Palestine against the votes of all the Arab countries and India and Pakistan, two nations recently partitioned by the British.
³ Before the British had completely withdrawn from Palestine in May 1948, the Zionist armies had rushed to invade the territory the UN had designated for the 'Arab State', ultimately keeping half of it. In 1967, Israel invaded and occupied the remainder of Palestine. It has since filled up half the area of the West Bank with stolenments.
More about Hind:
By Esraa Hossam: