Endless terror
Abu Salim, a journalist from Gaza, explained to Cristina Mas, a journalist from ARA and author of the book Palestine from within (Now Books), who returned home one day to find his wife and sister arguing over which library books they would burn so they could cook something: "They couldn't agree because, to one or the other, everyone was important." There are countless passages in the book that are much harsher and more shocking, from unspeakable torture to the cold-blooded murder of minors by snipers, but due to a professional flaw, this moment in the book has stayed with me. I think the same thing would happen to us at home. Like the women of the Salim family, books are the last physical object I would want to get rid of in a dire situation.
The tragedy of Gaza has countless terrifying experiences, those that leave you with a lump in your throat and leave you powerless. There are also shocking figures of child deaths, food shortages, destroyed hospitals and schools, demolished homes, and livestock and farmland uprooted. And it can still be defined with accusatory concepts that the state of Israel has once again made terrifyingly real: apartheid and genocide. It's hard to accept that a country that was supposedly cultured and democratic could reach the extremes of barbarism it is inflicting on the Palestinians, both in Gaza, where it is carrying out massive and absolutely inhumane destruction, and in the West Bank. It's hard to understand why more ashamed Israeli voices aren't raised. "More than a state protected by an army, Israel is an army protected by a state," writes Mas.
It's also difficult to digest the double standards the West is using with Ukraine and Palestine, no matter how much the guilty memory of the Holocaust against the Jewish people weighs so heavily in countries like Germany. It should be precisely the opposite: loyalty to the memory of all the victims of Nazism should lead us to prevent the repetition of similar acts of such violent inhumanity, of such unleashed hatred.
Following the United States, Europe has looked the other way. Now it seems to be starting to react, with Ireland, Belgium, and Spain applying pressure. Late, too late. Nor has the Arab and Muslim world truly stood by the Palestinians. Despite the unprecedented information blackout imposed by Netanyahu in Gaza, the world—including China and Russia—is witnessing live and impassive extermination, with few governmental exceptions, not the least of which is South Africa. The resolutions of the UN Court of Justice, which oblige Israel to take measures to prevent genocide in Gaza, and of the International Criminal Court, which issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu, have been rendered meaningless.
A year and a half after the start of Israeli revenge for the Hamas massacre of October 7, 2023, nothing seems to stop Netanyahu's plan of annihilation, which has given him license to kill Palestinians with impunity, even with thirst and hunger, women and children. The bombings on Gaza were the most lethal and intense since World War II. Israel's supposed right to self-defense has become an unbridled madness, furthermore, protected by state-of-the-art military technology: AI and drones. Palestinians have been a test bed for decades.
Supremacist ethnic nationalism has marked the origin and evolution of the state of Israel. It began with the expulsion of Palestinians from their lands between 1946 and 1948, with the Nakba, and continues to this day, with the expansionist policy of occupying new enclaves via settlers. The handshake between Arafat and Rabin at the White House in 1993 is a distant memory. In recent years, with the corrupt Palestinian Authority completely discredited and Fatah in decline, the radicalized and Islamist Hamas has gained strength in Gaza. Until October 7. Now, the Palestinians, neither in Gaza nor in the West Bank, have the strength left for even an intifada. No stones, no books, no courage. But the violence never ends. Israel, which has squandered all moral credit, will always live in fear that Palestinian vengeance will one day rise from the ashes.