I heard someone on social media the other day explain that ‘Gaza, Palestine, has changed them forever’. I remember how deeply I felt an affinity with that statement in that exact moment. I also recall thinking, ‘how could it not have changed us’. As the ceasefire comes into effect in the coming days it’s made me reflect on the nightmare that has been the past 16 months but not forgetting the dystopian scene which has resulted in a 75 year occupation. The apartheid and ethnic cleansing perpetrated by Israel began well before the 7th of October 2023; and it will continue on well after the ceasefire.
Personally, I will never be the same again. I will never look at my profession in the same way. Prior to the genocide I genuinely believed in the equitable application of international humanitarian law. I believed that the rules based order meant prevention of humanity’s most heinous acts was a global responsibility of us all and no exceptions existed. I believed us all to be equal in our pursuit of dignity and justice. But what we’ve seen in Gaza since October 2023 has proved that we were entirely naive to believe this to be true. To believe that power, privilege and structured racism sit aside from the application of humanitarian law.
I don’t believe in any of the things that motivated me to work in humanitarian assistance anymore. This has meant that the pursuit of being a humanitarian and a development worker for me have been rendered useless. The morals, values and altruism that I held onto so deeply have been shattered to pieces as the UN and the humanitarian community have mumbled under their breath about ‘aid’ whilst doing nothing to stop Israel from committing an active genocide. All the lies that I have told myself about equality and the human propensity for goodness have all gone out the window as I’ve watched 17,000 children be slaughtered; all whilst upping aid to the perpetrators.
I will never understand how we as a species can be so numb to seeing children being blown to pieces before our eyes. How we have normalised seeing dead babies or toddlers without limbs and why we as a collective are so indifferent to Palestinian suffering as a whole. We need to deeply examine the factors that make us believe that collective punishment to one group of people in order to assure the security of another is justified. We need to question our own collective humanity in order to ascertain how something so abhorrent has been sold to us as ‘necessary’ and we’ve been expected to believe it and carry on as if nothing has happened. We need to look within and acknowledge that we are a part of a system that seeks to oppress, subjugate and dominate a group of people who we vilify and villanise openly. All so we can pretend that our hearts aren’t black, that the truth is that no one cares whether Palestinians are eradicated all together or not.
Never in my life have I seen such cruelty, such depravity at such an inordinate level and whether this ceasefire holds on not, we should never forget that. I remind us all that it is impossible to pave the path for peace in bloodshed. I warn us all that in accepting the most documented genocide in history that it has cost us a part of our collective humanity which we will never be able to replace.
What all of this reinforces is that the struggle continues. For all of those people whose eyes were opened during the genocide, do not close them again under the guises of a ceasefire. We continue on as allies and activists until the end of the occupation; until Palestine is free.
I blog for Change. 