Genocide Blog 33 -- The Best of Humanity and the Worst of Humanity
16.02.2024
We live in the times of genocide. In these times we see, though we wish we did not have to see it this way, the best of humanity. But we also see the worst. In LALIT, we discuss this personal aspect of the genocide: how hard it is for us all to bear seeing, at the same time, the best and the worst of humanity. And to live our normal lives, all the while
We discuss how we see the gentle menfolk of Gaza rescuing children from the rubble left after an Israeli bomb hit their block of flats. Digging even with their bare hands. Or a gentle Palestinian man carrying a dying baby, hit by a bomb, into a hospital even as the hospital is, in turn, being bombed. We see a woman doctor rush out to fetch an injured patient, amid Israeli sniper-fire at the entrance to the Nasser hospital. We see hospital workers organizing to place patients on sledge-stretchers and then use rope to drag them towards the hospital door, to avoid snipers killing the health workers at the entrance to the hospital. We see a woman shot when she leaves the Church at which she is taking shelter, in order to go to the toilet. We have seen a zoo-keeper go out to try to feed his animals after the Gaza Zoo was bombed, risking his life. We see a journalist working at getting the truth out, even as his family, his colleagues and his neighbours are being “herded” to Rafah in the South of Gaza, and then killed anyway. We see people share their homes, their tents, their food with their neighbours even as they are intentionally being starved to death. We see them as they resist being forced into the Sinai Desert in Egypt. They know that, as happened in 1948, they will not be allowed back again. Which is why there are over 6 million Palestinian refugees in the world. We see courage and we see each person caring for the person next to them. We see gentleness in the face of brutality. We see kindness in the face of cruelty. We see sharing one’s house, or even one’s tent, in the face of military occupation of all one’s land. We see the best of humanity.
And we are forced, at the very same time, to witness the worst of humanity.
The Israeli State organizing its soldiers to bomb the innocents, to cut off electricity from the premature babies’ incubators and then cover up so crassly by filming how they “donate” incubators which were not even in short supply. We see individual soldiers put their crimes on line, bragging about their genocidal acts. We see the Israeli State shoot a teenager, then send two armed vehicles to block the ambulance’s path, one at its bonnet and one at its boot, so that the child bleeds to death. And it is not new. We have seen the Israeli State broadcast genocidal songs that young children have been made to sing, calling for extermination. We have seen the Israeli State confiscate bodies, already dead and imprison them. This too is not new. It has been happening since the 1960s. We have seen the Israeli State arrest a three-year-old child, in order to force an adult to give himself up to the police. This was five years ago. We have seen individual homes exploded on purpose by the IDF. This has happened before Hamas even existed. It is policy. The Israeli state has made a macabre art of it. It is as old as the State of Israel. It happened from way before Hamas even existed. We have seen hospitals targeted and destroyed in Gaza. This, too, is not new. We have seen the Israeli army shoot hospital workers. What have we not seen? We have heard the Israeli army broadcast over loud-hailers mocking words as old ladies and babies go on death marches towards Rafah. We have seen it all. Until we see worse still.
Humans can be so wonderful. They resist, they share, they create new ways to help everyone survive.
And yet humans, when gradually incorporated into a fascist State, when granted impunity by the powerful – I refer to the powerful USA state in particular that has, sometimes alone, stood with the Israeli state at the UN Security Council – they become monstrous perpetrators of unimaginable cruelty. They, human beings, become depraved. Those, who could have been the gentle menfolk and the courageous womenfolk, become the cold-hearted, who kill babes in arms, quote the Bible to encourage it, kill old people, the sick and the injured, who destroy the homes built by families already made refugees in 1948, making them refugees anew. One Israeli soldier bragged when, during the Palestinians’ peaceful “Great March of Return” held in Gaza starting 2018, that he got “42 Knees in One Day”. There were orders to intentionally cripple peaceful Palestinian protesters – many of whom were no more than peaceful by-standers. But, now, with the help of protests and court cases, dock-workers’ strikes, and marches, everyone is learning the truth about the new form of colonization of Palestine since 1948, and the military occupation of Palestine since 1967.
And, the truth, when it is exposed, will end this cruelty, this oppression, this immoral and illegal military occupation, this apartheid that Israel imposes by brute force, this colonization that was already denounced as genocidal long, long ago. The truth, when out, helps us all become like the brave, kind, generous Palestinians, who show us the best side of our nature as humans. So, keep up the protests.
We call on women to take part in the 1 March “Women’s Peace March” in Port Louis. Let us show the best of our own humanity by caring about the Palestinians, the Palestinians who have shown us the way to be truly the best of humanity.
Lindsey Collen
for LALIT
