Do they not bleed?

On October 7, when Israel responded to Hamas’s surprise attack, not many analysts had predicted that this would end up in a genocide by Israel. But here we are. The fact that Palestinians in Gaza have been under relentless bombardment for more than 200 days says a lot about the champions of human rights who cry and wail when a Middle Eastern country imposes a ban on alcohol during a sports event but dare not say a word when their ally intentionally blocks essential humanitarian aid into Gaza, weaponizing starvation to reach its military goals. In the last 200 days, “the Israeli army has killed 42,510 Palestinians, 38,621 of whom were civilians, including 10,091 women and 15,780 children.” The war can end today if Israel is held accountable for its atrocities. While the US says that it advises Israel to exercise restraint, it keeps sending weapons to its ally to keep bombing the small besieged strip. The world has chosen to stay indifferent. Israel has used all barbaric tactics to break the spirit of Palestinians in Gaza and around the world and hold on to the facade of invincibility it has carefully built for itself.

Protests against the genocide are taking place across the world, but liberal and democratic governments are more interested in reinforcing their interests over humanity. Almost everyone is a silent spectator of this modern-century genocide, watching the bodies of hand-tied paramedics, doctors and patients found from mass graves; reading the stories of lone survivors of large families, retelling the horrors they witnessed; and interacting with a Palestinian on social media and then learning about their death. While the silence is horrific, it has finally exposed the hypocrisy of the West, which thinks that it is above the law. But even in their arrogance, they fail to conceal the sheer hatred they have for people who dare to rise up for themselves and challenge the status quo. The West has conveniently adopted the approach of half-truths, presenting one side as extremist militants that perhaps want to declare war against liberal values and using this to justify Israel’s slaughter of the people. The last 200 days are enough for people wary of the Palestinian resistance to figure out what life under Israel’s siege has been for millions of Palestinians. Those in the Global South who have this warped sense of religious majoritarianism need to understand that oppressors use these tactics to dilute support for resistance movements. The liberal West never liked secular and non-violent Bhagat Singh and it certainly did not like Nelson Mandela. Oppressors love painting their rivals as a scary boogeyman to distract people from the violations they commit. This is exactly what is happening in Gaza.

Ever since the October 7 attacks, the West has made a narrative that Palestinians harbour unjustified hatred for Israel and that if ‘Western civilization’ has to be saved, certain violations need to be ignored. It seems that we are asking the wrong questions from Israel’s allies. It is time we asked them: in what other gruesome way do Palestinians need to die for the West to acknowledge that a genocide is ongoing?