It is not that complicated

It has been over 200 days since the onset of the genocide in the besieged strip in the Middle East, and with each passing day the ‘civilized world’ – the self-proclaimed guardians of fundamental human rights – unlocks a new level of apathy towards the victims of the settler-state’s bloodlust.

Over these seven months, leaders of the Western world have brandished their privilege and impunity, indifferent to the anguish of mothers mourning the mangled bodies of their children and men burying their entire families in the occupied territories, and students across the world protesting despite threats to their futures.

Forget governments and politicians, artists who have historically championed just causes such as the Black Lives Matter and Me Too movements are conspicuously silent when the majority of victims are Arab Muslims. This silence and carrying on with life while the settler-state commits genocide, the majority of whose victims are women and children, begs the question: what will it take for the world to take notice?

Granted, we should not expect celebrities to take a principled stance but these are the people who have amassed unbelievable power and wealth through the attention given to them by people like us. These are the people who are given influential platforms to speak their minds and preach their principles. Why then should we accept their silence? How much money, how many work opportunities will they lose if they just say ‘stop the genocide?’

Instead, these privileged men and women dress up in million-dollar clothes and jewels and strut the red carpet at the Met Gala as people in the warzone send out their final messages screaming for help as their occupier moves ahead to attack the once safe zone, Rafah.

Dehumanization is not just a few problematic dialogues in a war-criminal glorifying Hollywood film, or newspaper headlines that reduce lives to numbers, it is a concerted effort by colonizers and supremacists to devalue the lives of an entire nation or ethnicity. It is silence from those who have previously used their power and influence to speak freely about inequality and injustice in other parts of the world.

The fact that these people are silent or indifferent now is because the dead bodies of Arab children do not move them. Falesteenis are not blonde or blue-eyed enough for Western journalists to weep as they report on the brutalities committed against them. The Z entity, through its 75-year theft and appropriation of land, culture, and homes, through decades of massacres and murder, has convinced its benefactors that its survival trumps all human rights and international law.

It has come to a point where no amount of violence against Falesteenis is deemed sufficient to elicit more than a dismissive ‘it’s complicated’ statement from celebrities, academics, and so-called human rights champions.

For generations, elite universities in the US and England have been celebrated as bastions of free thought and academic excellence. The genocide in the besieged strip has stripped away that facade. Images of students remaining steadfast in their protests against elite universities’ ties with an oppressor state – despite being arrested, harassed and at times even threatened by their faculty – come as a stark contrast to pictures of spineless multi-millionaires posing on the red carpet.

Unbelievable courage versus appalling cowardice. Never again should we listen to Europe and the US lecture us on human rights and equality. They have actively funded and cheer-led the slaughter of Falesteenis in their homes, in hospitals, on the roads fleeing towards safety, and every single conceivable corner of the Strip. There have been zero calls to boycott holding sporting events, galas, award shows etc, in the country that enables it all.

What excuse will these silent observers offer to future generations? What will they say when ‘it’s complicated’ is no longer an acceptable response in the face of undeniable evidence of genocide being broadcast live on everyone’s phones?

The writer is a former civil servant.