For years, I have struggled to understand the misguided liberal Zionists who refuse to acknowledge the full and equal humanity of Palestinians. But this latest genocide in Gaza has finished me…I no longer have any energy or motivation to spend on what now seems to have been, in most cases, a futile effort.
Especially those in western countries, who pontificate from their positions of elite privilege, about supporting Palestinian rights, but only when Palestinians can be viewed as victims or helpless people deserving of “our charity”. I have no idea what they thought anti-colonial resistance would look like after 75 plus years of dispossession and ethnic cleansing; however, their shock at what has transpired in the last two and a half weeks would indicate that many conceived only of what Ilan Pappe termed a “sterile” liberation struggle.
What arrogance to believe that you can endlessly oppress another people without consequence? What arrogance to believe that the people suffering under a settler-colonialist regime must wait until enough of the oppressor population has “seen the light”?
I cannot look at another one of those Gaza kids, covered in concrete dust, blood pouring down their faces, their eyes blanked by trauma. And I’m thousands of miles away. It is not my job to lecture the parents or siblings or extended family of those children as to how they must respond, or as to how they must contain their rage.
NO, that is not our job if we really want to be in solidarity with Palestine. Our job is to make the world understand why this is happening, especially in the West where critical thinking in media and politics has vanished. The ease with which the Zionist narrative has been propagated by politicians across the board is a lesson for all of us. Even “ceasefire” has now become a dirty word, portrayed as something too radical.
Given the overwhelming acceptance at the official level of the dominant Zionist narrative, and the increasing intimidation by police and security of pro-Palestine events and statements, we take inspiration from the fact that so many people across the world are coming out in massive numbers to show support for Palestine.
Vancouver, Canada, as just one example, had its largest rally for Palestine in almost 50 years last weekend. And the clarity of the support was as heartening as the huge turnout. This is the kind of moral conscience that I can respect. The kind demonstrated by Ontario MPP Sarah Jama, who was recently abandoned by her own NDP Party and censured by the Ontario legislature, but still refused to forsake her principled position on Palestine.
This is what gives us hope, that a day will come for a universal moral conscience. And then the world will understand that what is happening now in Gaza and Palestine is the logical trajectory for an insidious and racist ideology like Zionism.
by Marion Kawas
Updated published version here: Western Morality is Buried Forever under the rubble in Gaza! | Al Mayadeen English