A Statement on Palestine

By Eli Massey

I can’t look away from the genocide—that's the only word for it—Israel is perpetrating in Gaza right now. That's not just my characterization. Israeli leaders have been explicit: Ariel Kallner, a member of the Knesset and ruling Likud party, declared "Right now, one goal: Nakba! A Nakba that will overshadow the Nakba of [19]48." (Nakba refers to the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians when Israel was founded.) Israeli President Isaac Herzog opined that "It’s an entire nation that is out there that’s responsible. It’s not true, this rhetoric about civilians not aware, not involved. It’s absolutely not true.” “They could have risen up, they could have fought against that evil regime which took over Gaza in a coup d'etat,” Herzog added. An Israeli soldier on CNN, who is actively leading soldiers, reiterated this view, explaining, “the war is not just with Hamas, the war [is] with all the civilians.” Israel's so-called Defense Minister announced "I have ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed. We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly." (This is a straightforward admission of intent to commit a war crime.) And Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sickly advised Palestinians in Gaza to "Leave now because we will operate forcefully everywhere" then proceeded to repeatedly bomb the Rafah border crossing making it impossible for people to leave. Netanyahu went on to note that "This war will take time." 

What's the effect of depriving the over 2 million Palestinians in Gaza—half of whom are children—of electricity, water, food, and gas for an extended period of time while you bomb them? Seriously, consider it. Palestinians have been forced to resort to drinking sewage. The reported aid provided so far is a sick joke meant to provide cover as the mass murder proceeds.

The Israeli government told Palestinians to flee south, purportedly for their safety, but "the bombing in the south is constant". Never mind that the UN said that the forced migration south was "impossible ...without devastating humanitarian consequences" or that "there are no extra beds in any hospitals anywhere for people to move to. Most of the wounded are unstable, and they will die en route. All hospitals in Gaza, even after they've been expanded, are full."

The so-called Most Moral Army In The World has used white phosphorus, bombed 88 schools, 57 health facilities, rendered over 613,000 homeless, and murdered more than 7,000 people including nearly 3,000 children, 53 UNRWA workers, 24 journalists, and over 100 medical staff. (No matter how frequently I update this, I cannot keep up with Israel’s rate of murder, so by the time this is published, the numbers will almost certainly be significantly higher. And for those who have any doubt about these numbers, Omar Shakir, Israel and Palestine director at Human Rights Watch has attested that “Everyone uses the figures from the Gaza Health Ministry because those are generally proven to be reliable.” “In the time in which we have done our own verification of numbers for particular strikes, I’m not aware of any time which there’s been some major discrepancy.” Shakir added that Human Rights Watch would not use numbers by parties with “a propensity to misrepresent information.”)

Israeli leaders are openly advocating for genocide and the crucial point is this: Whatever your feelings about Hamas and their actions, only one side's war crimes are being enthusiastically backed by the White House, both political parties, not to mention your and my tax dollars. Only one side ethnically cleansed the indigenous population, continues to steal land, and has enacted a system of apartheid, as recognized by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem—all with the effectively unconditional support of the United States. We have some say over what our government does. We can all condemn Hamas until we're blue in the face, and it will have precisely zero effect because our government doesn't support Hamas. If you care about the genocide, apartheid, ethnic cleansing, occupation, and land theft that Palestinians are suffering, then that is where your energy should be focused because your government is supporting it.

What matters most at this moment is demanding that our government push for a ceasefire, the importation of humanitarian aid, an end to Israel's illegal blockade of Gaza, a comprehensive arms embargo, and the cessation of Israel's genocide, land theft, occupation, and apartheid. Anything less fails to reckon with the root issues at play and the parties perpetrating and supporting these atrocities.