nolongerinbetween

The little faith I had in humanity is now completely shattered. There wasn’t much faith left to begin with, but I did believe our civilization had outgrown mass murder. I was wrong. It seems humankind will always find a way to justify murder and accommodate genocide. The remorse will invariably come, I’ll give them that, but so the relapse into mass murder. We are nothing but a genocidal species, a murderous junkie unable to escape the cycle of murder – remorse – relapse. The truth of the matter is that genocide can happen to anyone. You may live in places where is less likely to happen, but nobody is fully protected and there’s no guarantee against it anywhere in the world. Ten thousand civilians have been killed in just one month before our very eyes and you won’t find a single major western leader to raise his voice against it and say: ”ENOUGH”. Not a single one. Joe Biden. Emmanuel Macron. Rishi Sunak. Olaf Scholz. Georgia Meloni. Keir Starmer. Victor Orban. Bernie Sanders. Nancy Pelosi. Ursula von der Leyen. etc They have all equated Israel’s right to defence to mass murder. The blood of thousands innocent children is on their hands. They are all complicit in the slaughter of thousands of civilians with their unlimited and unconditional support for Israel. At this rate every 10 mins a child is murdered in Gaza. Even now there are hundreds of civilians and children still alive under the rubble who will suffer a slow horrifying death. Buried alive under debris and our indifference. Now that much of Gaza has been carpet-bombed and flattened by 10.000 bombs the most one can hear from our glorious Judeo-Christianity is a call for a humanitarian … pause. In other words, give them some water and then kill them again. Give them a loaf of bread and then you can carry on destroying their homes, schools, hospitals. Let them take a breather before their death. We are not barbarians like them animals, right? Bombing the crap out of somebody on an empty stomach is not kosher after all.

I was never naïve about our human nature or about politics. There will always be a level of corruption, self-interest, falsity that will erode our better selves and our political endeavours. There will always be a difference between what is said and what is done or between what is said publicly and what is said behind the scenes. I expected the usual routine with the West paying lip service to our humanity.: “Palestinian lives matter”, “Every loss of innocent civilians is unacceptable”, “We urge Israel to show restraint and protect non-combatant civilians” etc while looking the other way at some of Israel’s missteps. What I didn’t expect was for the West to openly embrace evil and unreason. To offer unrestricted support for Israel even when they went fully genocidal. One of the difficulties historians and politicians face when it comes to distinguishing between mass killing and genocide is to prove intent and motivation. Now the case for a genocide was made simple by Israel’s own admission of their intent and motivation (the president, the prime minister, high ranking officials, the IDF). They turned Gaza into a textbook case. The documents leaked pointed in the same direction. No building or place is off limits. The emphasis is on maximum damage, not precision. The indiscriminate carpet-bombing of everything in Gaza (houses, roads, hospitals, schools, shops, mosques, churches, markets, bakeries, refugee camps etc) makes it clear those statements weren’t just angry words, mere venting, but it meant business. There’s the plan and there’s its implementation.

The response of the West to all this? A complete surrender to Israel’s narrative. To their aggressive lobby.  Blank check to do whatever they want, with no redlines and with complete impunity. Blatant denial of Israel killing civilians on purpose. Full unconditional support. Sending financial and military aid to Israel. And then descending into full dystopianism. Like banning pro-Palestinian protests. Smearing the marches who call for peace and for a ceasefire as … hate movements. Framing any criticism of Israel as antisemitic and pro-Hamas. Firing and cancelling any official who won’t fall in line. Rationalizing mass killing. Giving surreal statements that Israel makes everything they can and beyond to avoid civilian casualties. Mudding waters. Twisting words and logic to accommodate Israel’s narrative. The enlightened West, praising itself as the beacon of light, as the peak of civilization, went mask off revealing its hypocrisy and shallowness. As far as I am concerned, I am done with our Judeo-Christian supremacy. I don’t want to ever hear western democracies lecture the rest of the world on human rights ever again. Even when they are better on that front, they are no longer in the position to lecture others. If you scratch the surface, you will find the same self-centred barbarians as everywhere.

Even though I am deeply troubled and shaken by the loss of my hope and faith in humanity there is a strange sense of relief. As if I no longer have any skin in the game. As if there’s no bigger ideals to defend and fight for after all. For instance, the idea that Trump might get back for another four years term, with his toxicity and the regressiveness of his followers, was horrifying to me. Not anymore. Now I no longer care who runs the hypocritical charade. In fact, I want Biden to lose. He is obviously better than Trump, but still a monster. And a better monster is hardly reassuring. Yes, some political systems and individuals are better than others. But if none of them cannot make sure I am not killed with impunity in a mass killing then I won’t hold any in high regard. Better is not enough. Better doesn’t protect you from being evicted from your home, from being subjected to apartheid, from being oppressed and ultimately killed. Different does.