My Heart is Breaking

Tonight I was set to write another blog post to promote Angel of Mercy. It’s a task I’ve been trying to start for the last few days but each time I open up a blank document to write I feel sick, angry and so terribly afraid. I’m talking about the situation in Gaza and when I was talking with my cousin in America tonight she suggested I write it out and so here I am sitting with a not so blank page.
I could write a history of the causes of the Arab/Israeli conflict going back to 1948 but this is not the time nor the place for such an essay and there are those far more qualified than I who’ve written books on the subject. I’ll leave links below for those who want to know more and perhaps get past the media spin doctors on Fox, CNN and the BBC, all of whom have Hamas tattooed on the inside of their eyelids.
This is not about Hamas or Fatah, or any of the other Palestinian factions. This is about people, children, women, the elderly, and men who aren’t combatants. They are doctors, lawyers, bloggers, mothers, school children, babies, grandmothers and grandfathers, mothers and fathers all caught in the crossfire between armed groups and the IDF. The media spin coming out of the IDF and the Israeli government is truly chilling in its cold blooded evil. They talk about human shields as if it was a brand name, just tell the west they’re human shields and they’ll think of Saddam Hussein or some other tyrant. Netanyahu’s comment that they were telegenically dead Palestinians was bizarre even for him.
The problem with that narrative is Western journalists from mainstream media outlets have been at the other end of an IDF onslaught that has shocked hardened journalists used to covering war. It has driven them and the UN Coordinator to tears on television because there are no words to describe the barbarity. I have seen the most shocking pictures of children blasted to pieces simply because they were in the same building as a Hamas fighter and all they can say is that it was a regrettable incident or the more insidious, human shield. It’s not precision bombing, it’s indiscriminate shelling and they do it because they know the American media and Congress is on their side. What civilised army would send warnings that they were about to bomb a hospital? Even if there were militants nearby, the IDF has enough technological know how to use other methods, all funded by the West.
Hospitals, ambulances, houses, the only powerplant in the Gaza Strip, and even UN shelters filled with terrified civillians, children blasted to pieces and decapitated by Israeli shells and bombs. If any other nation did this there would be an outcry, sanctions, boycotts and an international force sent in to clean up the mess. But this is Israel and they are sacred cows in Congress and Westminster, just to name two of the co-conspirators.
The Israeli media would have once condemned such atrocities but now that has changed, there’s an evil in Israel that emanates from the Knesset and permeates outwards to the media and the public. The Times of Israel today printed a blog post from a blogger with the headline, When Is Genocide Permissible? It was swiftly deleted a few hours later but to have a major Israeli outlet actually allow that headline is a descent into the abyss. Obama did his usual duck and dive, our Prime Minister David Cameron was more outraged at the reported capture of an Israeli soldier than the 1300 dead civilians. While the world stood in horror to read of the cowardly attack on a UNWRA facility by the IDF, killing many sleeping children, the US Congress nearly fell over themselves in the rush to push through emergency relief fund of $275 million in arms funding for Iron Dome. Just to kill more children I suppose, how many more dead children will it take before Obama and Cameron man up?
Gaza has been described many times over as the largest open air prison on the planet. All goods in and out of Gaza have been controlled for the last eight years, I mean ALL goods, even food and medicines, CDs, toys, it’s all on the list. Movement in and out of prison through a series of checkpoints that can be closed at any time and there are usually long queues for Palestinians, who are searched rigorously, even children are searched. Netanyahu and his co-defendants in the Western media can call it what they want, call it a holiday resort but a rose by any other name is still a rose. And these prisoners, like Andy in Shawshank Redemption, really are innocent. Their only crime was being born to Arab parents, that’s it. That is racism, it’s ugly and evil and our taxes support this evil.
So what can we do about it? Apart from locking the two opposing leaders in a room without food or water until they sort it out?
We can write to our MPs and elected members, let them know we oppose arms shipments to a militaristic nation bent on driving every Arab out of Israel. We can also get involved in the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, which basically means stop buying products made in the Occupied Territories. And every time you see one of the talking heads on CNN or other mainstream networks going on with the usual spin, use your Twitter account to good effect and tell them to stop talking and start reading.
There are links below to their website for those who want to make a difference, I don’t mind going without Coca Cola or Nescafe coffee. But I do mind that my taxes in Britain are being used to prop up a murderous regime ruled by despots who claim to be democratic but then deny basic human rights to those in the Occupied Territories just because they can. It’s wrong, it’s twisted and I’m no longer afraid to speak out. It doesn’t make me anti Semitic in any way at all. It means I’ve found my humanity. Feel free to leave comments but any anti Semitic or racist comments will be deleted. Updates on the on the ground situation can be found on Twitter using the hastags, #gaza, #GazaunderAttack, #FreePalestine, #ICC4Israel, #IsupportPalestine
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing.
Edmund Burke.

Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions 

Palestinian Solidarity Campaign (British based)
International Solidarity Movement
Jewish Voices for Palestine
Jewish Voice for Peace #Gaza Names (a Youtube video
Want to know more? These are essential reading for those who want to get past the mainstream drivel.
Gaza in Crisis: Reflections on Israel’s War Against Palestine. Noam Chomsky and Ilan Pappe
The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine. Ilan Pappe
The Punishment of Gaza. Gideon Levy
Drinking the Sea at Gaza: Days and Nights in a Land Under Siege. Amira Hass

Tomorrow I will return to my regular Angel of Mercy blog but tonight I just wanted to write out the rage, sorrow and helplessness.

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