Palestinians gather around a destroyed house after an Israeli air strike in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, on November 19, 2012.
This gaping hole, where a Palestinian home once stood, not only materially exposes the disappearing of Palestinian people by Israel, but also symbolically represents the hole where the truth about Palestine keeps falling. We keep seeing pictures of these holes as the denial of justice keeps getting buried in a discourse of 'balance' and the mantra "Israel has a right to defend itself."
The photo above is part of a photo essay called Israel Steps Up Attacks, Gaza Returns Fire at The Atlantic The title repeats the "balanced" p.o.v. so dominant in Western media. The photo essay, however, while it shows Israelis fearful in shelters or stairwells also shows the dead bodies of Palestinian children. Yesterday two 4 yr old twin brothers Suhaib and Muhammad were killed by an Israeli bomb, along with their mother and father. Twenty-five mosques have been bombed, some destroyed, and the bones of deceased have been scattered or obliterated by bombs dropped on cemeteries. Will this make the TV news in Canada? What if a Jewish cemetery was bombed? Would it make the news in Canada?
Young Palestinian men demonstrating in the West Bank against this latest Israeli assault on Gaza have been killed and others shot in the head and back, left critically wounded..
Obama says Israel has a right to defend itself.
Canada's foreign minister, John Baird, says Israel has a right to defend itself.
Both defend the inhumane blockade of Gaza that is causing widespread malnutrition, unemployment, and other suffering.
When are we going to stop the amnesia of history? When are Palestinian children and people going to be considered as valuable as your child or mine? your brother or mine?
Yesterday when I was watching CBC news, Israel was referred to as "the Jewish state." I guess the apartheid state is being normalized and the black hole of oblivion, where Palestinians have been put, had been made permanent. If the land is Jewish, the Palestinians will have to be buried.
The blockade has not killed the will of the Palestinians. The bombing cannot kill the stories and memories of Palestinians. These cannot be shot dead.
How many bombed out black holes, dead Palestinian children and young men do we have to accept for Israel's right to exist?
1 comment:
Again this holocaust against the Palestinians... SO UNFAIR AND CRUEL!!!
If I remember correctly, when you started your blog we were in the midst of the latest attack, which name of the "battle" I can no longer remember, but which caused thousands of deaths in Gaza. Unforgivable! Israel is a Nazi state. Worse than the Germans in WWII.
Sorry no hugs today, I'm too upset... M.
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