Now, when Israel is executing a “final solution” in Gaza, when it is far too late for dissent to make any difference, the tide is slowly starting to turn. Now that Gaza is flattened, turned into mass graves and rubble, people who have kept quiet for the past 19 months are slowly starting to speak up. Now that Israel and the US are not even trying to pretend that they aren’t intent on emptying Gaza and the West Bank of Palestinians, of “taking control” of all of the land, some criticism has started to trickle in.
Over in the UK, they’ve pulled out the “e” word. After 19 months of genocidal violence and almost three months of a starvation campaign the UK has decided to describe the situation as egregious. The UK, along with France and Canada, has threatened – and I’m sure Israel’s leaders are quaking in their boots over this – that there might be a “concrete” response if the mass killing and starvation continues.
Meanwhile, there’s been a slight shift in the media coverage. Instead of just parroting the Israeli government’s talking points, major media figures such as Piers Morgan are starting to challenge Israeli spokespeople about why the international media has not been freely allowed into Gaza to see what is happening for themselves.
All of this is too little, too late. It will not bring back little Hind Rajab, a five-year-old girl who was killed when 335 bullets were fired by Israeli soldiers into the car the terrified child was trapped in. Or the aid workers executed by Israel and buried in shallow graves.
It will not rebuild the hospitals, kindergartens, IVF centers and universities that have been systematically levelled by Israel. It will not give kids in Gaza – the largest cohort of child amputees in the world – their limbs back. It will not fix the long-term damage that malnutrition and almost two years of no schooling has done to a generation.
The criticism we are seeing now is simply an exercise in ass-covering. Performative opposition, so that in the future, when the true scale of the slaughter in Gaza is clear, the politicians and media figures responsible for enabling and justifying this horror for 19 months can say: “Look! I said something! I didn’t just stand by!”
And what will you say? When future generations read about Gaza with horror and wonder how the western world, with all its moral superiority, its rule-based order and its focus on international human rights law, allowed a livestreamed genocide to happen, what will you say? When future generations learn that, for 19 months, we woke up every morning to videos of children being burned alive – bombed with weapons that the US taxpayer helped pay for and the western world helped justify – will you be able to say that you spoke up?
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