Photo: Palestinians sit by their belongings after visiting buildings destroyed in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, March 6, 2024. (Mohammed Dahman/AP)
Thursday, May 16, 2024
In an article printed in Amandala on Wednesday, May 15, Assad Shoman asked, and I quote, “How can we tell our children that we stood by complacently, and saw a genocide, mass murder of children, forced starvation of millions, taking place and were silent about it?” That such a question even has to be asked in the 21st century is shameful. It is televised; it’s there for everyone to see. The protests get larger every day, the anger builds across the world, and yet the massacre continues.
I remember in 1995 being alarmed and repulsed by the Srebrenica massacre of about 8,000 Bosnian Moslems! For weeks we watched them starve, and General Ratko Mladic supervised that genocide. Bill Clinton finally stepped in, after the fact, and Serbia paid a heavy price for the hell they had brought down on a powerless ethnic population in Bosnia. Too late by far, but the intervention led to a free Bosnia.
What is happening in Gaza is 10 times worse, if not more. And it will get much worse as long as a bloodthirsty Netanyahu and his genocidal regime are running Israel. America is the only country that can put an end to this catastrophe, a mild description for what is occurring, but alas, it’s election time! Biden is totally handcuffed to the politics and reality of the day. Republicans and their leader, der Trump, see the people of Gaza as human fodder, nothing more. They have dehumanized these beautiful people, much like the Nazis did to the Jews in Germany during WWII! The evangelicals will not allow anything to dampen their enthusiasm while yearning for the arrival of the Rapture—innocent men, women and children be damned! And the terror continues.
So, Biden stutters and continues to arm Israel, halfheartedly, but that doesn’t make any difference; the killings and starvation continue. Netanyahu promises that he will destroy Hamas! That’s his mantra, and he knows that it is an impossible task to accomplish; but what the hell, he’s fighting for his survival, and the killings and destruction continue!
Folks, this is 2024! What is happening in Gaza is unacceptable, unforgivable and almost unimaginable, but it is happening. When did we lose our humanity to such an extent that deep down inside us we could probably be thinking, better them than us? In the meantime, we are complaining about blackouts and sugar shortages while children are starving and women are dying, and life goes on, for us, not for them. And the suffering continues.
If there is a god, I wonder whose side is he on? I guess we will have to wait until Election Day to find out. By then it might be too late for a people who don’t deserve the pain and suffering and death that they’ve become accustomed to. Their crime? Living in the right place at the wrong time. Oh! The shame! But the genocide continues.
Glen