Since the 7th October I’ve tried very hard not to have a polarised view on what’s happening. My therapist says I should work on my dichotomous thinking, and I agree, and I’m doing so. But I can’t stand this propaganda anymore.
In 2017 I spent 3 months in Jordan working on my Master’s thesis. When I arrived I had no idea of how life changing that experience was going to be. Probably more than half of the people I met there were originally from Palestine. Each one of them has only shown kindness and respect to me. My flatmate Tam has educated me on the issue as much as she could. Her family was brutally kicked out of Palestine by Israeli settlers. They were all so welcoming towards me, with countless invites for Iftar and always making sure there was some vegetarian food for me (Tam’s grandma’s lentil soup is still in my heart). My Palestinian colleagues were humble, smart, hard-working dreamers. I have nothing but admiration for all the Palestinian people I’ve met in those months.
Palestine on the horizon from the Dead Sea, June 2017
Because of my experience in Jordan, when 7th October happened, my first reaction was worrying about the repercussions on Gazans, Palestinians and, more widely, muslims. I knew that the Hamas attack didn’t happen “in a vacuum” and whatever support they got, it had come from deep desperation. Now I understand that I should have spent more time taking the attack for what it was, and condemning it without skipping that step. But I was just too worried that all the beautiful people I met would be condemned as terrorists by the islamophobic west.
Brutally killing and kidnapping innocent people is terrifying and should be condemned. There’s no excuse for that. However, erratically bombing one of the most densely populated places in the world is not a justifiable reaction. In the same way you don’t extinguish fire with fire, you don’t kill terrorism with more terror.
But this is not what pushed me to take my laptop and type these words. As much as I am sick of powerful, western countries defending war crimes and not calling for a ceasefire, what is sickening me just as much is the Israeli propaganda trying to deceive people and buy their approval for the atrocities we’re seeing. On 19th October the Israeli official X account posted that one of Taylor Swift’s body guards returned home to fight with the IDF, adorned with a quote of one of Taylor’s lyrics. Now, even if this was true (and no, he wasn’t hired by her), exploiting the biggest popstar in the world to convince her massive fanbase to support Israeli’s defence is disgusting.
The way the Israeli State and Mossad use their social media is revolting. How they twist facts and reality to present themselves as the saviours of the world is disturbing. The way they spend their money on ads desperately trying to buy people’s approval is shocking. Today, before writing this text, I was watching a youtube video having breakfast, chilling. It was stopped by an Israeli video ad where they ask passers-by if they wanted to sign up for Hamas to free Palestine and then they read out loud that the T&C of what they signed included imprisoning and killing all homosexuals and non-muslims. As if Hamas and Palestine are synonyms. As if the human rights of People who have been dehumanised for decades are a joke. As if this is all a joke.
There’s nothing funny about over a million Gazans being displaced and almost 9,000 killed. There’s nothing hilarious in targeting a big refugee camp with the pretext that a Hamas commander was there. If we have to be precise, the fact that there are Palestinians living in a refugee camp in their own land is already tragic enough.
I’m disgusted by the messages Israel is sending and how they are delivered. I’m disgusted by the politicians in my country, I’m disgusted by the politicians in the country I live in, I’m disgusted by the position most of the western countries have taken. I’m disgusted by Israel’s belief that they can accuse of antisemitism anyone who believes Palestinians have the same human rights as everyone else. I’m disgusted by how Israel is leveraging the memory of the Holocaust as an invisibility cloak. I’m disgusted by the Israeli settlers who are taking advantage of the attention the media are paying to Gaza to dehumanise Palestinians and further occupy the West Bank. I am extremely relieved by the many Jews who are not buying this propaganda, are denouncing these crimes and are demonstrating their dissent. Nevertheless, I have never been as disgusted in humanity as I am now. I am not going to buy your propaganda either, Israel.
P.s.: I’m an engineer, not a bloody writer, so I asked chat gpt to help me optimise this text, but this was the result.
Well said.