The tireless cry of citizens is not nothing. Because, from time to time, news about Gaza moves down the information ladder when other offensives and events in this regional war attract media attention. New enemies of Israel make headlines
Snotty, dirty children lurk in the rubble, playing war with stick guns or sipping droplets of water seeping through the joints of tanker taps. Bloodied babies sharing a hospital stretcher, trapped in desperate cries. Men carrying bundles of piled up human remains, sometimes in a dramatic race towards the tomb. Women veiled and in mourning, desperate, howling like wolves at the butchered remains of the fruits of their wombs. Adolescents and bodies of all ages in human torches, flailing uselessly under the fire of the bombs that will burn them.
It is the war which opens the news, at lunch and dinner time in the dining room of our homes. Before it was Ukraine, Yemen or Syria, then the savage terrorist attack in Tel Aviv. Today it is Palestine. These are the occupied territories of Gaza where the genocidal man rages with greed without anything and no one – not even his own people – being able to get him to release his prey.
The use of hunger and thirst as weapons of war, the ban on the entry of humanitarian aid, the systematic assassination of humanitarian workers and journalists, the disregard for international norms and legislation are the coordinates of the massacres that we see daily on our televisions. we share a table and a tablecloth. Fortunately, the ban on journalists entering the massacred territory does not prevent the world from seeing what is happening, even if much of the real information is stolen from us. Around a bowl of soup, it is inevitable that guests will feel concerned and moved, that emotional reactions to such atrocities occupy the very heart of the conversations. There is a simple resource that makes us feel guilty: we can turn off the device or zap it.
But Gaza comes back to the dining room every day. Now with hostilities in the West Bank, then with sanctions in Lebanon, later towards Iran, with the resulting fear of nuclear war. Day after day, the stain spreads like oil throughout the Middle East region like a warlike plague which, like a macabre curtain of mourning, covers the authentic genocide perpetrated in Gaza. A total cleansing of beings, property and enclaves to erase the Palestinian people from the map. Humanitarian staff with access to the area say the pain of civil society under attack is infinite and unprecedented. “I have never seen so much suffering anywhere in the world,” said Ana Tomás of Doctors Without Borders, who visited Ground Zero this summer.
Israelis can now shout against their government, demanding the lives of hostages in the hands of Hamas, something Netanyahu and his fanatical partners ignore. It doesn’t matter what the UN, the EU or the International Criminal Court say. The government in Tel Aviv turns a deaf ear to all reasoning. That the right to defense (which Netanyahu uses to avenge Hamas terrorist attacks) can only apply between states and Gaza is not, that Israel has exceeded all the limits of this principle established by the system international legal, that the massacres of civilians and hospitals seriously violate international humanitarian law…. These are voices that cry out in the desert and dissolve like sugar in coffee. The fanaticism of the Israeli government benefits from the support of the United States and the complicit silence of the EU to continue its delusional drift. It has been 30 years (since the Oslo Accords) that he has been looking for such a justification to be able to usurp the lands of the Gaza Strip from the Palestinians. He’s not going to let go now.
As lunch or dinner progresses, our discussions and passions around the Gaza catastrophe dissolve and subside. As the days go by – the war has already lasted a year – we normalize the suffering that the television news continues to vomit out and our sensitivity is also attenuated by the images of starving children, dead or injured, in front of the victims. the war of extermination.
“What can I do to not be a silent accomplice? » exclaimed a woman from the audience attending a day of reflection organized in Vigo on Gaza, shouting desperately, eliciting loud applause from the audience who visibly shared the same concern. Only the mobilization of democratic societies can force their elites to leave their comfort zone and bang their fists on the table of the global concert in favor of peace, as has been done on other occasions. All initiatives that prevent silence with their civic cries are welcome.
The spokesperson for Doctors Without Borders also offered a response to the woman interviewed during this meeting and proposed an individual and collective rebellion against the entities that finance the sale of arms to Israel. He cited the recent report “Armed Bank» from the DELAS Peace Studies Center, which cites 12 Spanish companies. “Among these financial entities, Santander and BBVA are the main banks that financed the manufacturers of weapons used by the Israeli army to carry out the genocide in Gaza, with more than $2,442 and $1,500 million, respectively. says the study.
Raising your voice, renouncing silence and getting rid of indifference, by whatever method, are the powerful tools available to us, the privileged ordinary people who live in comfortable democracies. The various speakers of the aforementioned debate day collaborated in this invitation, where Josep Borrell, the only spokesperson for the shameful internal division of the EU, called for a political agreement as the only solution for peace, while Abel Caballero, mayor of Vigo, He promised: “In this city we are not going to be silent. »
And the tireless cry of citizens is not nothing. Because, from time to time, news about Gaza moves down the information ladder when other offensives and events in this regional war attract media attention. New enemies of Israel are making headlines. Meanwhile, in the living room, we have already changed the conversation and are about to finish lunch. The tray with the roast chicken carcass is removed from the table to take its place with the offal in the kitchen. “While you’re leaving, bring on dessert.” There’s rice pudding and fruit in the fridge,” you hear yourself saying.
