Sometimes it’s what you don’t say

Like there isn’t enough… in what seems like one long endless day since Monday, a single period in a calendar that has been one long endless battle since the beginning of time…

…is how fucking horrible Israeli comms handling has been. Between the IDF spokespeople and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This has been true for years; see the official social media of ‘Israel’.

It’s this local assumption that everyone gets it, will either back our narrative or that it doesn’t matter anyway. This is not new, but it is dangerous: anti-semitism is built with the bricks of silence, with the concrete notion that you can tell lies loud enough and they stick together as long as Jews can’t speak over it.

It doesn’t matter how much ‘intelligence’ we have, or facts that are in favor; we have to recognize and come to terms with our membership as a citizen of the world. We don’t exist here on our own.

To be clear: we cannot blow up Hamas-riddled residential apartment buildings and assume everyone is giving the benefit of the doubt on why that is. All the well-meaning terrorist-busting in the world does not help if you don’t participate in the Western discourse happening around you. It’s an extension of this horrible self centeredness that exists here at times on a daily basis, on a cultural scale.

What incredible hubris to think we can tear down the building that houses both Hamas R&D and the AP/Al Jazeera and then leave it hanging for DAYS without evidence as to why. Forget the equipment, or the poor press agents who claim they never knew they were paying a propaganda tax in rent to a terrorist organization. Go down a few blocks; we have left people homeless. We are leaving people homeless and dead because we are in an impossible situation. It cannot be forgotten that this is. We owe the world an explanation, told clearly and correctly and without self-righteousness. It is dangerous for us not to, as history reminds.

We must turn to everyone else, and not only speak – but ask the question, so that the deaths of Palestinians and Israelis aren’t a brutal periodic conflict tax.

How is any of this ridding both Israelis and Gazans of Hamas? And what are all of us going to do about it?

That’s the question everyone should be asking. Go on, try it, even if you’re a Western celebrity. What happens to rid the Palestinians of the terrorist grip of Hamas forever? What happens to ensure these women, men and children receive the aid being sent, the materials being sent, the future they can’t yet grasp? True autonomy?

Let’s answer that because it’s probably too late for hasbara damage control on an AP building or take back collateral damage that leaves people homeless, injured and dead.

How does the Western world – that every once in a while cares so dearly about this corner of the world – how does it help both the Israelis and Palestinians get rid of the Hamas threat for good? And move on to the next stage of repairing this?


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