The past year has been filled with an indescribable amount of both horror and conflict. At this time a year ago, I was not informed about the so-called “war” between Israel and Palestine.
As a white American who is still unpacking the falsehoods I was taught about colonization, I still have so much to learn. Ultimately, it’s not my own perspective that matters, but that I’m among many people who’ve learned a great deal in the past year.
I’ve been aware of the “war” as a distant concept for years. But I couldn’t tell you much beyond vague notions that it was “complicated.”
I now see that I was guilty of siding with the oppressor in my neutrality.
Lupe Fiasco wrote the line, “Gaza strip was getting bombed, Obama didn’t say shit” back in 2011. And that’s not even that far back in the history of the Palestinian struggle for freedom.
Zionists began colonizing Israel over a century ago. For me to be writing anything on the subject is literally joining a conversation at the tail end, after missing the first 99% of it. At this point, the conversation is more conflict than dialogue. What’s happening on the ground in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, and all other regions that Israel is targeting with full US support, is unequivocally a genocide.
In the past year, censorship on social media in my country has climbed exponentially. I can use these words on my own site, but the search engine algorithms will bury it. If I don’t censor these words on social media, I’m at risk of having my posts or entire accounts taken down.
I am not an expert. I am just a white American who is very late to becoming somewhat aware. I can’t offer explanations or information, much less reputable analysis, that adds to the conversation in a meaningful way. All I can say is that I could have informed myself before things got to this stage of destruction.
In the past year, Israel has murdered on average over 500 people per day, half of them children. They’ve massacred people trying to gather food, they’ve bombed every single hospital, and they’ve bombed refugee camps after designating them as “safe zones.” They’ve cut off resources like food, water, and electricity, so that people are starving and suffering from preventable illnesses of all kinds. They’ve murdered journalists and healthcare workers alike. Snipers have targeted children, and bombs have obliterated people so completely that nothing remains of them at all.
All of this is just information I know off the top of my head, and the images of distress and death have become so commonplace on my smartphone that I’ve had to distance myself. There aren’t words to communicate the utter horror that’s being intentionally inflicted and cruelly celebrated by Zionists.
I am amazed that I was so ignorant before. I am amazed that others can remain so ignorant still.
Yet I know that the powerful are doing everything in their power – and they have a lot of power – to silence this information. It’s not just social media that censors words and buries the most relevant posts. I’ve come to distrust every news outlet that refuses to name Israel as the culprit in this genocide.
Oh, and October 7th? I have not heard a single claim about the apparent crimes of Hamas that has not since been disproven. That’s a lot of negatives, so I’ll say it more clearly: they lied when they vilified Hamas.
I don’t condemn Hamas. I condemn Israel, and I condemn the leaders of the world for creating it, arming it, funding it. Israel is a monster made of colonization. Those in power cannot condemn Israel because to condemn its very existence is to bring its predecessor in oppressive colonization, the United States itself, into question.
The US was founded on the genocide of indigenous people, just like Israel. The US stole land from the people who lived here originally with bogus treaties, just like Israel. And as a world power, the US supports Israel like its own child, created in the image of itself.
All of this is considered extreme leftist language, but I don’t care. If I am late to say it, it is better to say it late than to keep silent forever.
Again, I am not an expert. I am just learning. But I say all these things because of what I know now, and I cannot unsee what I have become aware of. If you are uncertain about where you stand on these things, please research for yourself. Learn about it however you prefer to learn.
I was wrong to side with the oppressors in my neutrality and overwhelm with learning the facts.
It is never too late to admit it.