If your life is like mine it’s filled with acronyms; LOL, IRL, COB, IDK, IMO, TBH … the list is endless. Acronyms are catchy and get us to the point quickly. I learned a new acronym recently: WCNSF — Wounded Child No Surviving Family. You can be forgiven if you don’t know this one; it’s unique to the Gaza strip.
Maybe you already have your mind made up about the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. I can list statistics; More than 11,500 children have been killed in Gaza, even more have survived, but are left with life-changing wounds. An average of 10 children per day have lost their legs. More than 24,000 children have lost one or both parents. In Gaza, 93% of the population faces crisis levels of hunger.
I can tell you true stories — there’s the one about the daughter of Hanna Abu Amsha. She doesn’t have a name because she was delivered via C-section after her mother was crushed during an Israeli airstrike. Hanna died before naming her baby, who now is in an incubator, alone. An estimated two mothers per hour are dying in Gaza.
Perhaps the story of Ibrahim; he’s 10 years old, like my youngest son. A missile landed in his home. He was severely wounded, and his mother, sister and grandfather were killed. Ibrahim cries so hard his body hurts. Another child shared that when he discovered his entire family had been killed, he felt like his “heart was bleeding with fire”.
These stories are found primarily in International outlets like the AP, SkyNews and the BBC, and rarely in U.S. news outlets. When there is mention on CNN or in The New York Times, Palestinians are statistics at best. We can, in fact, condemn both the actions of the terrorists who murdered Israeli civilians and took hostages and condemn the actions of a government that has slaughtered more than 27,000 civilians, most of whom are women and children.
Opinion
The coverage might not be American, but the bombs are, as are the tax dollars paying for those bombs. I’m not naïve — this has been U.S. policy for decades, but the past few days have highlighted the dehumanization that allows it to persist. The Times published a commentary comparing people in the Middle East to animals. We’ve seen this before. Dehumanize an entire group of people, then do whatever you want.
Protests in solidarity of Palestinians have been occurring across the U.S. and the world, even here in Fresno. The Wall Street Journal decided to focus its attention on a specific one, in Dearborn, Michigan. For their show of support for the Palestinian people, the commentary labels Dearborn, whose population is majority Arab, America’s “Jihad Capital.” On one side are victims, on the other Jihadist animals. Math be damned.
We’ve seen the results of bigoted articles like these; increased Islamophobia, attacks against the Arab communities in Dearborn and across the world.
Maybe you have your mind made up about the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. It’s been happening for decades. Maybe none of this has moved or shocked you. If we whistle past the mass graves of innocents, be they Palestinian or Israeli, we justify their slaughter.
If our justification is that “we stand” with whatever side we’ve been led to stand with, we will perpetually be in a state of instability and war. There must be a ceasefire. Now.
Noha Elbaz is an Egyptian American living in Clovis. She is a university administrator. Email: noha.elbaz1@gmail.com.
LINK: https://news.yahoo.com/america-against-terrorist-attacks-israel-133000416.html?
