Before educating ourselves on the series of events that have led us to the devastating loss of human lives in Palestine, we must first understand how the United States is benefiting from the destruction of both states and the tools that they have used to mask their complicity. From the beginning, these tools: patriotism, religion, mythology, and legislation, have been cleverly used by humans to conquer different parts of the world. Thousands of years ago, religion and mythology found their place in history by maintaining civilization and morality while humans scavenged the Earth, fighting each other for land. These religions provided communities with a foundation of mutual understanding and governance, including condemning murder, theft, and abuse. Humans drew imaginary lines through land after scouring every inch of our Earth. They separated them into territorial borders by giving them names, languages, and legislations, allowing cultures to bloom. A combination of patriotism, religion, and legislation led us to a world capable of complete domination and every single component was manifested from our imagination. It is simultaneously beautiful and terrifying to think that so many of us look down on mythology and religion when they are just as accurate as the laws and borders we have chosen to believe in.
We forget that these entities cannot be touched or held and were put in place to reinforce our human morals, not attenuate them. Though these entities hold meaning to many people, they are not and should never be considered more valuable than human life. Advocacy for any government in the name of patriotism or religion is only possible through privilege. It insinuates that the value of a person’s life is inferior to that of a religion or a nation’s. Risking your life in the name of patriotism or religion is a choice an individual should make when they reach the legal age to fight and should never be a decision any child ever has to make.
The Israeli-Palestinian “conflict” is a colonial genocide perpetrated by Israel that is aided and abetted by the Western powers of the world to secure hegemony in the Middle East. To refer to this genocide as a “conflict” is to insinuate that this can be resolved amongst the educated, level-headed state leaders. The Geneva Convention’s Statute of Genocide defines genocide as any means with “the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group.” Past genocides have relied on systematic extermination, intentionally blocking access to resources and suppressing journalistic coverage. The aim is to conceal the widespread human rights violations, a tactic that succeeded before the creation of social media. Today, we can share whatever we want with the click of a button. At the same time, for Palestinians, the sound of calling for help goes unanswered, symbolizing their loss of essential communication and access to emergency assistance. We have a duty as citizens of the world to amplify their voices to post whatever they manage to upload onto the internet because they have been physically and digitally cut off from the entire world.
After speaking to students, professors, and small businesses in the community, it has become abundantly clear that a small population of educated people is painfully aware of Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel’s mission and has been actively protesting for a ceasefire. However, the majority of Sackville’s population has yet to establish a stance primarily due to the impression that this is a fight between two historically oppressed people, Jews and Arabs. This narrative can easily be debunked through a brief Google search of the events that transpired throughout the two World Wars. The state of Israel was not coincidentally instated two years after the Holocaust ended— they are directly correlated. Despite the public availability of this information, Canada has still managed to teach Canadians about the horrid atrocities of the Holocaust without mentioning where an alarming number of surviving Jews were sent after they were released from the Concentration Camps. Refraining from educating yourself on conflicts in the Middle East due to the fear of offending a particular community is understandable until it becomes a blatant genocide. Withholding to educate yourself on a heinous genocide in the Middle East due to its complexity is not understandable in the slightest because there is nothing complicated about human genocide. The abolition of genocide and the call for a ceasefire is not an offensive or controversial stance to any religion or state/country. Those who have not had the opportunity to learn about the history of Palestine genuinely are victims of federal propaganda and systemic miseducation. My following articles will address Canada’s systemic miseducation by re-educating you on the publicly available and complete series of events that occurred before and after the Holocaust— instead of the white-washed folklore the Canadian government has contaminated our minds with.
Palestinians are not at war. They are under an extremely violent Israeli occupation. Wars imply that both parties are equally footed in combat. Palestine is severely lacking in its military and government due to the continuously expanding occupation and is currently being suffocated by a globally recognized power imbalance. When an entire government, funded and supported by the largest and most powerful military in the world, is attempting to justify ethnic cleansing in 2023, it will use language to soften the detriment of its actions. It is essential to refer to the current situation in Palestine as a settler-colonial operation because martyring children is not a component of any war. Palestine is suffering from the most prolonged ongoing occupation in human history while remaining resilient and peaceful in their protests. Palestinians have been continuously carpet-bombed, burned, tortured, raped, dehydrated, malnourished, and murdered, all the while being referred to as terrorists. They are the epitome of resilience and will forever show us what it means to be human. Palestinians are known for being kind, open-hearted people and were shamelessly taken advantage of by the monsters of our world that we call leaders. If you have yet to understand the occupation and would like to learn more before my next article, listen to the Palestinian voices within your communities and take the time to do your research on the law of return.
Demand a ceasefire to allow Palestinians to locate their dead family members under the rubble. Demand a ceasefire to allow Palestinians to find shelter for their living family members above the rubble. Demand a ceasefire to give Palestinians the right to return to whatever remains of their demolished homes. Demand a ceasefire to allow the only people surrounding newborn babies in incubators to be medical personnel rather than military personnel and family rather than machine guns. Demand a ceasefire so that the Palestinians can protect the bodies of their dead from being harvested for their organs for Israeli patients in Israeli hospitals on Palestinian land. Demand a ceasefire so that those poor children can stop shaking and can have at least one silent night’s sleep without the fear of waking up an orphan. Demand a ceasefire so those same children can get water through Humanitarian Aid rather than toxic rainwater and regain the capability to cry. Demand a ceasefire so that the drinkable water in Gaza can surpass the innocent blood spilled. Demand a ceasefire so that your future children can know that their parents were educated enough not to be coerced by false narratives perpetrated by the most prominent political powers of this world. Demand a ceasefire from the Jordanian River to the Mediterranean Sea, free Palestine until Palestine is free.
Rest in paradise, over twenty thousand Palestinian souls and dozens of martyred journalists under and above the rubble; my biggest regret is not speaking up for them sooner. May they rest in peace. Rest assured, to over five million remaining Palestinians’ hearts on this Earth and the rest of the Arab community, I will never stop talking about Palestine again.
