It’s Black and White: Not Every Story Has “Two Sides”
Israel is bombing Gaza again. Palestinian lives are being lost again. And yet again, we are hearing from the ‘gatekeepers of world peace’ that they will offer unconditional support to – ISRAEL. We are again hearing from influential celebrities about “peace” on “both sides. We are yet again witnessing the ignorance of the real problem: genocide.
Picture this:
You’re comfortably living in your family home, the same house your grandparents lived in. Life is good. Your kids go to school. You’re not the richest, but you’re living comfortably. You’re happy. Suddenly one day, a family arrives from some other neighbourhood and tells you to leave because it’s THEIR house now. You try arguing that your family has lived their for centuries and that you have all the papers to prove that it’s your property, instead they bring armed men over and kick you out.
You try to protect your family and move to some other part of the land, where you don’t own any property. You start life from scratch. But the new family won’t have any of it. They cut off water and food supply, they ensure you don’t get a job, they burn your crops, and start bombing your new area. You reach out to the municipality to complain, who instead start providing money to the family, allowing them to bomb you more.
Years pass like this. You’ve lost one of your kids to these attacks. You don’t have any stable source of income. Your other child is starving and on the brink of death due to the limited water allocation. Your wife gets teased and dragged on the streets every other day. One of your brothers is in jail for the past 5 years over a charge you don’t understand. Your older neighbours instead decided to normalise ties with the invaders. You finally decide it’s enough and head back to your old neighbourhood to fight with the invading family on your own.
In this scenario – who would be on the right side according to you?
This simplified hypothetical scenario is not at all hypothetical, but a lived reality of millions of Palestinians for the last 75 years. It’s honestly sad and inhumane to witness those ‘supporting’ Israel, or playing a ‘both sides’ neutral stance.
(Click here for a quick guide on the ‘conflict’)
A ‘both sides’ argument holds when the two sides are equal or similar in terms of relative power. It holds when both sides have caused a similar level of harm to the other. It does not hold when one side is the strongest military power – a nuclear power – funded by US and European powers, and the other side is composed of civilians, using stones and rockets for their defence.
The ‘both sides’ argument does not hold when one side is responsible for invading, ethnic cleansing, murdering, and raping civilians, blatantly violating all international laws and attacking religious sites, while the other side has been living under the largest open air prison for the past decade.
Gaza – home to over 2 million Palestinians – has been cut off from the rest of the world for years. The area gets electricity for barely 4 hours a day. The water supply is limited. The crops are burnt – reducing both food supply, and the fundamental source of income. On top of that, Israel continues it’s military operations for ‘self defence’ purposes. Thousands of Palestinians had already been killed this year even before Hamas’s “attack” on Israel.
One is forced to ask – are Palestinians expected to simply sit down and accept and apartheid state that is thriving on THEIR land and their lives? Are they expected to show no resistance to all the brutality they face at the hands of the Israelis everyday? Are they expected to silently pick up coffins after coffins of their children, their spouses, their parents?
The Israel-Palestine case is perhaps the single most black and white case in history. It is genocide happening in real-time. It is a war continuing for the past 75 years, in front of all of us, the only difference is that in wars, the two sides are somewhat equal. Here, the relative power gap could not be more apparent.
Why is it that when Ukrainians resist Russian invasion into their land, they are hailed as champions, and the world is expected to cut off all ties with Russia, but when Palestinians do the exact same, they are regarded as terrorists, and the entire world is expected to provide support to the aggressor?
The truth of the matter is that the “Western ideals” have lost all their credibility. The hypocrisy is blatant and nauseating. Too many precious Palestinian lives have been lost ever since some men in UK decided to “create a state” in the middle of an already existing state. The world has only let the Palestinians down. They are now snatching their rights on their own. The world has no moral ground to dictate the Palestinians on what they ought to do or not do. On what is right and not. There is no ‘wrong’ when it comes to decolonisation. It’s violent and it’s aggressive. We have all seen what good it has done to the Palestinians to ‘play by the rules’.
Also while we are on it, let’s not forget that Israel’s bombing on Gaza is a blatant violation of the International law. Let’s not ignore how the Israeli PM Netanyahu and his government members are proudly sharing videos of bombing civilian sites, and making statements like “bomb them to hell”.
Some stories do not have “two sides”. They are simply black and white. It’s up to you to decide whether you stand on the right side of history or not.
References:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/9/whats-the-israel-palestine-conflict-about-a-simple-guide
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