debate us into death &

the atrocity of apartheid

Do you want me to give you an updated number of the murdered in Palestine?

Does it matter to you at all?

Perhaps a new graph, new way of splicing the statistic will matter, like: the average age of the 20,000 killed is 5. Five years old.

Why do I say 20,000 when this graphic has a smaller number? Because Israeli sources were saying 20,000 two weeks ago. Because I know this smaller number is without a doubt wrong, that like every such count it is deliberately conservative, reserved to what has been confirmed, and that the ability of accurately counting in this total devastation is lost in the mass graves, lost in the bombed and burned out hospitals; there are thousands buried under the rubble, there are thousands missing. I’m not sure why I’m bothering to write anything, honestly. Today I watched a video of a surgeon who had to operate on his own child without anaesthesia; his child died from the pain. His grief is seared into my heart. Every day there is a new unbearable. Every day our collective humanity, if one could be so delirious as to believe in it still, diminishes; what’s left of it can be found in those calling for a ceasefire without qualification, in those taking action wherever and however they can to force a political resolution; it can be found in anti-Zionist Jews braving an antisemitic and Zionist West that has no investment whatsoever in Jewish wellbeing (as its indulgence with resurgent Nazism and white supremacist groups over the past decade shows, an indulgence shown by Israel as well for that matter) and most of all, in Palestinians, who continue to resist, to show up for each other in the hell made of their land and their lives, and who continue to hold a mirror up to death, showing us our own horrific face.

Western governments still haven’t called for a ceasefire.

The people have, the governments have not.

This will be remembered. This is the moment the lie of democracy was revealed.

More than simply refusing to call for a ceasefire, US officials are, like their Israeli counterparts, actively lying about what’s occurring. Here is NSC John Kirby laughably asserting that “Israel doesn’t want to wipe Gaza off the map” intercut with footage of Israeli officials saying precisely that. If you would like a full list of genocidal rhetoric they’ve used—in addition to their stated policy of starving 2.3 million people to death, denying them food and water and fuel and electricity at the onset of winter—you can peruse this list on Dr Norman Finkelstein’s page.

One of the many things that has been haunting me of late is the realisation that the dominant discourse online for the past few weeks has been around the definition of “genocide”, whether Israel should be allowed to bomb hospitals (which it continues to do regardless); the phrase “from the river to the sea” and whether it’s secretly code for genocide and how unsafe that makes some Jewish people feel, and even more broadly, how acceptable it is to protest for Palestine at all because this makes said minority feel uneasy. All while thousands are murdered in the street, in their homes, in their beds, while sheltering in hospitals, or UN schools, or churches. I repeat: the average age of those murdered is five. My days are filled with dead children. My nights are filled with dead children. And still, the debates continue.

I’m not immune from it. I have articulated it before, the way these debates drain us of energy while the mass murder continues; I’ve tried even to get in the way of it, to repeat the demand—ceasefire now, end the occupation, abolish apartheid, free everyone—to enact, in short, the same refusal to engage that our political and media establishment have shown this past month in order to further enable this genocide. And still, inevitably, the same talking points, the same sick rhetoric is regurgitated across the digital mourning field and I find myself trying again. Another way of saying stop killing them. Another demented, hopeless attempt to make you care. Still, I try; I can’t do any less while my Palestinian brothers and sisters are fighting for their lives. The thing is, I sometimes take for granted how much knowledge I have, and though I have been without the grace and capacity to educate or indulge in debate this past month, watching my people be slaughtered—and yes, I count all Arabs as my people—watching my communities, my faith, my language once again demonised to the point of justifying genocide… here at least, I can address some of the hysterical racism I’ve seen given endless license.

Apartheid

Let’s start with apartheid, because this is the beginning and end of the nightmare and some people still refuse to reckon with this reality. I’ve said before and I’ll say again that apartheid is an atrocity machine; it can only generate atrocities. The onus of responsibility here is the same as everywhere else: it lies with the powerful, with the people maintaining the atrocity machine, not those resisting it, regardless of their methods. The modern myth-making of democracy as an inherent good has deluded a great many people; this is why you hear repeated ad nauseam that Israel is “the only democracy in the Middle East” as if a democratic system—which does not extend to Palestinians, of course—cannot perpetuate mass inequities and injustice. The United States is the bloodiest, most militant and violent nation in the world, constantly engaged in catastrophic warfare and war crimes, but its myth-making shield is that it is “the leader of the free (meaning democratic) world”. As if we haven’t seen, over and over again, how a majority of people can be swayed to support extraordinary evils like war, slavery, and apartheid.

Here is Israeli human rights organisation B’Tselem explaining why Israel is an apartheid state:

I urge you to explore their work in full. Here is the Human Rights Watch report—this is from 2021—articulating why Israel is an apartheid state: “For the past 54 years, Israeli authorities have facilitated the transfer of Jewish Israelis to the Occupied Palestinian Territory and granted them a superior status under the law as compared to Palestinians living in the same territory when it comes to civil rights, access to land, and freedom to move, build, and confer residency rights to close relatives. While Palestinians have a limited degree of self-rule in parts of the OPT, Israel retains primary control over borders, airspace, the movement of people and goods, security, and the registry of the entire population, which in turn dictates such matters as legal status and eligibility to receive identity cards.” I urge you to read their full report.

Last year, Amnesty International released its own 300-page report detailing the many ways Israel meets the definition of apartheid under international law.

Of course, Israeli officials and Zionists everywhere are now proclaiming all human rights organisations—from the World Health Organisation to Doctors Without Borders to the Red Cross to even the United Nations itself—are actually in league with Hamas, so, again, in the face of this fanatical farce, I’m not sure why I’m bothering to provide links and facts. Perhaps simply to save my own sanity, perhaps for posterity. I don’t know. The list of lies coming from official Israeli channels and spokespeople is just staggering. Here’s a small taste.

Human Shields

There is no line I despise more than the abhorrent racist Israeli PR spin on civilian casualties as “human shields”. First, let’s be clear that a “human shield” has a specific meaning wherein someone is hiding behind an innocent civilian in order to render a legitimate military target immune. This is not how the term is used in mainstream discourse, and there’s a reason for that—there is no evidence whatsoever that Hamas or Palestinians use people in this way. Human Rights Watch has investigated this numerous times and never found it to be true. Instead, this phrase is applied broadly to all civilian deaths caused by indiscriminate Israeli bombings. What you will hear is, “they’re embedded in civilian infrastructure”. What that means is: they live among their people in a densely inhabited concentration camp from which there is no escape. There is no legal, ethical, or moral justification for slaughtering innocent people simply because you can’t find where the enemy combatant is—this is and has always been a sick collective punishment that adheres to Israel’s grotesque description of population control as “mowing the grass”. That’s what they call mass murdering Palestinian children. Mowing the grass. Here is a thread from the former director of the Middle East and North African division of Human Rights Watch that demonstrates the pervasiveness of this “human shield” lie, how it has been used by Israel to justify its massacres, and what’s more, the numerous instances of Israeli soldiers engaging in the practice of using Palestinian people as human shields.

I’m going to say that again: Israeli soldiers have used Palestinians as human shields numerous times. Here’s a report from B’Tselem detailing the extensive use of Palestinians are human shields by Israel going back to 1967.

Here’s a video from Breaking the Silence, an Israeli group of veterans who are dedicated to highlighting the many abuses and injustices the apartheid state tries to cover up - in the video a former soldier describes the common practice of using the neighbours of their target as human shields. As if it’s not enough that there is no basis whatsoever for the claims of Palestinians doing this abhorrent practice, there is a staggering amount of documented evidence, recorded testimonies, and footage of Israelis doing this exact thing.

Moreover, Human Rights Watch has noted that “Israel has military bases, weapons, facilities all over civilian areas in the country, as documented during the Lebanon war. Soldiers are everywhere in uniform. By Israel's faulty logic in Gaza, all of these areas are legitimate targets of attack.” So, to recap: there is nothing unusual in soldiers living among civilians and with their families, there is no evidence that Hamas or any Palestinians engage in this activity, and there is ample evidence that Israeli forces do. I want you to really sit with this and ask yourself why you’re comfortable excusing the mass murder of over 6,000 children and up to 20,000 Palestinians using this blatantly racist rhetoric.

I grew up seeing this racist line used over and over again, often accompanied by a ghastly cartoon showing an Arab man hiding behind a baby. Or, as in this Washington Post cartoon published two weeks ago, showing him strapped with babies all over him like bombs.

This cartoon was done by two-time Pulitzer winner Michael Ramirez who has a storied career of racism lauded by the establishment. The message is clear: children and women are weapons, and if they must be killed, then the blame belongs to the Arab man and not the Israeli soldiers pulling the trigger and killing everyone. What has always wounded me about this depiction is the knowledge that no amount of children and women has ever worked to stop Israel from slaughtering Palestinians; the most obvious part of this lie is that Arabs have never counted as human, let alone shield. It is incomprehensibly vile that this racist and deceitful rhetoric is given the broadest platforms in the West to justify the continued murder of Arab civilians, despite the very well documented facts.

I can’t tell you how depressing and demoralising it is that people swallow this whole, even today, just as they swallowed the hysterically racist stories of Hamas soldiers engaging in mass rape (even of dead bodies!), beheading babies, and putting babies in ovens. Not a single claim of which has been substantiated and yet, it continues to be repeated. The project of Orientalism is thoroughly embedded in Western culture, the demonisation of the Arab too firmly established, such that even the most lurid and obviously absurd stories—the kind you would roll your eyes at in a shitty fan fiction, are given credence and authority by Western media.

Hostages

Generally, in response to the growing demand from millions around the world calling for a ceasefire and end to apartheid, racists pop up saying “free the hostages!” Israel’s propaganda machine has been in overdrive with the message “Bring them home”; they use this explicitly to justify their crimes against humanity, including denying food, water, fuel, medicine and electricity to the 2.3 million people trapped in Gaza. It’s all only until the hostages are freed, we’re told. Once again, the blame for their mass murder of thousands is put upon Hamas. What’s missing from this narrative is that Hamas has had a deal on the table for a prisoner exchange from the outset, and that Israel refused it.

Every day that Israel has bombarded Gaza, destroying over a dozens hospitals, maliciously bombing universities and schools and apartment blocks, every day of mass murder has not been necessary. What’s missing from this narrative is that their indiscriminate bombing and mass starvation of Gaza also imperils the hostages: at least 60 have been killed in the onslaught. Israeli families of hostages have been begging their government to stop, to no avail. “Everyone for Everyone” is their humane call, and it has been refused.

Why is Hamas asking for a hostage exchange? Israel had over 5,000 Palestinians imprisoned before October 7th—they have since doubled that number in a mass wave of abductions—including 1200 who were being held without charge, without trial, many of whom are children. This arbitrary imprisonment is called “administrative detention” and it’s ramped up recently in the ongoing Israeli attacks on Palestinian neighbourhoods like Sheikh Jarrah, trying to expel Palestinians from their homes. Now the number of Palestinians held in this extreme detention is over 2,200 and there is widely reported abuse, as this testimony shows:

“Then they came in and started beating people, several rooms at once, with their hands, feet and batons, including metal ones. They unleashed their dogs on us. They beat a prisoner who has diabetes and takes three injections a day. He was throwing up so much blood … we were worried sick for two hours that he would be martyred from the amount of blood that he was throwing up.”

Since 1967, Israel has imprisoned around 1 million Palestinians, roughly half the population. They are routinely abused, and children are deliberately targeted, often taken from their homes in the night by the military. They are threatened, beaten, and sexually assaulted. Palestinians who are arrested face a military court, not a civilian court, and are judged by Israeli soldiers. There is a 99% conviction rate. That there are one set of laws for Palestinians and one for Israelis further demonstrates that this is an apartheid system. Compare and contrast this systematic brutality with the reported kindness and humane treatment showed by Hamas to their hostages as revealed by the few who have been released so far.

All of this is not to say “it’s okay that Hamas did this”, it’s to contextualise what they did and why—it is not barbarity for the sake of barbarity, it is not mindless, and it is not an example of human shielding or justification for the murder of 20,000 people and the brutalisation and mass starvation of over two million. The reality is that Israel routinely abducts and holds hostage Palestinians, and they, alongside those held by Hamas, must all be released.

Condemnation

I have had, as you will note from my other posts on this subject, a fixation on language, particularly on repeated rhetoric that has no basis in fact, and relies on its repetition by officious sources to have any credence, like “Israel has a right to defend itself” (which is not true in Occupied territory) or the insistence on condemnation for Hamas that is never extended to Israel no matter how egregious its crimes against humanity, no matter that they’ve slaughtered several thousand children and traumatised millions. This fixation of mine is because I am a poet, I’m a student of language first and foremost, attendant always to its uses and misuses. I return often to Joseph Brodsky’s insistence that we “look at the language”, as related here:

One of my teachers at Columbia was Joseph Brodsky...and he said 'look,' he said, 'you Americans, you are so naïve. You think evil is going to come into your houses wearing big black boots. It doesn’t come like that. Look at the language. It begins in the language.'" - Marie Howe

None of this is trivial. The militant refusal of Western governments to condemn Israel is mirrored by the demand that everyone, particularly any Arab—forever suspect in their eyes—begin their advocacy for equality and justice in Palestine by condemning Hamas. This tactic reasserts from the outset that the person being spoken is unreliable and needs to qualify that they are not terrorists: it is undeniably racist. If you do participate in this ritual of condemnation, what typically follows, as far as headlines and sound bites go, is ‘X condemns Hamas’ being emphasised and used as tacit support for the continued illegal occupation and onslaught by Israel on Palestinians. Which is why I recently said that I refuse to condemn Hamas, that I won’t do so until there is condemnation of Israel, and that instead, in line with our political leaders’ soft “urging” of Israel to abide by international law and practice “restraint” in its collective punishment, I will echo those calls to Hamas. If you have a problem with that, consider why. More personally, on the subject of atrocities, I align myself with Dr Norman Finkelstein’s position here, and as well on the notion of violent resistance being “pointless” or responsible for the scale of revenge.

These examples of officious language, to me, are more important than the many gross examples of Israelis dehumanising Palestinians, calling them “little snakes” or likening them to grass that needs to be cut, or “human animals”, precisely because they are so common place and are used so often to bludgeon advocacy. From the lie that Israel has a right to defend itself to constantly referring to Hamas attacks as “unjustifiable” atrocities while reporting Israeli attacks in anodyne language or outright justifying them; from the false claim of human shields to excuse inexcusable mass murder in urban warfare to the refusal to acknowledge the unjust imprisonment of Palestinians, all of this paves the way to that uglier, more blatant dehumanisation which has resulted in the genocide we see unfolding before us every day.

Conclusion

In the time it took me to write this, dozens of Palestinian children were murdered.

There is only one humane response to this situation:

Ceasefire now.

End the occupation.

Abolish apartheid.

Free everyone.

Salaam,
Omar

P.S I normally only allow paid subscribers to comment on my posts, but this once I’m going to leave it open, at least for a bit, because I’m curious to know how many people were aware of the information I’ve presented here. Have you seen any of it discussed on mainstream TV? Let me know.