Maryam Namazie

Maryam Namazie is a political activist, campaigner and blogger

By all means, take a stand

On Sunday, whilst I was at the cinema with my seven year old, 9 children were killed by the Israeli government’s relentless attacks on Gaza; 90 Palestinians and three Israelis have been killed since Wednesday.

The thought of one child dead – one just like mine – leaves me insane with rage.

And whilst human beings are murdered in broad daylight and cold blood, including entire families being wiped out, there are those despicables who “take a stand” with the murderous Israeli government on the one hand or the  murderous Hamas on the other. It’s like those who side with either the US government on the one hand or the Islamic regime of Iran and the Asad regime on the other rather than siding with real live human beings.

How people can be duped into blindly supporting and excusing governments that kill and murder at will whilst ignoring their real interests and how their lives and interests are intrinsically linked with  people who are often labelled ‘the enemy’ never ceases to astonish me.

By all means, take a stand. You are not human if you don’t feel the need to do so. But why not take it on behalf of the Israeli and Palestinian people and not those who are committing the murders…

Not rocket science but it does feel like it sometimes.

Comments

17 responses to “By all means, take a stand”

  1. Tewks Avatar
    Tewks

    Kevin doesn’t seem to know that Israel did cede land. It got out of Gaza. The inhabitants could have lived in peace with Israel but they chose a government that believed in war, which is why they are getting it.

    Look at it like this – if you are a small child in the playground, it is not a good idea to attack a bigger person. Someone should tell this simple point to the Gazans.

    Reply
    1. homonym Avatar
      homonym

      Because might makes right.

      Reply
  2. geocatherder Avatar
    geocatherder

    Take two populations who hate each other. Get some religious righteousness to get the ball rolling on either side. Get some blood on everybody’s hands, so there’s no end of hating… and viola! You have the situation in the Middle East. It doesn’t matter who shot today’s rockets, or yesterday’s or the day before’s… there’s always some prior act now to justify today’s killings on either side. This can either go on forever in a collective act of slow suicide, or it can end in a big conflagration. I don’t see peace in the cards. There’s too much hatred.

    (And the number of Christians who do want it to end in a big conflagration frightens me.)

    Reply
    1. geocatherder Avatar
      geocatherder

      That was supposed to be “voila”, not “viola”. Clearly spelling is a challenge sometimes…

      Reply
      1. Gvlgeologist, FCD Avatar
        Gvlgeologist, FCD

        Well, there are a lot of people around the world who are fiddling while the Middle East burns, so…

        Reply
  3. Kevin Avatar
    Kevin

    I’m not a supporter of either “side”, nor have I been for a while.

    My question is why don’t the Palestinians go somewhere else? Who in their right mind thinks that Gaza is livable? Who thinks that Israel is going to cede important land rights in exchange for peace? Who thinks that picking a different place to live might not be a better idea for one’s family?

    What percentage of Palestinians emigrate annually? Can they? Or are they ghettoized? If I was faced with a similar situation — I’m sorry, but I’m out of there. There is no such thing as sacred land. No such thing as “ancestral” land, either. Give me a passport, a ticket, and a job washing dishes somewhere else while I learn the language and make a peaceful entry into a new community.

    I understand that’s a solution that some would think is a concession to Israel. But let’s face it. Israel has the better guns and will for the foreseeable future. And 90% of the population of Gaza has never known peace. Why stay? What is this stubborn insistence on not looking at the situation realistically?

    Other countries need to open their borders. Frankly, I’d give them the entire state of Arizona. It’s not being used for much these days.

    (And here comes a comment that says I’m siding with the Israelis in 3…2…1).

    Reply
    1. N. Nescio Avatar
      N. Nescio

      You have any children, any family?

      How do you think you’d feel if any of them were killed under similar circumstances? Think you could just walk away?

      Reply
  4. Setár, genderqueer Elf-Sheriff of Atheism+ Avatar
    Setár, genderqueer Elf-Sheriff of Atheism+

    This isn’t a balanced situation. That much is blindingly obvious…but most people can’t seem to get their heads out of the mainstream media party line for a minute and go look at Gaza on Google Maps.

    Hamas’ actions are deplorable. But that doesn’t erase the 1.6 million people living in an effective prison camp, while the Israelis enjoy nigh-perpetual protection and comfort from North America thanks to the conversation here being ruled with an iron fist by Christian Dominionist rhetoric and cries of “anti-Semitism!” levied against anyone who opposes the state of Israel.

    Reply
    1. Tewks Avatar
      Tewks

      My point to Kevin also applies to Setar. Gaza is only a ‘prison camp’ because the people elected Hamas to make war on Israel. They could have had peace if they had chosen it.

      Reply
  5. Psychopomp Gecko Avatar
    Psychopomp Gecko

    It’s times like these, and I do mean this seriously, when someone should ask an important question about what a great savior figure for mankind would do.

    I’m talking, of course, about Superman. What would Superman do?

    Somehow, I doubt that there’s cause so noble he’d kill a bunch of kids or random people in general. In fact, he’d be pretty big on not killing at all.

    On the issue of Israel vs. Palestine, I side with Superman.

    Reply
  6. skaduskitai Avatar
    skaduskitai

    Thank you. I too side with the people trying to live a normal life instead of murdering other people out of misplaced ideology. Sure one could argue that Israel is merely defending itself since Hamas started this particular war. But Israel provoked it in their treatment of palestinians. And if Israel invades then it surely isn’t a defensive war anylonger.

    Reply
  7. Don Quijote Avatar
    Don Quijote

    Isn’t it the Israeli and Palistinian people that are committing the murders? My family fought in the Spanish civil war and WW2. In both cases they fought for freedom and the right cause as they saw it.

    Perhaps I’m being naive in this and somebody can show me where.

    Reply
  8. busterggi Avatar
    busterggi

    Hey, if it were up to me I’d evacuate Jerusalem & its surroundings and nuke it just so the various Abrahamic faiths wouldn’t have it to kill each other over any more.

    Of course they’d still kill each other over something else.

    Reply
    1. N. Nescio Avatar
      N. Nescio

      It’d be a shame to ruin such a beautiful city. Why not find a way to aerosolize bacon and just give the whole region a good spraying-down. Maybe a week stuck indoors might give everybody some time to think things over.

      Reply
  9. F Avatar
    F

    There are certainly people who take particular sides, then other people may take another side (or appear to) when arguing against unmitigated support for one of the sides.

    The only decent side, though, is the side of the non-bellicose and the innocent.

    Reply
  10. zoebrain Avatar
    zoebrain

    The Israeli prime minister’s office stated that 60 of the 703 rockets fired from Gaza before the conflict had fallen on Palestinian civilians.

    The IDF states that a total of 99 rockets that fired at Israel in the last four days have hit Gaza. Of 947 rockets fired, 546 hit somewhere in Israel, 302 were intercepted, 99 fell short.

    The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights who visited the site where a 4 year old boy was killed on Saturday said they believed that the explosion was caused by a Palestinian Qassam rocket. The IDF had by previous arrangement suspended its attack in that period because of the presence of the Eqyptian prime minister, but the rocket launches continued.

    We don’t know how many other Palestinians have been killed even before the Israeli attack by such “short rounds”.

    The tragic deaths of an entire family on Sunday were due to a malfunction in a guided weapon. It’s not just Hamas who has problems there.

    Finally, and most tragically, the figure of 9 children killed was only for Sunday, not a total.

    Reply
  11. bernardhurley Avatar
    bernardhurley

    I think there is a human tendency to see everything in terms of “taking sides” so that you either support the Israeli government of Hamas. It’s as if there is no other possibility. But anyone who spends more than a few moments thinking about is must surely see that this is not true. At least that is how it seems to me, but there seem to be a lot of people, and people in power who should really know better, who just don’t get it.

    Reply

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