-Essay-
BEIRUT — Scant signs of hope across this land that deserves a life to be lived. Nothing suggests that much of anyone or anything will survive the massacre that continues to extend from Gaza to the West Bank, now to southern Lebanon, Beirut suburbs and the Bekaa Valley.
We have exhausted all forms of patience, hope, denial, and stubbornness. We are no longer capable of doing anything but acknowledging our profound helplessness, resorting to wailing and grief, or shedding countless tears each time we survive a missile exploding above us, or when a bloody scene unfolds before our eyes.
We have reached the bottom of the ladder of humanity. No one cares about stopping this genocide that is being committed against us by a group of soldiers, criminals, ex-convicts and the nervously disturbed.
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Didn’t we see the first world (the West) hailing its leader, when he claimed that by killing us he was fighting barbarism and defending civilization!?
We resort to emotions to ease the burden of this hatred that has blown up our lives. So we hug our children, check their eyes and limbs, prepare delicious food and sweets for them, then continue our days with an ever more bitter taste, perhaps pausing to call our loved ones to reassure them that they are fine, that we are fine.
The broken voices on the phone may even help us escape from the corpses occupying our eyes, minds, TV screens and phones. We search with them for a short break away from the spaces of blood and destruction. We remember beautiful moments of the past, postponed projects and noisy lives, or write a post of solidarity on a social network, donate some money, or participate in a demonstration — or maybe we just sit in a corner dreaming of justice, security and peace. Or we just try to forget.
We follow our loved ones who live in the countries of the free world with democratic systems that protect freedom, equality and humanity, as they are afflicted, threatened and prosecuted on charges of debating “Israel’s right to defend itself,” even if this right costs the killing of more than 40,000 people, wounding many times more and wiping the map clean of an entire country.
We fear that one of them will be arrested for his love of Palestine, or because of the smell of Gaza’s chili peppers. He will be accused of terrorism or anti-Semitism…
What genocide?
You oppose genocide? So you are confusing Israel in its mission to liquidate the peoples of this region. You are confusing it as it erases entire families from the civil registry. You are obstructing its quest to cleanse the earth of a few children whose breaths, which they have not yet managed to catch, have polluted the air that enters the lungs of the innocent Israeli who has just survived the Holocaust!
And where is the Holocaust? It is miles and miles away from Al-Shifa, Al-Baptist, and Kamal Adwan hospitals, from the Gaza neighborhoods of Shujaiya, Khan Yunis, Deir al-Balah, Rafah, and the camps of Al-Bureij, Al-Nuseirat, and Jabalia, and the UNRWA schools.
Workers woke up early to build a homeland for themselves.
It’s there, where the Gazans were farmers cultivating the desert, and fishermen who loved the sea and earned their livelihood from its treasures, not to mention doctors, engineers, lawyers, poets, writers, artists, journalists, and educated people who were pouring knowledge through their veins — and workers who woke up early to build a homeland for themselves.
They are women who embroidered hopes, dreams, flowers, and birds on their dresses and the edges of their handkerchiefs, and children who played and joked and went to school and dreamed of gifts, toys, and butterflies like all the children of the world.
Colonizing worlds
Miles away from these simple and ordinary worlds, the white man was sitting on his throne, his belly swollen in front of him and another swollen bubble in his head that controlled his sick thinking… control of the world.
The white man who wants everything for himself, whose thirst for war is similar to what the pre-Islamic poet said, “And sometimes when we find none but our brother, we fight our brother.” This white man confiscated the nucleus of sciences and the first ideas from other peoples, then coveted human capabilities, so his fleets attacked them.
In Africa, he colonized its peoples in their homelands and shared their wealth, then he found that there was tempting wealth in other countries of this vast world, so he went to them and occupied countries and homelands. When the people revolted, he deluded them with independence: so he withdrew without leaving, placing a guard on every safe in it, dividing the maps, forming systems, establishing armies and military bases, devoting himself to impoverishing and starving them and feeding them with sedition, wars and coups. This way, no one in it would think of freedom.
Middle East garrison
Then the white man found the Middle East: a distant place, rich in nature and humanity, with a beautiful climate and a generous sea…
Do you want him to leave this paradise, and wealth behind?
He invaded it, then divided it, then separated the sections accordingly. When he was about to safely return to his bases, after successfully accomplishing the mission, he decided to plant a garrison that would continue to torment the region’s people and deprive them of life and the feeling of security. At the same time, that garrison was assigned to act as his agent.
Do you want him to leave this paradise, and leave all its wealth behind? How could he not claim his share? Wouldn’t he enjoy it alone, this bright and beautiful white man?
Their story, our story
From there, he began to implement his devilish plan. He encouraged his own communities back home to reject the Jewish people inciting hatred against them. They have no connection to the land. His own religious authority prohibited lending money, so he directed that profession at them, until they learned to love money. So people hated them.
They had prepared the land for them.
The propaganda grew and the idea itself grew too. The hatred expanded until it had a body, a personality and an entity called Nazism, which did its deed. Then after the Holocaust, those who arranged it all decided to smuggle the survivors onto our land. They would take the European man’s place once he withdrew. They had prepared the land for them.
What we see today is the continuation of this plan, which deteriorated for a moment, then rose again…
And whoever among us remains alive, let him tell our story.
