We are encouraged, and encourage our children, to remember the horrors of the Holocaust. We have pictures of mass graves, full of skeletal bodies, in schoolbooks to force us to look and actually see the human cost of what was done, not just abstract numbers in a history book. My mother says she remembers as early as her schooling in the 60s that they were shown footage from the camp liberations ; it was important to look at the horror head on. We are constantly bombarded with the imagery of that genocide, quite rightly, to instil in us a disgust at what was done, a fear that it could happen again and a resolve that it never should. Its happening again. Let no one tell you that accusations of Genocide are hyperbolic or Anti-Semitic. Article II of the Genocide Convention defines the international crime of genocide as any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group such as: (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; Instead of being forced to look at this horror, we are told is in an acceptable side-effect of a two-way conflict. Debate on the topic is stifled by both sides should find peace smokescreen. In America Rihanna couldnt even tweet #freepalestine without having to delete it and pretend it was an accident. Journalists are threatened if they say a word wrong by Israelis who drink beer and cheer as their military send rockets to rend innocent children apart. It sounds hyperbolic, but all of the media is pretty much complicit in these crimes as they are all forced to portray the events as an equal conflict, a fiction of a beleaguered Israel, reluctantly forced to defend its citizens. I was going to include a link. To pictures from Gaza. But searching through them I literally could not bring myself to use them to make statement of facebook of all things. I felt sick to my stomach. But I believe that it is important to look and to see. Its not emotional manipulation. Its not guilt-tripping. Any more than understanding the Holocaust is. It is important to look at these bodies, of men, women and children, and to know what is happening. So Id ask you to, hard as it might be, not to scroll past them on twitter or on newsfeeds. Look at them. Whether you can say you still think it is a fair conflict after that is up to you. And if you do feel it is wrong, then its time all that education of horror was put to use; say never again.
Posted on: Mon, 21 Jul 2014 15:38:38 +0000