The tireless cry of the citizens is no small thing. Because, from time to time, the news about Gaza drops down the news ladder when other offensives and events of that regional war attract media attention. New enemies of Israel take their place in the news headlines
Snotty and dirty children prowl through the rubble, playing war with stick guns or sipping droplets of water that seep through the joints of the taps of tank trucks. Bloody babies sharing a hospital stretcher, prisoners of desperate crying. Men carrying bundles of piled up human remains, sometimes in a dramatic race towards the tomb. Veiled and mourning women, desperate, howling like wolves at the massacred remains of the fruits of their wombs. Adolescents and bodies of all ages in human torches, flailing uselessly in the fire of the bombs that will burn them.
This is the war that opens the news, at lunch and dinner time in the dining room of our homes. Before it was Ukraine, Yemen or Syria, then the savage terrorist attack in Tel Aviv. Today is Palestine. They are the occupied territories of Gaza where the genocidal man rages with greed without anything or anyone – not even his own people – being able to get him to release the prey.
The use of hunger and thirst as weapons of war, the prohibition of entry of humanitarian aid, the systematic murder of aid workers and journalists, the contempt for international norms and legislation are the coordinates of the massacres that we see daily on our televisions. while we share a table and tablecloth. Fortunately, the ban on journalists entering the massacred territory does not prevent the world from seeing what is happening, although much of the real information is stolen from us. Around the bowl of soup, it is inevitable that diners feel concerned and moved, that emotional responses about such atrocities occupy the very heart of the conversations. There is an easy resource but one that fills us with guilt: we can turn off the device or zap.
But Gaza returns to the dining room every day. Now with the hostilities in the West Bank, then with the punishments in Lebanon, later, towards Iran with the subsequent fear of a nuclear war. Day by day, the stain spreads like oil throughout the Middle East region like a warlike plague that, like a macabre curtain of mourning, is covering up the authentic genocide that is being perpetrated in Gaza. A total cleansing of beings, property and enclaves to erase the Palestinian people from the map. Humanitarian personnel with access to the area say that the pain of the attacked civil society is infinite and unprecedented. “I have never seen so much suffering anywhere in the world,” confessed Ana Tomás, from Doctors Without Borders, who has been to ground zero this summer.
Israelis can now cry out against their government, asking for the lives of the hostages in the hands of Hamas, which Netanyahu and his fanatical partners ignore. It doesn’t matter what the UN, the EU or the International Criminal Court says. The Tel Aviv government deaf ears to any reasoning. That the Right of Defense (which Netanyahu uses to avenge Hamas terrorist attacks) can only be applied between states and Gaza is not, that Israel has exceeded all the limits of this principle established by the international legal system, that the massacres of civilians and hospitals seriously violate international humanitarian law…. They are voices that cry out in the desert and dissolve like sugar in coffee. The fanaticism of the Israeli government has the support of the US and the complicit silence of the EU to continue its delirious drift. He has been looking for a justification like this for 30 years (since the Oslo Accords) to be able to usurp the lands of the strip from the Palestinians. He’s not going to let go of the grip now.
As lunch or dinner progresses, our discussions and passions over the tablecloth due to the Gaza catastrophe dissolve and subside. With the succession of days – the war has already been one year -, we are normalizing the suffering that television news continues to vomit and our sensitivity is also attenuated by the images of hungry, dead or injured children, in front of the victims. of the war of extermination.
“What can I do to not be a silent accomplice?” cried a woman from the audience attending a day of reflection organized in Vigo about Gaza, desperately crying out, drawing loud applause from the audience who obviously shared the same concern. Only the mobilization of democratic societies can force their elites to leave their comfort zone and bang their fists on the global concert table in favor of peace, as has been done on other occasions. All initiatives that prevent silence with their civic cries are welcome.
The spokesperson for Doctors Without Borders also offered a response to the questioning woman at that meeting and proposed individual and collective rebellion against the entities that finance the sale of weapons to Israel. He cited the recent report “Armed Banking” from the DELAS Center for Peace Studies, which points to 12 Spanish firms. “Of these financial entities, Santander and BBVA are the main banks that have financed the manufacturers of the weapons used by the Israeli army to commit the genocide in Gaza, with more than 2,442 and 1,500 million dollars, respectively. says the study.
Raising our voices, renouncing silence and shaking off indifference, by whatever method, are the powerful tools that we, the privileged common people who live in comfortable democracies, have. The different speakers of the aforementioned day of debate collaborated on this invitation, where Josep Borrell, the only spokesperson for the shameful internal division of the EU, called for a political agreement as the only solution for peace, while Abel Caballero, mayor of Vigo, He promised: “In this city we are not going to be silent.”
And the tireless cry of the citizens is no small thing. Because, from time to time, the news about Gaza drops down the news ladder when other offensives and events of that regional war attract media attention. New enemies of Israel take their place in the news headlines. Meanwhile, in the living room, we have already changed the conversation and are about to finish lunch. The platter with the carcass of the roast chicken is removed from the table to take its place with the offal in the kitchen. “While you’re going, bring dessert. There is rice pudding and fruit in the refrigerator,” you hear them say.
#Corpses #tablecloth
