Managing Editor Dhanveer Gill is a two-year member of the Wildcat Chronicle who often writes opinion articles. The views expressed in this piece are his own.
Certain topics discussed in this article may be harmful or uncomfortable to readers and include descriptions of violence.
Ramadan began earlier this week, and for many Muslims, what is supposed to be a month of fasting and prayer is overshadowed by the ongoing invasion of Gaza that takes the lives of thousands each month.
Shortly after the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks perpetrated by Hamas, a militant group in control of Gaza which killed about 1,200 that day, Israel launched a full-scale invasion on Palestine that has resulted in an uncountable number of deaths and injuries onto a mostly innocent population in the name of vengeance, which has split Americans into three factions: those who support Israel, those who support Palestine, and those who are silent on the matter.
All of a sudden it has somehow become morally acceptable to “not have a stance” on possibly the largest humanitarian crisis since the invasion of Ukraine, and in that, the reality of these neutral conclusions made by those who are ignorant in the face of genocide highlight the uncomfortable idea that the moment non-white people are dying, genocide becomes partisan to the rest of the world. Just look at the diction people use on the situation: terms like “war” and “conflict,” which cover up the true magnitude of the ongoing pain and suffering. Putin intentionally bombing hospitals, schools, and apartment complexes was well understood by the international community as ethnic cleansing, but Netanyahu gets the benefit of the doubt when he commits the same atrocities. How many bodies will it take for the world to realize what the situation in Palestine is really like? 30,000? 100,000? A million? To some Americans and Israeli supporters, 12,300 dead children are not enough to classify the nightmare in Gaza as genocide.
In fact, the American support that Israel receives each month is another reminder of the American government’s focus on establishing military connections as opposed to fulfilling the role of the premier peacekeeping force of the world. The Biden administration has repeatedly referred to the crisis as “heartbreaking” but continues to fund and arm the Israeli advances into southern Gaza and Rafah. Regardless of the Hamas presence in Gaza, the deliberate and ruthless slaughter of non-partisan civilians can not be tolerated by the international community, yet that is exactly what is happening. To be absolutely clear: setting up “evacuation routes” and then proceeding to bomb them does not fall under any commonly understood idea of what “self-defense” looks like. Amputation of limbs without anesthesia is not “self-defense.” Gunning down children is not “self-defense.”
Being silent on Gaza now is exactly the same as being silent on the Holocaust, in which Hitler massacred millions of Jewish people during the 1940s. Americans are posed with a question: are they seeing history repeat itself right in front of their television screens? The answer seems to be painstakingly obvious, but people are turning a blind eye as they continue to ignore the tens of thousands of dead civilians. Make no mistake: Israel is peddling a false notion to the world that the civilians in Gaza are terrorists based on their faith and location, and that kind of backward ideology has no place in the modern world, especially as such hateful ideas are currently the casus belli against an entire nation. Hamas does not represent the Muslims in Gaza, they only serve to represent themselves, and asking Palestine supporters to condemn Hamas makes a dangerous assumption that the thousands of dead innocents were supporters of a regime they had no control over. Gaza has been an open-air prison for years, and now its residents are paying the ultimate price for the actions of a hostile Israeli government that made life extraordinarily difficult in a way that Americans cannot understand.
In this matter, Hamas would have never gained power if Israel treated the Palestinian population with some ounce of respect and humanity, and gave them the freedom to make their own decisions, live in the way they please, and achieve the “two-state solution” that American politicians have been attempting to manifest for over 50 years. An unthinkable amount of necessary bloodshed has resulted from Israel’s cruel treatment of a peaceful population, so it is no wonder that eventually after decades of occupation, persecution, and harassment, the pressure in the Israel-Palestine was to burst.
This is a reminder to the world that it is watching a genocide unfold right in front of its eyes, and it is sitting idly by.
