No to Collective Punishment Against Gaza - Opinion - Haaretz.com
One needn’t be a Gandhi or a particularly noble soul to be appalled by the pictures of the slaughter and atrocities in the south. The images of entire families that were murdered, of the corpses of young people strewn about the site of a nature party, of others with crying babies being led into captivity, of people shot in their cars and dead on the roadside.
As a Palestinian woman who sees and is sensitive to the injustices of the occupation and the terrible actions committed by the Israeli army against her people for years on a daily basis, and who writes about them in these pages, I know crimes when I see them and can say very clearly that they are morally unacceptable to me and I was horrified to witness them.
But I also see the context in which these atrocities occurred. I say this not in order to justify them, but to explain what most Israelis have refused to see for years and, as a result, now find themselves surprised and shocked. This is important now, because when there is what we call “quiet” here, no one is interested in talking about the Palestinians, and when there is no “quiet,” they want to flatten Gaza and everyone who lives there. This, unfortunately, is the Israeli emotional spectrum regarding Palestinians. And this circle needs to be broken.
Even horrifying crimes do not occur in a vacuum, but where there is fertile ground for them. The occupation is the root of all the evil and the root of the Palestinians’ despair. The inhuman, violent and brutal blockade of Gaza creates tremendous motivation for support of horrific actions like this one. A thousand or so Hamas militants committed atrocities.
But 99 percent of the time, it is the Israeli military forces that invade, bomb, kidnap, shoot and slaughter without sullying their hands. Palestinian civilians die next to the border fence and entire Palestinian families are killed in Gaza City’s Shujaiyeh neighborhood and Al-Shati refugee camp. As my Jewish friends would say to me after every successful operation in Gaza – It’s very sad, Hanin, but that’s war. And I say: No. There is morality in wartime too. And there must be, so that there can be life.
A Palestinian walks through the destruction by Israeli bombing in Gaza City on Wednesday.Credit: Fatima Shbair /AP
This article is being written under the most difficult circumstances I’ve endured since I started writing, and perhaps in my entire life. If being a Palestinian Israeli is a complex experience in normal times, it is almost impossible in these times. Because since the start of the war, I and 2 million more Arab citizens are seen as guilty. Because we are quiet, or scared, or because we dared to compare or because – and this is the worst – we talked about context and the occupation.
Palestinians look for survivors after an Israeli airstrike in Rafah refugee camp, southern Gaza Strip, Thursday.Credit: Hatem Ali /AP
Yes, it is scary for us to speak out right now. Not everyone is cut out to do so. But I feel it is my moral and universal duty, toward my people and toward this place I live in, where I have colleagues and friends whom I love and whose lives I worry about, not to keep quiet in light of the dehumanization of the residents of Gaza. I feel it is my duty to object to all the calls for revenge and for blind collective punishment: cutting off water and electricity, mass starvation of a civilian population, the total destruction of the heart of Gaza. None of these things is an appropriate response or a solution. These are war crimes.
A ball of fire erupts in Gaza City after an Israeli air strike on October 12, 2023Credit: MAHMUD HAMS - AFP
I admit I don’t know what the solution is, but Israel not only did nothing to offer Gazans a horizon of normal life under its military blockade, it did all it could to embitter their lives. Palestinians deserve justice and freedom, and with all my heart I want my people’s liberty not to be soaked in Israelis’ blood, and I dearly hope that there are a few Israelis left who feel the same way.