The airstrikes in Gaza may cease, but the moral reckoning is only beginning, writes Colin Sheridan [photo credit: Getty Images]
Lists allow us to neatly arrange our lives. We especially love them in January as they give oxygen to the belief that we are capable of change. That the world – despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary – is a fine place, worth fighting for. Lists allow us to account for what has passed and what we hope will manifest itself in the future.
Such anthologies are usually positive, but we are living in extraordinary times, and the genocide in Palestine – regardless of any ceasefire — must remain at the forefront of our collective consciousness if we are ever to acknowledge our own quiet complicity and atone for our apathy.
After 14 months of accelerated slaughter, Palestinians deserve their dignity and humanity to be restored.
The airstrikes may cease, but the moral reckoning is only beginning.
The following is an A to Z of a genocide, which itself is an absurd conceit, but sadly indicative of a crumbling moral malaise we must acknowledge before we try to recover whatever it is we lost.
Aliyah: “Making Aliyah” refers to the process of obtaining citizenship by moving to the occupying state of Israel. Many that evoke it have donned the uniform of the Israeli military as if it were a cloak allowing them to commit war crimes, all in the name of an assumed birthright.
Aliyah, in that context, has proven to be nothing more than a tool of propaganda. A call to arms, badly disguised as a casual act of fealty. Those who pulled the trigger yesterday, who operated the drones and stood idly by as babies screamed for their dead mothers, it is they who are Aliyah’s children.
Better to be right than first: On October 11 2023, the Independent ran the front page: “Special Dispatch — HORROR ON THE FRONT LINE — they decapitated women and children,” it read, “We saw dead babies,” an Israeli major claims. “The bodies are hidden so it’s impossible to verify.”
It was sensational, grim, and, by any moral or journalistic standard, reprehensible. The only factual statement was the “impossible to verify” line. So impossible, it was never verified.
The damage was done, however, and those that followed their lead in publishing unproven stories of rape and child murder greased the wheels of the slaughter that followed in Gaza. In the wake of a potential ceasefire, watch the same vultures scramble to be the first to enter the Strip and peddle their war porn.
Subscribe Now and Listen to our Podcasts OnCide: Here is a brief, but not exhaustive list of all the “cides” inflicted upon the Palestinian people since October 7: Epistemicide. Ecocide. Ethnocide. Feticide. Facticide. Pedicide. Petracide. Liberticide. Menticide. Scholasticide/educide. Senicide/geronticide. Theriocide. Urbicice. Oh, and Genocide.
Dissent: Across the world, ordinary decent people have mobilised in incredible numbers to express solidarity with Palestine. Marches, encampments, cake sales on islands off the west of Ireland; every act undoubtedly matters to the people of Palestine, but they have affected the bottom line not nearly enough.
Dissent, true, effective dissent through boycott and strike action is needed for people in power to shift policy in relation to Palestine and censure Israel, with or without a ceasefire. Compassion matters, but money and power matter more.
Ethnic cleansing: In its simplest form, ethnic cleansing refers to a stronger party removing an ethnic group from its land and sometimes replacing them. You don’t even need to look at Gaza for evidence, just pay attention to the Occupied West Bank.
In November, Human Rights Watch issued a report accusing Israel of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Ethnic Cleansing was among the crimes listed. Equivocate all you want, our evening news has been a live broadcast of some of the worst things man can do to fellow man. Does a ceasefire suddenly negate these crimes?
Forced Starvation, not famine: Scholars have long argued that starvation has been deployed as a weapon of war by colonial powers to control populations and forcibly acquire land.
This colonisation was driven by an “entitlement approach” and the belief that Indigenous populations are inferior to the lives of the coloniser. Again, politicians and bureaucrats will argue whether the forced starvation of Palestinians meets a certain criterion, like their hunger should be means tested. As they argued, Palestinians were halfway through their second winter of weaponised hunger. Their stomachs are shrinking.
Genocide: In November, a UN Special Committee published a report citing Israel’s warfare in Gaza being consistent with the characteristics of genocide. In arguing their case to the ICJ thirteen months ago, South Africa drew on a comprehensive database which documented 500 statements that embodied Israeli’s intention to commit genocide. Just think of everything that has been said and done since.
Yet, despite the embarrassment of an embassy closure and being lauded as a champion of the underdog, countries like Ireland still trade with Israel. There is rhetoric, and then there is action. Discontinuing trade is action. A ceasefire does not change what has passed Judge Ireland on that.
Haaretz: How telling that an Israeli newspaper has been more critical of Benjamin Netanyahu and his war cabinet than pretty much all of what constitutes mainstream media in the English-speaking world, despite it continuing to champion a sanitised, palatable form of liberal Zionism. Social disquiet in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem amongst Israelis is widespread but has much more to do with the inconvenience of war and then the mass slaughter of their fellow Semites. Israel is an extremely sick society. The genocide may stop, but the hateful symptoms fester.
Ireland: Jimmy Rabbitte’s proclamation in The Commitments that the “Irish are the blacks of Europe” was a witty, if relatively accurate take on why the country so naturally sympathises with the cause of persecuted peoples.
The Irish government has evoked this sense countless times in its public pronouncements of support for Palestine, but, behind closed doors, has refused to act in any meaningful way to sanction Israel, distance itself from the US, and defy the EU policy of standing unquestionably behind Netanyahu. Israel closing its embassy was not of Irelands’ doing. That the Irish government allowed its reputation to be enhanced by the petulant act of a spoiled genocidal state only amplifies our inaction.
Journalists: While Israel’s denial of entry into Gaza of international media is just another instrument of genocide, you’d have to wonder what good — if any — foreign press would’ve done. We have the unedited testimonies of surgeons, nurses, UN experts, and – crucially — Palestinians — or fifteen months and still nothing has stopped the slaughter.
Palestinian journalists have reported with great clarity, and, instead of protecting them, their press vests have made them targets. When Israel finally reduces the last of Gaza to rubble, foreign media will of course enter and be paralysed in shock by what they find. You’d have to wonder why. Palestinians never needed others to tell the world, they were already doing it.
Kamala Harris: We do not know what horrors Donald Trump will inflict upon Palestinians under his administration, what we do know is Kamala Harris had an opportunity to redeem her own complicity but chose not to. More than that, she doubled down by refusing to listen to Palestinian voices, student protestors, even pro-Palestinian Jewish groups who were screaming to be heard during her campaign. It was not the only reason she lost, but will forever be the most damning.
Lebanon: When the tentative ceasefire was signed in late November, Lebanon’s Health ministry had reported almost 4,000 people killed by Israeli attacks since October 2023. Remember: foreign press, international peacekeepers, diplomats — they were all present in Lebanon.
Israel invaded, bombed and killed with impunity anyway. Beirut was under siege for two months. Much of the south has become inhabitable, despite tens of thousands of displaced people returning in harsh winter weather.
A new President and Prime Minister will once again give Lebanese people hope, but when you live beside a psychopath, paranoia is an obvious — if very unhealthy — state of mind.
Men: With good reason, we cite the murder of Palestinian women and children as a measure of Israel’s indiscriminate brutality, but in doing so, we do no justice to the Palestinian men who have been largely forgotten. The “military age male” myth has long been promulgated by the Israeli military, and they have used it to humiliate, and target all men, regardless of their perceived threat.
This happened long before October 7. Freedom of movement, denial of basic human rights, harassment and imprisonment are omnipresent in the lives of Palestinian men in Gaza and the occupied territories. Images of them being rounded up, stripped, blindfolded, even tortured, have regularly filled our screens. We should never omit them from our outrage.
Nothing will ever be the same: For some, what is happening in Palestine changes nothing. Their daily lives continue, uninterrupted. For many others, it has become a defining moment in our moral journey. In the same way, the global pandemic impacted friendships, divided families and educated the previously ignorant, Palestine is doing the same. What is more important than the despair we are feeling now is the consistency of that caring once the visible violence stops.
Othering: In Black Skin, White Masks, Frantz Fanon tells the story of being on a train when a young white boy suddenly points at him and says to his mother, “Look, a Negro!” The boy tells his mother he is frightened by Fanon, which is indicative of the white gaze which views Fanon’s Blackness as a threat.
Arabs have suffered in a very similar way, especially in Europe and America, and it is little surprise, then, that their lives are considered lesser, dehumanised by Western warmongering in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya and elsewhere. The storytelling that emerged from those conflicts has consistently “othered” Arabs, from the most patronising Saturday Night Live sketch, to the casual orientalism of shows like Homeland. It normalises the supposed violence of their lives. If we see enough of it, we expect it for them.
Proportional response: If Israel’s callous pager attack on Hezbollah members taught us anything, it was how bespoke Israeli military attacks on supposed targets can be, despite the number of innocent bystanders that were injured when those detonations occurred.
Precision strikes are something Israel is definitely capable of, yet, they deliberately go the other direction. Their use of dumb bombs as opposed to smart bombs means they will justify killing one hundred civilians for one military target. Again, it is through our governments — through trading with and arming them — that let this happen.
Quadcopter: Such an absurd conceit, something from Blade Runner, or Robocop. An unmanned flying machine with rotors, that tracks human beings down and kills them. Just another instrument of war Israel has introduced to the world. The next time you go for a walk on the beach, and you spy a drone above you, imagine it tracking you and firing till your arms are ripped from their sockets. The things we take for granted. This is the reality in Gaza.
Racism: Listening to world leaders dance around the topic, it’s hard to know what else to call their deliberate avoidance of — first — calling this for what it is, and second, doing everything in their power to stop it. If they were white, would this be happening?
Solution, the two-state solution: When Ireland eventually recognised Palestinian statehood in June, it reaffirmed its belief that a two-state solution was the only practical and peaceful way forward. In reality, that solution is an insult to most Palestinians, as they have never known an Israel that would countenance such an outcome. Repeating it over and over only makes Ireland look compliant to an international order that has long been compromised. Maybe it’s time we asked the Palestinians what they want?
Three hundred and fifty five: The number of rounds of ammunition that were reportedly fired into the car where six-year-old Hind Rajab was killed. She died after waiting hours to be rescued by paramedics as her family lay dead in a car around her. When the medics arrived, they too were killed. It was two weeks before all their decomposed bodies were recovered.
UEFA: according to the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI), Israel has killed at least 344 footballers since October 7 last year. That’s over 31 football teams. Despite this, Israel continues to take part in international football. UEFA, FIFA, the IOC are all complicit, too, as they cannot apply a hypocritical standard they’ve already set for themselves by banning Russia.
Veritas odium parit (truth breeds hatred): In December 2023, Israel targeted and killed Palestinian poet and academic Refaat Alareer. They have done the same to hundreds of journalists, many of whom have been deliberately assassinated along with their families.
They have libelled and discredited Francesca Albanese, UNRWA, the United Nations at large, and practically any public figure who has criticised Israel. Even little old compliant Ireland has been publicly called out for our supposed antisemitism. Defaming, even killing your critics is usually enough to ostracise yourself in the international community. Yet, here we are.
Where’s Daddy?: Earlier this year, Israeli publications +972 and Local Call exposed how the Israeli military uses an artificial intelligence program known as Lavender to develop a “kill list” in Gaza that includes as many as 37,000 Palestinians who were targeted for assassination.
A second AI system known as “Where’s Daddy?” tracks Palestinians with the intent of targeting them at home at night with their families. AI might help you writing emails you might ordinarily struggle with, but “Where’s Daddy” is its most evil, dystopian manifestation.
X, formerly known as Twitter: Despite its many, many pitfalls, X sadly remains the most democratic space for news and footage to emerge from Gaza and Palestine. This points to the failure of mainstream media in the US and UK especially. It has also led to widespread disinformation and hate, including genocide denial and antisemitism. Far from perfect, for many of us, it is still the best we’ve got.
Yaroun: The Lebanese town of Yaroun was empty by the time the Israeli military invaded it in October, its residents forced to flee. Israel flattened it, anyway, destroying a centuries-old Christian church in the process.
With most of the south of Lebanon decimated, ask yourself — where do these children now go to school? Where do they sleep? Who feeds them? What is their future? Who rebuilds it? Will there be reparations? Do we even care at this point? It’s almost two months since a ceasefire in Lebanon, and most families have still have not been allowed home to bury their dead.
Zone of interest: Arguably the most tragic philosophical consequence of Israel’s genocidal campaign is the parallels between what is happening in Gaza, and the fate millions of Jews suffered during the Holocaust.
These comparisons are fraught with contention, but the fact that Tel Aviv still parties, that pilgrims still flock — unbothered — to the Wailing Wall, all stinks of a society comfortable in a Zone of Interest where it continues to proudly function while ignoring the screams of tortured children just over the barbed wire fence. One can only hope that an end eventually comes to the slaughter, but the reckoning of what has been — what continues to be — will be long in the offing.
Colin Sheridan is a writer based in Dublin. He has written extensively on Palestine and Lebanon for The Irish Examiner. As a retired military officer with over 25 years experience in the Irish Defence Forces, he has extensive deployment experience as a peacekeeper with the United Nations, having lived and worked in the former Yugoslavia, West Africa, Afghanistan, Lebanon and occupied Palestine.
Follow Colin on X: @colinivan
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Opinions expressed in this article remain those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The New Arab, its editorial board or staff.