OPINION | PALESTINE | MEDIA

SILENCE

4000 tons of explosives were dropped on residential neighborhoods in Gaza. While this is happening, the West enjoys a blanket media blackout about such atrocities.

Oct. 12½, 2023

4000 tons of explosives were dropped on residential neighborhoods in Gaza. My feed today was full of pictures of shattered children, families, and homes. While this is happening, the West enjoys a blanket media blackout about such atrocities. The only lives that matter to them are Israeli lives, and they will even propagate horrific tales of Hamas atrocities with little evidence, if any. The purpose is clear — manufactured “atrocities” are needed to inflame people enough that they would support the ongoing genocide in Gaza. It is a genocide. No movement, no electricity, no water, and the bombing of hospitals, ambulances, and reporters. No one in Gaza is safe.

“Open your mouth for the mute, for the rights of all who are destitute. Open your mouth, judge righteously, defend the rights of the poor and needy.”

– Proverbs 31:8–9

Silence. That’s what the perpetrators of this genocide want from us. Protests supporting Palestine are banned in France and Germany, and in the UK the Palestinian flag is outlawed. Constitutional rights of free expression are out the window in countries that consider themselves ‘democracies’.

Silence. That’s what the Israeli trolls are attempting to do to us who do speak out for Palestine. I received more troll posts on my pages today than the entire year previous. Most were nasty, accusing me and others sharing my posts of the vilest things, making threats. The ones I reported, LinkedIn did NOTHING about. So, I delete, and block, and delete, and block.

The racist tropes resonate — “barbaric”, “uncivilized”, “savage” … epithets that historically preceded mass genocide of the indigenous peoples of Africa, America, and other colonized lands. It is not only the Israelis that propagate these — but many Europeans and Americans, governments and citizens alike. I have never seen so much hatred focused on us simply because of our Palestinian identity.

Silence blankets Ramallah at this time, except for the buzz of Israeli planes overhead.

But my voice will not be silenced!

With love from Palestine,

© Ramsey Hanhan, 2023