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Saturday. 11 November, 2023.
After weeks of heavy rain, slashing winds, and dark ominous skies come today: a lavishly brilliant sun breaks through the thicket of purplish gray clouds, patches of blue in the sky are beginning to appear; light spreads over the hills and fields; despite the gravity of late autumn the leaves hold on the branches, turning yellow and brown. An almost savage calm descends on the small hill towns and roads.
While the ticket control inspects my ticket I catch a glimpse through the train window of a small cemetery on a hill top overlooking the coast, sunlit and quiet, the gravestones whitewashed by the rain, the cypresses upright and lonely like the dead in their solitude. The Spanish poet Rafael Alberti:
Who are you that voicelessly call me
from afar with such a terrified thought
and silently pronounce my name
on the appalled and silent wind?
Who are you and what do you ask and
what do you cry and what is dying in such distant
sounds; who are you that with such hushed calling
wrench my bones from my skin?
—- Poem from Exile
I am on my way to the coastal city of La Spezia in Liguria to join a street demonstration in protest against the revolting genocide being committed on the Palestinians.
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Since the aftermath of 7 October when Hamas militants barraged into the border fences of Gaza Strip—the largest concentration camp in the world as described by Baruch Kimmerling a renowned sociologist at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem—and committed what they committed and Israel more than ever is firmly set to ethnically cleanse the Palestinians in front of the watching world without qualms in the fallacious and illegal claim to “self defence”, we are beginning to grasp what is truly wrong in this world.
The Palestinian tragedy has revealed the grim engine of our present political culture; it has debunked the myth of the so-called Western democracy as the torch bearer of legality, freedom, and human rights by supporting and financing a bellicose state of its continued illegal occupation of Palestinian territories in defiance of all existing International Law and the Geneva Conventions. We have witnessed the excruciating hypocrisy of world leaders from US president Biden to UK prime minister Rishi Sunak, to Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni, to the French Macron, to the European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, all have readily expressed their sympathy for Israel and condemnation of Hamas without uttering a single word of the unspeakable suffering and collective punishment of Palestinians since 1948.
We have seen the mainstream media’s depraved and amoral double standards explicitly designed to deodorise the ongoing crimes of Israel and dehumanise Palestinians into perpetrators and collaborators; their unaffected, idiotic, puppet-like journalists endlessly spewing a torrent of Israeli propaganda and general disinformation, distorting the language to cast Israel as the victim and Palestine the aggressor. Most of their interviews with the opposing view starts with: “Do you condemn Hamas?” The mainstream media has so corrupted the whole scenario that to a naive listener/spectator it sounds as though the crisis began only on 7 October without any reference to the illegal and brutal occupation that has been going on for almost 60 years. The New Humanitarian in an article exposes this form of double standards:
So why are many Palestinians interviewed on US or British TV asked to condemn Hamas as a ticket of entry to the conversation, while Israelis aren’t asked to account for their government’s crimes?
As Husam Zomlot, head of the Palestinian Mission to the UK, responded to the BBC when asked to condemn Hamas: “How many times has Israel committed war crimes live on your own cameras? Do you start by asking them to condemn themselves? You don’t.” (https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/editorial/2023/10/23/media-coverage-israel-and-gaza-double-standards)
We have seen intellectuals, academics, journalists, and the exasperating band of influencers and commentators— from figures like the Israeli historian Yuval Noah Hariri to the academic Jordan Peterson, to the sellout Bernie Sanders, to the loquacious propagandist and YouTuber Ben Shapiro—share the same exaltation with the mainstream media: Blame Hamas!—cheerleading Israel’s bloodthirsty military operations in Gaza, anointing Netanyahu to, in Jordan Peterson’s tweet, “Give ‘em hell.” They’re all found alike to rally behind the claim to anti-Semitism every time Israel commits war crimes, accusing anyone who dares to criticise the genocidal practices of Israel as anti-Semite in order to deflect attention away from the real issue of illegal occupation and Israel’s continuous negation of International Law. According to the most important scholar of the Israel-Palestine issue Norman Finkelstein, the purpose of employing the anti-Semitism game and holocaust imagery is “to deflect attention from, or distort, the actual documentary record,” and “to shield Jews from legitimate scrutiny of their uses and abuses of formidable power.”
Perhaps more vividly, we have seen the undisguised viciousness of the state of Israel, its unabashed racism and indifference towards the Palestinians—calling them “human animals” by the Israeli Defence Minister and other derogatory and horrifying remarks by Israeli state officials meant to portray the Palestinians as sub-humans, as not deserving the same respect that is due to any group or people. And their language manifests itself in their actions: the frenzy of wilful bombings since October embodies that hatred and disgust towards Palestinians killing indiscriminately, drawing no distinction between combatants and civilians. As to the scale of destruction, an Al Jazeera analysis is revealing:
According to the latest data from the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), World Health Organisation (WHO) and the Palestinian government, and as of November 7, Israeli attacks have damaged at least:
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Half of Gaza’s homes – 222,000 residential units damaged with more than 40,000 completely destroyed
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278 educational facilities damaged
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270 healthcare facilities attacked
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69 places of worship damaged, including mosques and churches
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45 ambulances damaged
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11 bakeries destroyed
According to the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, Israel has dropped more than 25,000 tonnes of explosives on the Gaza Strip since October 7, equivalent to two nuclear bombs. (https://www.aljazeera.com/news/longform/2023/11/9/israel-attacks-on-gaza-weapons-and-scale-of-destruction)
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To anyone concerned with what’s happening in Palestine checking one’s social media has become a form of self-torture, as images after images and video clips of the murder and suffering of Palestinians decorate one’s feed. The televised genocide of the Palestinians is both shocking and revolting to the point of demoralisation; one is overwhelmed by a ravaging sense of sorrow, rage, and helplessness and asks himself ‘why are we allowing this immense injustice to happen in real time?’ It is even more heartbreaking because one could only watch. It is this position as a mere spectator that is deeply troubling, as Alberti wrote, that it wrenches one’s bones from the skin.
And then you are struck with a sudden reflection: a self-dialogue that submerges anything you thought before was important in your life, and it comes through recognising how lowly, insignificant, almost unreal your concerns and worries in life are; you are overtaken by the inordinate, unacknowledged reality that you are unaccountably fortunate by virtue of the fact that you are not in Gaza, that you are not a Palestinian.
This should be more conspicuous if you are a Filipino who discerns his colonial history, whose ancestors suffered the debasement and cultural displacement brought about by colonialism and imperialism. It is this very fact if any of our common heritage of subjugation and oppression that we Filipinos must readily offer our solidarity and compassion with the Palestinians.
To my dismay—although not unexpected—the Philippines abstained from the UN General Assembly’s call for a ceasefire along with my host country Italy, while Israel and the US voted NO as usual. But this is hardly surprising given that my native land is in perpetual bondage to the imperial power the US; like Israel the Philippines is an ardent recipient of U.S. military aid. Herbert Docena of Focus on The Global South in a pertinent and prophetic article written on 2009 during Israel’s Operation Cast Lead—a massive month long military onslaught on Gaza—writes of the Philippines’ cowardly and opportunistic stance when it comes to Israel:
“The Philippines has for the most part followed the cue of the US in its unquestioning support of Israel’s policies. In 2006, as Israel subjected Lebanon – including Filipino workers – to collective punishment by aerial bombardment, the Philippines went along with the US in refusing to condemn Israeli aggression. At the UN Human Rights Council that month, the Philippines went against the majority in condemning Israeli operations.
“Today, as Israel invades Gaza, the Philippines again refuses to speak out. In its view, what is happening is but an unfortunate contest between equally intransigent sides, as initiated by Hamas, rather than the latest instance of aggression by an occupying power against an occupied people.”
This was written back in 2009 and yet it reads as though Docena is writing about the ongoing assault on Gaza. This is the constant narrative of Israeli policy: every few years it ethnically cleanses the region by dropping hundreds of bombs. And for every UN conference for settling the conflict the Philippines is committed to upholding the American-Israeli party line, its unstinting devotion to its imperial masters. Docena in the same article suggests the dignified approach the Philippines must take given its long and tortuous colonial history:
“Today, as another people are subjected to mass murder, ordinary Filipinos should challenge the government’s complicity and take action. On this… support the call – called for by Palestinians as well as peace-loving Israelis – for a global boycott, divestment, and sanctions campaign against Israel of the scale that ended apartheid in South Africa. Consumers should stop buying from companies that support Israel, Manila should cut its “sister-city” ties with Haifa, universities should stop inviting Zionist professors, cultural groups should not show Israeli films, and so on.
“This campaign understandably raises a lot of questions but discussion is better than silence – the silence of those who look aside and of those who disappear.” https://focusweb.org/the-philippines-and-israel-a-history-of-complicity-an-imperative-for-action/
Discussion is better than silence—this perhaps is a most important step towards solidarity. To take cognisance of our colonial past, to become aware of our identity as sharing in a common struggle and working towards a more just society.
As for my host country, Italy, its affair with Israel is defined mainly by its active involvement in arms exchange, thus its abstention in favour of Israel in every UN General Assembly. This contentious issue is never reported in national media—for good reasons, any revelation might provoke popular scrutiny and protest. Media control, state propaganda and censorship in Italy far surpass that of many third-world countries under dictatorship. It might be added that Italy at the moment is run by a right wing government associated with the extreme right whose declared hatred of immigrants (particularly of African descent and dark-skinned refugees) is a badge of patriotism complementing Israel’s racist culture. In an investigative report by Luciano Bertozzi exposes the arms deal between Rome and Tel Aviv that has been expanding since early 2000s; an arms deal that is condemned by human rights organisations and illegal under international law which prohibits any country to sell arms to a belligerent state that is involved in an illegal occupation:
“In 2012… the Monti Government signed a contract for the sale of 30 M-346 training aircraft, a deal worth billions of dollars. The planes can also be equipped with weapons and bombs. The first aircraft were delivered in 2014. In return, the Italian Air Force bought two Gulfstream 550 spy planes (total cost around $800 million) and the OPTSAT-3000 satellite system ($245 million). Since then there have been other forms of cooperation, from underwater drones to armoured combat vehicles, and exercises between the two air forces have increased. The Israelis have used Decimomannu in Sardinia, while the Italians have participated in manoeuvres in Israel. The Italian Air Force, according to the blog of Tuscan Councilor Antonio Mazzeo, trains Tel Aviv pilots in Pisa, and periodically Italians go to the Palmachin base to train in piloting remotely piloted aircraft. In 2019, the defence ministries of the two Countries signed an agreement for the purchase of seven AW119Kx advanced training helicopters for the Israeli Air Force, worth $350 million, in exchange for Italy’s purchase of an equivalent value of Israeli military technology: in September 2020, the agreement was expanded to include five more AW119Kx helicopters in exchange for Italy’s purchase of more Israeli anti-tank missiles.” https://www.atlasofwars.com/italy-israel-arms-exchange-must-stop/
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The street demonstration is organised by “Spezia per la Palestina” an association comprised of local political and cultural organisations, supported and encouraged also by the regional branch of The Communist Party of Italy and CGIL the biggest labour organisation in the country.
By the time I arrived around 5 pm the crowd was beginning to swell in Piazza Brin—the starting point of the demonstration. Protest organisers were unloosening the Palestinian flags; Arab families united like a huge family reunion, mothers, fathers, uncles, aunts, cousins, children; men and women tying keffiyah round their necks; friends and students alike raising their banners and placards; the police patrolling behind. The sun was setting and it was getting cold.
One of the organisers checked the microphone and the stereo at the back of a pickup truck and passed on the microphone to a teenage girl: a Palestinian refugee. Her speech was full of defiance and love for her lost homeland; as she screamed Free! Free! Palestine! we descended into the street lined with orange trees, partaking of something that was bigger than us. The bitter-sweet smell of oranges in the air.
I was wonder struck by the diversity of those who took part in the demonstration. People of all colour, of all ages and of various walks of life, those who have never forgotten this beautiful and tragic cause called Palestine. I have never been more convinced than that day that the people do not share or reflect the attitude of their government. The breathtaking solidarity of common people standing for a common cause. We were between 700 and 800 that packed the streets.
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Going on to its second month the genocide in Palestine has already killed more than 10,000 lives mostly children. Each day, every hour a story of heartbrokenness on a mythic scale of history voicelessly calls us from afar. A mother tells her three children buried under the rubble for the last time, “Let me see you… even in a dream.”
We shall not stop talking about Palestine, we shall take to the streets again and again until this nightmare stops.
Long live Palestine!
DoubleSpeak 