The livestreamed genocide has even changed perspectives amongst high profile figures including Billie Eilish, Angelina Jolie and many others, writes Frank Barat. [GETTY]
I recently spoke to Dr Victoria Rose, a British consultant plastic surgeon who had just returned from her third assignment to Gaza since the genocide started. She told me something which I’ve thought about every day since that conversation: “The first and second time I went to Gaza, the people kept telling me to film everything, to talk to the media as much as I could, to tell their stories, to inform people of what was happening to them and their loved ones. Once people will know, once the political leaders will know, they will stop this.”
The third time she went to Gaza, the mood was different. They understood that people knew what was happening to them, but that it did not matter. This realisation shattered them.
Once you understand that your life does not matter, that you do not count, that you are simply not human in the eyes of so many around the world, your spirit dies.
“Many people in Gaza told me they were waiting to die. They want the suffering to end and it seems like death is now their only option,” Rose explained.
A choice to make
Ultimately, we all have a choice to make, and silence while a genocide is taking place live on our screens, feels criminal.
So how do we fight? How do we cope? How do we not stop until this is over?
For a lot of people, living through an unparalleled collective trauma, resistance first meant being together and taking part in collective action. Especially when you’re made to feel that you are alone, that no one thinks like you, and that there is no alternative, surrounding yourself with people who think that there will always be an alternative to genocide, is an important start.
After all, it is out of these collectives that moments of solidarity all across the world sprouted, ones that were unlike anything we’d experienced before. Massive demonstrations have taken place since Israel started its deadly assault on Gaza, in hundreds of cities, sometimes on a weekly basis for almost two years.
From New York to Cape Town via Algiers, people in their millions have been screaming “Free Palestine”.
Students globally have occupied their universities, have been setting up encampments on campuses, including some of the most prestigious institutions like in Cambridge in the UK, Science Po in Paris or Columbia university in the US.
As someone who has been part of the efforts to ensure that Palestine solidarity goes beyond borders, I have witnessed the shift. Demonstrations were different to anything we had seen before in the Palestine solidarity movement. They have been creative, intersectional and diverse both amongst those marching as well as those organising the protests.
Indeed, Palestine has truly become the struggle which unites us all, and which encompasses all others.
Cutting through the lies
The livestreamed genocide has even changed perspectives amongst high profile figures including Billie Eilish, Angelina Jolie and many others. The horrific killing of Palestinians being shared across social media has cut through the decades of bias reporting on mainstream media, as well as the propaganda and lies we’ve been told by Western political leaders who have enabled Israel.
It has shown the people what is really happening in Palestine. And once they have the facts, that this is a question of colonialism, imperialism, apartheid and genocide, and not one of two religious groups fighting over land, it becomes very hard for anyone, including celebrities, to ignore it and go back to their normal lives. Even if they don’t act on the information, they cannot unknow it.
Just look at the over 900 cultural figures, including some of the biggest names in the film industry, who signed a letter during Cannes Film Festival calling on their peers not to remain silent while a genocide was taking place. This is something that would have never happened a few years ago, and it is thanks to the dedication of activists around the world over the course of many years.
Some of us even decided to take matters into their own hands, having had enough of the very “representative democracy” which led to the genocide of the Palestinian people. The Gaza Freedom Flotilla, otherwise known as the Madleen, showed the world that fighting back against Israel’s oppression was possible by other means.
We collectively organised as activists and well-known political figures, including French MEP Rima Hassan and Greta Thunberg, for a ship filled with aid to sail to break the blockade on Gaza. Even though it was illegally raided by Israel and blocked from reaching Gaza’s shores, it exposed the nature of the occupying state. It highlighted the genocidal siege that Palestinians have been forced to live under for over 17 years.
Furthermore, it horrified many to learn that even humanitarian aid is blocked amidst alarming famine and widespread illness, and Israel faces no consequences for depriving those so desperately in need of help.
The flotilla also gave the people of Gaza a tiny bit of hope, even if for a brief moment. It demonstrated physically that the people of the world are with them, even if leaders have forsaken their humanity.
The march to Gaza and the caravans from Tunisia and Morocco which followed the flotilla, also sadly did not reach the intended destination. But the repression by the Egyptian state only served to fuel all those outraged by the complicity of so many nations, the physical violence did not deter us.
In fact, the treatment of volunteers and activists at the march has even catapulted many to try again. Because we must not stop trying, until this is over, until Palestine is free.
In the end, history has taught us well that resistance is always met with repression. Those in power have a vested interest in breaking any movement that shows the masses an alternative to vulture capitalism, colonialism, apartheid and genocide, is possible.
The seeds cannot be allowed to become plants. So states, and their armed branch, the police, also come out in the streets, in full force. We’ve watched, at times live, the aggressive handling of Palestine solidarity efforts, from the streets of Paris, to Cairo, the West Bank, to Sydney.
Every day, I wonder about the brilliant writer Omar Al Akkad’s words, that ‘one day everyone will always have been against this.’ It is difficult to keep the faith, to keep up the good fight, to feel motivated as the death toll in Gaza rises, and another family is entirely wiped out. But I certainly hope that we live to reach the moment Al Akkad has written about. Not to gloat, but to enjoy living in a world where true liberation exists.
As photojournalist Fatima Hassouna, who was assassinated by Israel along with her whole family the day after she learned that the documentary she starred in was selected as part of the ACID selection at Cannes, said: “If the war in Palestine ends, all the wars will also end”.
Frank Barat is a journalist, author and film producer. He has edited books with Noam Chomsky, Ilan Pappé, Ken Loach, Angela Davis, Marc Lamont Hill and Vijay Prashad.
Follow Frank on Instagram: 4frankbarat
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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.
