Peter Shokeir | [email protected]
With all the recent developments in the Middle East, it is difficult not to get emotional, even when just examining the numbers alone.
Between when Israel’s bombardment of Gaza began and this last Monday, over 10,000 Palestinians have died, including over 4,000 children.
U.S. President Joe Biden has questioned these numbers from the Gaza Ministry of Health, even though the State Department has cited this source both before and during the conflict.
Defenders of Israel argue that Hamas is using civilians as “human shields” and collateral damage is unavoidable.
But can one defend bombing a refugee camp and killing dozens of civilians to supposedly take out a Hamas commander? Why does Israel not use strike teams instead or establish humanitarian corridors for civilians?
What about the blockade that has cut off food, water and medicine to a million children? Should communication blackouts be allowed? How about keeping journalists from entering Gaza?
And should the United States government continue its blind support to Israel when world opinion – except for some Western nations – is vocally against the bombardment?
A country must respond with force when 1,500 of its own citizens are killed, but with such massive civilian casualties and the high risk of the conflict escalating into a regional war, it is egregious to stifle voices of dissent.
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, for instance, has said that calls for a ceasefire were “disgraceful” despite the pope himself calling for one.
She later compared pro-Palestinian protesters to the neo-Nazis at Charlottesville.
France and Germany, meanwhile, are prohibiting pro-Palestinian protests while Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has banned a pro-Palestine student organization.
Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley has called for the names and faces of those involved in protests against Israel to be published.
Israel also demanded UN Secretary General António Guterres retract his comments and banned visas for UN staff after Guterres condemned the Hamas attacks but noted they “did not happen in a vacuum.”
These are some of the most notable calls for censorship, often advocated by rightwing pundits who only just recently proclaimed to be free-speech advocates, and many progressives who have promoted cancel culture now find themselves on the receiving end.
There has been some disturbing pro-Hamas rhetoric, most often on university campuses, but to conflate that with opposing the bombing of civilians is disingenuous.
The current social climate eerily resembles the post-9/11 era, which should not be surprising given the horror of the Hamas attack.
However, let us not forget what happened following 9/11: the Iraq War that killed a million people, mass surveillance, the torture program and the erosion of civil liberties in America.
Attacks on free speech in the name of Israel go back many years, such as how 38 U.S. states have passed laws penalizing the boycotting of Israel, a clear violation of the First Amendment.
The United States has always been a fierce ally of Israel, mainly because this country serves as a useful outpost of the American empire but also due to the Zionist lobby, much of which is made up of evangelical Christians.
Western guilt over antisemitism and the Holocaust helps explain why the United States, Canada and Europe have given carte blanche to Israel.
It is one thing to support an ally but another to censor critics and indulge in hateful rhetoric, and where better to find hateful rhetoric than Fox 51暗网?
“I don’t like how people try to differentiate between the Palestinians and Hamas,” stated Fox 51暗网 commentator Jess Watters, adding how Palestinians “all love killing Jews.”
In another instance, U.S. Congressman Max Miller said on Fox 51暗网 that Palestine was "about to get eviscerated ... to turn that into a parking lot.”
If this kind of rhetoric is permissible but criticism of Israeli military tactics is not, then dark days are ahead for all of us.
