Shout While You Can

The Window for Conscience is Closing

The other day I found myself thinking “We’re just going to let this happen, aren’t we?” Then I realized we kind of already have. For 85 days now the American public has watched and essentially allowed this civilian-bombardment-which-couldn’t-take-place-without-our-bombs to continue. Now Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu declares the war will go on for months, so apparently there’s still time to rouse ourselves.

In previous posts I’ve written about the Israeli bombing of hospitals and other medical infrastructure, as well as the impact on children. I’ve done so because that’s where the moral landscape is clearest, and we need moral clarity right now.

The destruction continues unabated, the most recent attack aimed at Al Amal hospital in Kan Younis, on December 27th and 28th, killing 41 people. A thorough forensic analysis by Forensic Architecture has found “a repeated and consistent pattern of attacks on hospitals across the region.” The head of the World Health Organization calls it a “decimation” of Gaza’s health infrastructure. WHO officials visiting the few remaining hospitals describe conditions as “horrifying.”

As of yesterday, though this number doesn’t include those unreachable under the rubble, over 8,200 Palestinian children have been killed. According to UNICEF, a thousand children have required amputations, often without anesthetics or subsequent pain relief, all while vital medical supplies remain under siege at the border,

Though I’m forced by scale to speak in numbers, each is an individual. Yesterday I heard the stories of two, Izzeddin Nawasra and Mohammed Al-Ajouri. Both teenage boys were shot by Israeli snipers during the Great March of Return in 2018, and had been brought to America to receive below-the-knee prosthetics. Like many Palestinian youth, they had taken part in the campaign advocating for the Palestinian right to return to lands confiscated by Israel, during which snipers with the Israeli Defense Forces apparently competed for kneecaps, greatly troubling the notion that Israeli Defense Force brutality is the pure consequence of Hamas’ atrocities on October 7.

Dave Sosebee, who runs the organization Palestine Children’s Relief Fund, which had brought the boys to Pennsylvania and Ohio, describes the two as flourishing in America, and returning to Gaza hoping to live normal, independent lives. Izzeddin was even hired by the organization and had taken an interest in photography, thrilled he could do work that helped his people. Izzeddin and his entire family were killed on Christmas day in a missile strike. Muhammed, his wife and baby were killed the day after.

When I look at the general lassitude about all this amongst the American public, the quibbling editorials, the labelling of moral outcry as antisemitism, the quashing of protest on college campuses, I sense a kind of moral incompetence setting in. I worry that we are no longer able to gather ourselves around the most basic standards of decency, and I wonder what it means for the future, if this carnage continues to be normalized.

What’s strangest of all, is that Joe Biden, the one man who could stop it but instead provides the cover and means for it to continue, came to power promising to “restore the soul of America.” How’s your soul feeling?

Now we need to find within the “soul of America” room for 8,200 children our bombs bombed. Tomorrow there will be more. Apparently, if Netanyahu has his way, we will make these provisions for months to come. How will the “soul of America” be faring then?

Whether or not nations have souls, nothing is more pernicious to the soul than silence in the face of atrocity. The soul registers it, remembers it like a wound. American songwriter Tracy Chapman had it right when she sang, “all that you have is your soul.”

If you haven’t had a chance to make a noise yet, I hope you will. It’s actually quite easy. The House switchboard is (202) 224-3121 and Senators can be found with a simple google search. You’ll get an email form or a number to an answering-machine or human call-taker, and then you can tell your representative, respectfully of course, how your soul feels about what’s going on in Gaza.