What is to be trusted right now? US news agencies are either not covering the conditions in Gaza or they portray the news solely from the Israeli perspective. The US government and officials base the justification to continue the war in Gaza on lies to protect their interests, not their citizens’ interests. Biden has shared lies and propaganda from Israel and never publicly acknowledged his mistakes and corrected his statements. Neither US news outlets can be trusted and neither can our government for credible information.
Without fail, the White House firmly states that Israel has a right to defend itself. In every way imaginable, the US government has pushed this agenda and a pro-Israel program across all facets of society. They demand the public relay their lies and their pro-Israel program.
They have even attacked the legitimacy of the death toll from the Palestinian Ministry of Health, so that the public loses trust in Palestinian agencies. Humanitarian organizations defended the Palestinian Ministry of Health resulting in the US losing more legitimacy.
The government wants us to be so reliant on our comfort and protection of our comfort that we, too, will spread these lies to protect our comfort at all costs. They want us so entrenched in our comfort that we will not question the lies but accept the government’s agenda and pro-Israel program.
Elected officials and party leaders have threatened voter’s comfort with, “If you don’t vote (party), then you will suffer.” They are also dehumanizing Arab Americans and Muslim Americans labeling them as terrorist supporters and Nazi’s to stoke greater fear in voters and delegitimize pro-Palestinian dissenters.
Here is the thing, this comfort that the fearful desperately protect is something that can striped away at the whim of the government. The US government is actively silencing the electorate who protest for human rights. THIS should frighten those people out of their comfort zone. The US government is using its power to silence and overstep their power and authority. THIS is what will come for your comfort zone and snatch it all away if you dissent, oppose, speak up, or fight back. Understand that the only threat to your comfort zone is the US government.
The White House fully condemns the phrase “from the river to the sea.” This is a phrase that has been the comfort to Palestinians who have had everything taken from them, and now they cannot share their pain and their hope for Palestine. A comfort taken from Palestinians, Arabs, Palestinian Americans, and Arab Americans who truly need comfort and to share their story, but their comfort was taken from them when they hurt the most.
Only the delusional believes that their rights, comforts, or person is protected in the US, a constitutional democracy. What we see now is the truth because the actions that were once hidden from us is made disgustingly apparent. We see the lies. We see the loss of rights. We see the absolute disregard for human rights. We see the disregard for life and humanity. There is no hiding or avoiding these facts.
Still many dig further into denial and delusion, plugging their ears, closing their eyes, and swallowing the lies they are fed. Their silence also silenced others. “If we are silent together, this will pass us,” but oppression will find them and seek them out. They support the oppressive system in their silence and inaction because fear drives them to complacency and apathy. They think they will escape the same fate, but that’s what awaits everyone who gave up their rights and the rights of others. That is the fate of those who are silent to oppression.
It is hard to look at anyone or anything the same. How can so many humans willingly give up their rights for comfort? Humanity can’t be looked at with the same eyes.
To see children with bones projecting from their bodies, drenched in blood, knowing there is no medicine for them and no comfort, this is a cruel world. To see entire families wiped out, people desperate for food and water to no avail, babies wailing from their suffering with no parents to care for them, and to know that this torture could be stopped and peace restored in Palestine but it is purposefully not, makes this world unbearable.
My life does not mean more than any person on this earth. My comfort does not mean more than any person on this earth.
This earth does not value me more than it does any person on this earth. The earth values us equally.
It is with great sadness witnessing the two stories told- one of truth and the other of lies. It is with greater sadness seeing those who spread the lies, silently accept them, or create further falsehoods. All of this is in the name of oppression. To see so many propping up this system of silence and control is disturbing.
Many people live in fear and because of this unaddressed fear, they are silent to oppression. They wrongly assume that they can either avoid their own oppression or that the people they see being oppressed will save them from that fate of oppression because the oppressors would then be satisfied. Oppressors are never satisfied. They seek control unless confronted. This is why they seek to silence dissent and opposition, to gain further control.
Combat this. No one can take your power. Our voice comes from within and no human can strip you of this power. These oppressors want us to think they have ultimate control but they do not so long as you refute their claim.
There are world leaders who can end this right now if they choose, but they do not. This is the fact that no one can refute. They want death, destruction, control, silence, and oppression. If anyone fights back or disagrees, they are attacked and labeled crazy to delegitimize their voice. They are made to look extremist when these people speaking out are brave lending their voice to the suffering at the cost of the oppressors attacks.
To be clear, the oppressors are the Israeli and US governments and the governments that profit from the oppressive system like the UK, Canada, France, and Germany.
Truth and freedom are under attack. We lose more rights and freedoms as they days pass under this power imbalance imposed on us.
What we do have is our voice and heart. Let us fight for freedom for all.
From the river to the sea, Palestine, may you be free.