Politics It's really enough now... - Free Palestine!

[2 quid is good]

I felt bad even tagging this as politics because really, it's just humanity at this point, and I dont want to look back and think "I saw this moment happen and did nothing to stop it". Gaza just suffered a missile strike on a hospital.

A hospital!

With a confirmed 500 dead, but reporters on the ground giving unconfirmed reports of 800-1000. Like, the whole rhetoric and blood thirsy baying from the media and the internet is really enough now.

I've seen some horrific videos, that I wish I could unsee. one of an actual beheaded toddler (I thought at first it was shaggy, bloody hair... it was bone fragments), I saw one of the aftermath of this hospital attack. Just corpses... everywhere...

Why is it so wrong to say that what's happening to Palestine is wrong??

 

[Phoenix]

This is a really difficult thing to talk about and impossible to reduce to soundbites.

Related to the attack itself, we don't actually know who's responsible yet, so this is something where we really need to be careful. But regardless of who did this attack, thousands of civilians have died in Gaza already, and over a million have been displaced. This is already a humanitarian catastrophe, even before the hospital. This is monstrous.

The attack by Hamas was monstrous as well. Innocent people were raped, tortured, beheaded. Some probably still are, given they still have a hundred hostages.

Monstrous things are being done, monstrous things are done in revenge, and here we fucking are, and there's no solution that I can see.


I don't recommend you doom scroll this. You can donate, volunteer, but you cannot take this on yourself. Contact your MP (congressperson, senator, etc) if you want your views heard. But don't look at pictures of dead babies. There's nothing to gain there for you, or anyone.

 

[2 quid is good]

Exactly a month on and I'm rereading it, and in the face of this total destruction - including the collapse of all but 14 hospitals - this feels pathetic haha.

Like, "Oh you were upset when one hospital got attacked? We can do worse".

How freaking crazy that the people I know and the people all across the world are marching, are trying to take direct action in all the avenues available to us, only for none of it to matter? I truly think that after, the West, especially the USA, UK and Germany, have no moral authority to stand on anything whatsoever. There is no humanity here

Like, you were asking me to donate - I did - but does it matter if none of that aid is coming through? I'm not doom scrolling, but also, we owe it to the Palestinians and ourselves to not look away while they suffer, in my opinion. Like, really. FK our mental health and capacity for trauma, like trust me, I have plenty of my own but whenever I feel like trying to ignore it I find so much strength in their strength. They're LIVING it, the least I can do is witness 1% of it so I can have a leg to stand on tomorrow

 

[Phoenix]

The aid going through is not zero. I've talked to some Palestinian friends, and the recommendation was to avoid small aid agencies and go straight to the big ones, (doctors without borders, red cross, etc), as they're the only ones that even have a shot at getting any help in.

Some convoys have gone through the rafah crossing. Not a lot, but some. Some countries have been able to air drop food and water. Not a lot, but some.

Witnessing 1% of it does not help you *or* them. Indeed, for a lot of people, the constant stream of death and suffering has a chance of numbing them to it. Humans are not designed to absorb the suffering of 11k dead innocents.

I'm not trying to telling you what to do. In my opinion, it's better to focus on the things you *can* do. Donate, volunteer if your state/country is receiving refugees, contact your MP/senator/representative.

I'm sorry, I'm not trying to gaslight your feelings or dismiss you. It is incredibly horrible, and we as individuals don't have a lot of power over it. So I like to focus on the few things I do have power over.

 

[2 quid is good]

God, the sheer level of pain adn destruction is so overwhelming now and I feel like everybody acknowledges but nobody in power wants to do ANYTHING about it. Am I going crazy or something? And I took your advice @Phoenix and I've been donating but honestly. I'm just so angry about everything now that I feel sort of numb to it. And nobody wants to talk about the real issues behind it - our governments are way too happy to continue supporting a genocidal regime so that they have some "influence" in the Middle East.

Is genocide worth it????????

 

[Phoenix]

For some segments of the current Israeli administration, genocide is partly the point. They think the land is theirs, they're angry and scared and vengeful, and want to kill the people who hurt them. Combine that with a modern army, and this is the result.

Again not to dismiss your very valid and human reaction (over 25k dead now, it's horrific) but you still can't stop it. It's important to keep yourself informed about it so that you can act (vote, donate volunteer, etc) accordingly, but I heavily advise not to doomscroll it. You can drive yourself insane. Things like the war over Yemen, Syria, Bucha in Ukraine and even the original Hamas attack in southern Israel are just full of the worst atrocities, and it'd only worth exposing your mental health to look at th we closely if you have a reason to do so.

I don't have any hopeful messages because I don't want to insult the victims. Just that, unless you specifically want to do something and need the information, it doesn't help anyone for you to look at this very closely and suffer.