A blue, bullet proof PRESS vest and a sniper-shot to the head, just below the helmet line: this is the anatomy of a genocide.
A funeral for a nationally beloved journalist murdered by a colonial regime that is overrun by Zionist occupation forces who beat pallbearers and nearly overturn the coffin completely: this is the anatomy of a genocide.
International inaction at a fascist colonial ethno-state that slaughters Indigenous people at will, at random, and for nothing more or less than the “crime” of existing: this is the anatomy of a genocide.
A ban on vigils for the murdered Palestinian journalist, Shireen Abu Akleh, by a European state convinced that criminalizing activism for Palestinian liberation mitigates its direct role in the Holocaust: this is the anatomy of a genocide.
Unlimited military funding and support from the US settler-colony, whose politicians have the audacity to Tweet about being “deeply troubled” while proudly continuing to subsidize the state-sanctioned murder of Palestinians, to collaborate with the Zionist entity on evolving technologies and strategies of racist police brutality and surveillance: this is the anatomy of a genocide.
Craven, corporate media outlets like the New York Times that gleefully re-murder our people after death with the passive voice (so that “death” becomes something of an epidemic, that comes over us at any moment, with no cause or culprit, like something out of a warped Gogol story): this is the anatomy of a genocide.
A murder within many murders, the clear, intentional snuffing out of an icon who had gained the epithet “the voice of Palestine” because so many who grew up watching her reporting were also growing up with the realization that the suffering and righteous resistance of the Palestinian people would not go unspoken, unacknowledged, or be hidden away so as to make the powerful more at ease: this is the anatomy of a genocide.
The propagandistic screeching, the irate contempt with which any criticism of murder by the Zionist state—particularly criticism by a Palestinian—is shut down by fascist apologists as “antisemitism:” this is the anatomy of a genocide.
And the awkward, pained indignation of the “allies,” who wring their hands, stomp their feet and ask how, how something like this could happen, or what else will it take for the world to pay attention—this, too, is the anatomy of a genocide.
For 74 years, we have known this, and nothing else. For 74 years, we have been physically assaulted and epistemologically strangled by the liberal failure to confront the bloodied background of the “only Democracy in the Middle East.” For 74 years, our colonizers have continued in their attempts to mutilate, maim and destroy our capacity for expression with innovations in torture, incarceration, weaponry, starvation, and more.
But they always fail to realize: we are more than flesh and blood.
The “voice of Palestine” can be gunned down, but never silenced.
74 years on, it’s well past time for the world to really listen.
The modern invention of “values” and “morals” and “human rights” was only meant to extend as far as the eastern borders of Europe.
Look at how Poland and Hungary gladly donated strollers, food, shelter, clothing, and toys to refugees from Ukraine, but didn’t hesitate to use water cannons or tear gas on the “unwashed” refugees from other parts of the world.
This terrible event has opened the ears of the world, including in America. Its an opportunity to be heard and clarify the message. What is the endgame for Israelis and Palestinians?
The brother of “the voice of Palestine” calls for peace. But the writer here does not call for peace.