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Message to the West on Christmas: Remember humanity
PHOTO: REUTERS
As you prepare to celebrate your Christmas holiday, remember that Jesus Christ was born in Bethlehem, in Palestine. Remember that if he had been born today, he would have been born in a city under occupation, suffocated by an apartheid wall. Remember that Jesus Christ fought against injustice, for human dignity and for humanity as you watch images of dead children in Gaza on your television screen.
Ask yourselves, what Jesus would have felt seeing the children of his own homeland being killed, homes being destroyed, families displaced, videos of traumatised children shaking from clinical shock, asking “am I still alive?” Poets write poems predicting their own death while journalists are murdered and silenced for their message of truth. In Gaza, 2.4 million people have been cut off from clean drinking water, food, medicine, electricity and fuel for two and a half months. A civilian population is being carpet bombed to the ground.
So, just imagine what Jesus would have thought seeing some of your governments still shamefully trying to justify these crimes, excusing the dehumanisation and trauma of an entire population. They’re still sending arms to help commit war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, still opposing calls for a ceasefire, still refusing to condemn the merciless murder of Palestinian men, women and children.
Remember that this year Christmas celebrations have been cancelled in Bethlehem, that Palestinians will not be celebrating Christmas. There will only be prayers because we know that had Jesus Christ been in Palestine today and seen the remnants of humanity lying under the rubble in Gaza, he would have mourned and wept.
In 1970, British philosopher Bertrand Russell asked about the suffering of the Palestinians, “How much longer is the world willing to endure the spectacle of wanton cruelty?” But what you need to realise is that even though some of your governments, especially from the Global North, are willing to endure this spectacle of wanton cruelty, the people are not. Millions of people have taken to the streets to call for a ceasefire. The scale of the demonstrations makes it clear: while some of your governments continue to provide Israel—the occupying power—with diplomatic, political or military support as it commits genocide, world public opinion stands firmly with Palestine, with the law and with peace. So you need to ask yourselves, “Why are millions of people around the world concerned about Palestine?” Of all faiths, of all walks of life? That is because the Palestinian cause is not about a particular faith, ethnicity or national origin. This is about being human, as Edward Said had said, “Remember the solidarity [shown to Palestinians] here and everywhere, and remember also that there is a cause to which many people have committed themselves, difficulties and terrible obstacles notwithstanding. Why? Because it is a just cause, a noble ideal, a moral quest for equality and human rights.”
If you sometimes wonder what you would have done if you had lived during apartheid in South Africa, or during slavery or the civil rights movement in the US, we are here to say you are doing it right now. People will look at the annals of history and see that an occupied besieged people, mainly consisting of children and refugees, were cut off from food, fuel, electricity, telecommunications, and were left to suffer and wither away while being bombed to the ground. As the chief of the World Health Organization said, “History will judge us all by what we do to end this tragedy.” When they read your history, they will remember where you and your government stood.
We, Palestinians, are not asking you to be pro-Palestinian. We are simply asking you to be human, to let yourselves feel beyond politics, beyond narrow national interests. We are asking you to see us as human, made of the same flesh and blood as yourself; we are asking you to see us as people who deserve the same rights as you. We are asking you to uphold international law for everyone, the law that you yourselves have created and embraced, for the sake of humanity, for the sake of peace, for the sake of the law and the multilateral system.
We urge every individual who stands with humanity to use your influence to translate calls for ceasefire into action. For those in the government, you have an endless set of tools at your disposal, legal countermeasures, sanctions, arms embargoes and diplomatic pressure. It is time to prove yourselves, not just to the Palestinian people, but to the whole world that you deserve to be what you claim. Governments in the West must prove that double standards don’t exist in your policies.
If you sometimes wonder what you would have done if you had lived during apartheid in South Africa, or during slavery or the civil rights movement in the US, we are here to say you are doing it right now. People will look at the annals of history and see that an occupied besieged people, mainly consisting of children and refugees, were cut off from food, fuel, electricity, telecommunications, and were left to suffer and wither away while being bombed to the ground.