Everyone for everyone
On choosing life
It’s impossible for me to conceive of writing about anything else while Palestinians remain under siege. The numbers of the dead can seem abstract to those of us without a personal attachment to Palestine, but Save the Children this week has put the numbers of slain youth into terrifying perspective: the reported death toll of children in Gaza since the onset of the conflict on October 7 has already surpassed the annual number of children killed across the world's conflict zones since 2019. There should be no “normal” number for kids killed in war, but by any standard the siege on Gaza is not normal. Countingthekids.org has an excellent and horrific visual of all the children killed in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since 2000. This bloodshed must end—and not just for children, but for all the men and women in Gaza.
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With thanks and solidarity,
Shannon
Over the weekend, families of the hostages taken by Hamas into Gaza were finally able to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, when they made their demands known:
The representatives urged Netanyahu to agree to an “everyone for everyone” prisoner exchange with the Hamas terror group, trading Palestinians incarcerated in Israel on security offenses for the hundreds who were abducted from Israel earlier this month during a devastating attack by Hamas.
“I demand that you accept this deal when it comes, even if it is not on our terms,” a representative for the families said. “You [the state leaders] caused us so much damage that you will never be able to compensate for it, but the little you can do is to save everyone who can be saved at any price. We have no time to lose.”
I have great admiration and sympathy for these poor families, who in the midst of their terror, anguish and rage have coined such a beautiful rallying cry: Everyone for everyone. All for all. When Israeli leadership is repeatedly calling all Palestinians “human animals,” everyone for everyone recognizes the human beings unjustly imprisoned on both sides of the conflict. It demands that Israel, and that we all, choose life. When facing unprecedented and genocidal levels of death and destruction, we must choose life: an end to the hostilities, freedom for all prisoners, an unimpeded flow of humanitarian aid, and justice for the millions of people, Palestinian and Israeli, who live between the river and the sea.
Hamas’s leader in the Gaza Strip, Yahya, has said they’ve been ready for an “immediate” prisoner swap with Israel. The group also released a video of three Israeli women held captive in Gaza, in which one blames Netanyahu for the horrific events of October 7th and criticizes him for failing to declare a ceasefire: “Because of the fashla [big mess] you made on October 7, no one came, no army came, no one heard about us, and we innocent citizens, citizens that pay taxes to the Israeli state, we are in captivity in unpleasant conditions. You will kill us. Do you want to kill us all? Do you want IDF to kill us? Didn’t you slaughter enough people? Didn’t enough Israeli citizens die already? Release us! Release us now! Release their citizens! Release all of us! Let us return! Let us return to our families!” She then starts screaming: “Now! NOW! NOW!!!!!!’’
Israel dismissed the hostages’ video, assuming it was made coercively and attributing it to more of Hamas’s “psychological warfare.” And of course that could be true. But I know that if I were being held captive in the tunnels under Gaza, which Israel is actively targeting and bombing—and according to Hamas, at least 50 hostages have already been killed in Israeli air strikes—I, too, would be calling for a ceasefire and a prisoner exchange, for my sake and the sake of all human life. The Palestinians who could be freed in this process includes hundreds of children (Israel is the only country in the world that systemically prosecutes children in military courts, some 500 to 700 each year), journalists, and political prisoners, many if not most of whom have been starved and tortured in captivity, as well as over 1,000 people held indefinitely in “administrative detention,” without charge or trial.
Netanyahu assured the families that the hostages’ release is a top priority, but elsewhere he’s made clear that wiping Hamas off the face of the earth—which, in effect, means destroying all of Gaza—comes first. It’s astonishing to me that anyone could listen to Israel’s increasingly genocidal rhetoric and conclude that, per Biden and the West’s unheeded, useless instructions, they’re genuinely trying to preserve civilian life or follow international laws as it bombs hospitals, schools, mosques, scores of homes, bakeries, churches, and roads it previously deemed safe. Amnesty International on October 20th: “Damning evidence of war crimes as Israeli attacks wipe out entire families in Gaza.” Scores of grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, children—all gone.
At around 8:20pm on 7 October, Israeli forces struck a three-storey residential building in the al-Zeitoun neighbourhood of Gaza City, where three generations of the al-Dos family were staying. Fifteen family members were killed in the attack, seven of them children. The victims include Awni and Ibtissam al-Dos, and their grandchildren and namesakes Awni, 12, and Ibtissam, 17; and Adel and Ilham al-Dos and all five of their children. Baby Adam, just 18 months old, was the youngest victim.
Mohammad al-Dos, whose five-year-old son Rakan was killed in the attack, told Amnesty International:
“Two bombs fell suddenly on top of the building and destroyed it. My wife and I were lucky to survive because we were staying on the top floor. She was nine-months pregnant and gave birth at al-Shifa hospital a day after the attack. Our entire family has been destroyed.”
Israel is hunting “anything that moves” and bombing Gaza with an “emphasis on damage, not accuracy.” This weekend Netanyahu called for “a holy war of annihilation” against Palestinians, invoking the ‘Amalek’, a nation in the Hebrew Bible that the Israelites were ordered to wipe out in an act of revenge: “Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.” Slay both man and woman, infant and suckling. In another explosive story, the Israeli culture magazine Mekomit published a leaked document issued by Israel’s Ministry of Intelligence recommending the occupation of Gaza and total transfer of its 2.3 million inhabitants to Egypt, never to be able to return—a clear plan for ethnic cleansing. For wiping out an entire people, and displacing the few survivors. And to doubt it is to doubt a genocide in progress.
There have been a lot of moments over the past few weeks where my disgust with the Democratic party and other Western leadership has reached still lower lows, when I’ve thought: They are never coming back from this. We are never coming back from this. One of those moments was last week, when Biden cast public doubt on the Hamas-run Health Ministry’s reported numbers of civilian dead in Gaza, saying he has “no confidence” in what was then the figure of 6,500. Those numbers are over 8,000 now. How could anyone look at the footage of demolished Gaza neighborhoods (as of last week, according to the UN, 45% of residential buildings on the strip have already been destroyed), and have even an ounce of disbelief that thousands have been slaughtered, with tens of thousands more severely injured and millions displaced from their homes?
Another of those moments was yesterday, when the White House press secretary compared “anti-Israel protesters” to the white supremacists who marched in Charlottesville. "We are calling out any form of hate," she said, pointing out that Biden was called to run for president after neo-Nazis marched on the UVA campus. "He was very clear then, and he's very clear now." Previously she’d called the few House members who’ve so far called for a ceasefire “repugnant.”
If the White House really considers the tens of millions of people of all faiths in the United States and around the world—including many Jewish groups—who have marched this month for Palestinian freedom no better than Nazi white supremacists, we are entering a truly terrifying era of American history-in-progress. McCarthyism is back, and it is back with a vengeance.
The Biden admin has also just released new plans to combat antisemitism on college campuses involving the Departments of Education, Justice and Homeland Security. While such plans might on on the surface look like the pursuit of justice for Jewish students during a truly concerning time of increased antisemitism, the administration is relying on a definition of antisemitism that falsely includes any criticism of the state of Israel. British-Israeli historian Avi Shlaim, who recently had a lecture canceled at a university in Liverpool because he’s critical of the Israeli state, spoke to the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians yesterday, when he said "Palestinian resistance had been decontextualised. The Palestinians are engaged in a decolonial struggle, but the struggle is attributed to religious fanaticism and an irrational hatred of Jews rather than the desire of all people to live in freedom and dignity."
Civil rights advocates say Biden’s actions will lead to an increase in racist surveillance, suppression of political organizing, and the targeting and arrest of pro-Palestinian activists. All this while Islamophobia, too, is on the terrifying rise, without nearly as much concern from the political classes, and with devastating consequences: a 6-year-old Palestinian child was stabbed 26 times by his landlord earlier this month.
Here in the UK, my new country, things aren’t looking much better. The Labour party has been shedding members critical of party leader Keir Starmer, who a couple weeks ago was asked in an interview if it was “appropriate” that Israel should besiege Gaza, cutting off power and water. “I think Israel does have that right,” Starmer replied. He’s since denied he ever supported this evil regime of collective punishment, gaslighting everyone who heard the exact words out of his mouth.
One senior Labour party member described the resignation of dozens of Labour councillors opposed to the party’s position on Gaza as “shaking off the fleas.” As Nesrine Malik wrote in a Guardian opinion piece yesterday about Labour bleeding voters:
[Labour’s approach] seems increasingly risky when a high-octane political event galvanises people across a demographic profile that is too large to be so easily dismissed. Sulekha, another voter lost to Labour in the past two weeks, tells me of an atmosphere in her local area in Hackney where people are identifying with the Palestine issue through “different intersections” as it draws in “greens, feminists and a broader liberal coalition”. Meanwhile, polling reveals a political establishment dramatically at odds with the country as a whole, in which 76% are in support of a ceasefire. That’s a lot of fleas.
A lot of fleas, indeed.
That 76% figure is rather extraordinary, given that both Prime Minster Rishi Sunak and the so-called opposition party remain completely opposed to a ceasefire, as does the Biden administration. They do not represent the will of their people, and they are spitting in the faces of most of the rest of the world who want Israel’s murderous rampage to end.
A brief, very much incomplete list of the people, politicians, countries and humanitarian groups calling for an immediate ceasefire now:
The Pope. (“Let there be a cease-fire. War is always a defeat – always, always. May no one abandon the possibility that the weapons might be silenced.”) The United Nations general assembly, with 120 countries voting in support of an "urgent, durable, and permanent humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza.” Representative Cori Bush and a handful of progressives in Congress. Almost a quarter of Labour MPs. London mayor Sadiq Khan. Doctors without Borders. Medical aid for Palestinians. The Project on Middle East Democracy. The editorial board of the Financial Times. UNICEF. Save the Children. Jewish Voice for Peace. Amnesty International. Oxfam America. Islamic Relief. These 290 humanitarian organizations from 50 countries. These 70 interfaith, nongovernmental organizations. And hundreds of thousands more around the world.
A much briefer list of those who haven’t called for a ceasefire:
The United States and just 11 other countries who opposed the UN’s resolution for a humanitarian truce in Gaza. Progressive darlings in the US senate, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, have only managed to call for a humanitarian “pause” in hostilities, despite hundreds of their former staffers urging them to support a full ceasefire. Sunak and Starmer are also sticking with “humanitarian pause,” as is Canada’s Justin Trudeau. Western leaders are not only failing to stop the genocide unfolding before our eyes, but actively supporting and funding it.
Another extremely disturbing development this week: Labour has suspended one of its MPs, saying he made “deeply offensive” comments at a pro-Palestinian rally. Those supposedly offensive comments:
"We will not rest until we have justice. Until all people, Israelis and Palestinians, between the river and the sea, can live in peaceful liberty."
I could weep. This is the humane call for justice and peace we should all be echoing right now. But because some have fashioned “from the river to the sea,” a frequent chant at Palestine marches, as an "expression of a violent desire to see all Jews erased from the world,” simple and heartfelt calls for peace and freedom for both Palestinians and Israelis can be construed as antisemitic extremism and punished as such. It’s madness. The more our ruling class tries to crack down on demands against war and mass death, it becomes more likely that even those who haven’t yet become radicalized by Gaza will realize they’re being manipulated and duped. And they will act accordingly.
In the midst of these horrible, horrible times, there are still reasons to hope, and to fight. Palestinians themselves, living through literal hell on earth, haven’t stopped fighting—how could we?
Though our continued and unwavering solidarity is more essential than it’s ever been, it’s also clear that Palestinians, like all the world’s oppressed people, don’t need saviors or victimhood status, but true and lasting freedom—and that they will secure it for themselves. It was Palestinians who accessed an abandoned UN warehouse full of flour and other basic necessities and distributed it. It was Palestinians in the diaspora, as well as journalists and other allies, who organized a campaign to get Gazans e-sims when the strip went dark over the weekend. And it is Palestinians who continue to pull children from the rubble and care for those without surviving family, who refuse to abandon their patients when Israeli tells hospitals to evacuate, who are reporting on atrocities to the rest of the world while themselves surviving this murderous siege. If you aren’t already, please follow Palestinians on the ground, as many as you can. Follow Eye on Palestine, follow Bisan, follow Palestinian journalists who have “never seen such atrocities” as they’ve been subjected to bombardment themselves and even directly targeted by Israel. 30 journalists have been killed since October 7, the Committee to Protect Journalists has said.
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All of our fates are interconnected with those of Palestinians. I keep thinking about the beauty and simplicity of the hostage families’ demand: “Everyone for everyone.” Palestine is an abolitionist issue, it’s a queer and feminist issue, it’s an anti-imperialist issue. And despite the pervading atmosphere of paranoia and fear, all of us in our millions who are taking to the streets and continuing to speak up despite threats of being arrested or losing our jobs—people power gives me so much hope. We are all each other has.
Thank you for your writing on this! This roundup is really comprehensive
I’m in Australia, where our (centre left) government also has not called for a ceasefire and is still insisting that Australia supports Israel’s right to defend itself. Many of us here are extremely shocked and disappointed by the Australian govts position and like in the UK, I don’t believe it reflects the will of the people at all. It’s infuriating.