M H B

Children burn alive. Human beings mass murdered for 19 months straight and politicians, academics and journalists still deliberate terms and sensitivities about the apocalypse we watch. Countless precious lives extinguished daily in this barbaric war of conquest. Hospitals are a target. Journalists are a target. Babies. Everyone. The opponents to these horrors are criminalized and terrorized globally, silenced into submission. The perpetrators broadcast their crimes and intent to exterminate clearly. The brazen display by Israeli officials, coupled with the genocidal attitude of Israeli society shows where nuclear-armed impunity leads. World leaders utter obligatory disapproval of the unending war crimes and forced starvation of millions, while they feed the genocidaires money, weapons and diplomatic cover. They pretend Netanyahu is the anomaly, and his annihilatory policies not emblematic of Zionism. As the genocide becomes undeniable, their self-rehabilitation campaign begins. They want to wash their hands of Gaza so they can preserve their apartheid colony and military garrison in the Middle East. They are buying just enough time for Israel to erase Gaza and either kill—or push out—two million people, horrifically altering the course of history, cementing generations of unimaginable trauma and consequence. As is often said, Gaza is a test that exposes the savagery of imperialism, issued as a threat by the powerful. But Gaza is also a mirror, exposing the humanity that binds us, and for far too many, our lack thereof. Moaz Mousa, the brilliant videographer from Gaza Fights For Freedom, is still surviving in Gaza. He is now the caretaker of nearly 30 people, after five of his brothers and father were murdered in the genocide. The other day he told me this: “I don’t know what to say to this world cast in a wax mold. You need Gaza, contrary to what you think. You need Gaza to feel your humanity. You need Gaza to feel that the hearts in your chest are still working. You need it above all, to pass the test of conscience. You need Gaza to feel the truth of your humanity and the truth of the purpose of your existence. But as for Gaza, despite all the tragedies it occupies, it is the freest. It has the ability to rebel, to scream in the face of the world, it has the ability to demand its rights, it believes in its right to life, and it believes in its pursuit of the necessity of its existence.” Moaz is right. Not only do we need Gaza in order to fight for some distant idea of international law and universal human rights. We need Gaza to prove that we are still human at all—after all the inhumanity, the barbarism and bloodshed we have witnessed. Without Gaza, I don’t know what we will be, and what kind of world we will be left with. And that should terrify us all.