Commemorating International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People,
commenced by the United Nations in 1977.

“We are witnessing a genocide in real time”
– Spokesperson for the Defense for Children International – Palestine
I’m sorry Ahmed, Ibrahim, Sarah and Jana, Mohamad and Jusuf, and all the other 17,400 children killed by Israel in Gaza since 7 October 2023, along with possibly 20,000 of your mothers, fathers, and other family members.
On behalf of the civilised world, I am sorry for the deaths and genocide across Palestine, I apologise that many international leaders are ignoring the catastrophe (or looking the other way for political reasons), or providing military equipment to the aggressor nation in order to empower this genocide.
I am sorry that a national political and military machinery that purports to represent the grandchildren of Holocaust survivors, is itself enacting a new Holocaust. This does NOT reflect the wishes nor morality of many Jewish people in Israel and around the world.
Anti-Semitism
Please understand, kids, that some adults state that your murder is part of a response to a terrible attack on 7 October 2023, during which 38 Jewish children and 1101 other people were also killed. The 7 October atrocity deserved a firm response (one example being the International Criminal Court issuing arrest warrants for the Hamas leadership responsible), but the Israeli response has killed over 40,000 Palestinian civilians and elicited a similar ICC arrest warrant.
We must be careful to avoid inflaming passions on either side of this catastrophe. The hate speech and negative behaviours connected to antisemitism have traditionally focussed upon Jewish people, but Arab people (including Palestinians) should also be protected from antisemitic words and behaviours. Within both Israel and within the diaspora communities of all the world, including Australia, there are strong voices speaking against the war crimes committed against tens of thousands of innocent Palestinians. “Antisemitism” is criminal because it tars all Jews with the brush of genocide, without differentiating. For the same reason, Islamophobia is a crime, because it tars all Muslims as terrorists.
We must be careful that accusations of antisemitism are not trivialised, nor distorted to shut down valid criticism; nor can we ignore the reality of antisemitism and thereby allow hatreds to manifest during this time of division. It must be emphasised that we are all humans with dignity and nobility, and if we want to see humane and just behaviour by those on all sides, then we must set the example.
People in both Israel and Palestine have an equal and inalienable right to live peacefully, freely, autonomously and safely.
Solutions
The genocide against children (and their parents) must stop.
How?
In Humanism and Democratic Criticism, Palestinian-born Edward Said argues:
“Humanism is the only and the final resistance we have against the inhuman practices and injustices that disfigure human history…
“The essence of humanism is to understand human history as a continuous process of self-understanding and self-realization, not just for us, as white, male, European, and American, but for everyone…
“A fair degree of my own political and social activism has assured me that people all over the world can be and are moved by ideals of justice and equality.”(cited in Zakarriya, 2015, 198 – 199).
Israelis and Palestinians must be assisted to sit down together at the negotiation table. It must be made clear that hostilities cannot continue. The ghosts of the Holocaust, and of the genocide in Gaza, demand it.
Palestinian-born poet Mahmoud Darwish has written of Palestine and Israel as a place of both terrible tragedy and incurable optimism:
“This land absorbs the skins of martyrs.
This land promises wheat and stars.”
(Diary of a Palestinian wound)
US President Jimmy Carter has previously called for peace:
“Down through the years, I have seen despair and frustration evolve into optimism and progress and, even now, we need not give up hope for permanent peace for Israelis and freedom and justice for Palestinians if three basic premises are honoured: Israel’s right to exist – and to live in peace – must be recognised and accepted by Palestinians and all other neighbours; the killing of innocent people by bombs or other acts of violence cannot be condoned; and Palestinians must live in peace and dignity, and permanent Israeli settlements on their land are a major obstacle to this goal.”
The Larger Genocide
Palestine is not the only genocide that is being ignored by the world. Other children named Celine, Farah, Ibrahim, Khalid, Sarah and Tala are also dying in Sudan and Yemen and Syria; meanwhile Daniel, Joseph, Marie and Sarah are dying in the Democratic Republic of Congo. One predominant feature of these nations is that the main religion is often Islam (with Christianity as a runner-up); another common feature is the racial/cultural demographics of these children. Either way, our world leaders need to consider why these children (like the children in Gaza) apparently do not currently matter. When seeking to focus on the killings in Gaza, we must not ignore these other deaths. Genocide everywhere must end; the killings must stop.
The world (and the judgement of world history) are watching and judging us all. As Mahmoud Darwish writes about Israelis and Palestinians alike:
“Then what? A woman soldier shouted:
Is that you again? Didn’t I kill you?
I said: You killed me … and I forgot, like you, to die.”
– from In Jerusalem, Mahmoud Darwish, 2007.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Jimmy Carter, 2006. “Jimmy Carter Op-Ed: Colonization of Palestine Precludes Peace, 12 March, Carter Center.
Mahmoud Darwish, 1969. Yawmiyyat jurh filastini (Diary of a Palestinian wound). (Poetry Foundation)
– – – – – – – – -, 2007. In Jerusalem, from The Butterfly’s Burden, (Copper Canyon Press). (Poetry Foundation)
Jihan Zakarriya, 2015. “Humanism in the autobiographies of Edward Said and Nelson Mandela: memory as action”, Third World Quarterly, Vol. 36, No. 1 (2015), pp. 198-204.
©2024 Geoff Allshorn
Edited 30 November 2014 to expand and clarify some points, particularly about antisemitism.