My classmates and school at large, like most of the west, see the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians as a far-removed problem
Ahmad Ibsais
There has always been trauma involved in being a Palestinian. When I was only 13 years old, I saw my people in Gaza slaughtered by 150 occupation shells on evening news, as if our death was casual, replaced a few days later by false ideas of “peace talks”. And, now, for the past seven months, that trauma has been overwhelming: we’ve seen more than 30,000 Palestinians, 14,000 children, slaughtered, with world governments, especially my own US government, not only excusing this onslaught but actively enabling and funding Palestinian death.
However, if you were to turn on the news we are bombarded with coverage of the Met Gala and other inanities. The media, and western world at large, fawns over the costumes draped over an evening of celebrity gossip, with no mention of the 200 Palestinians murdered every day.
Through social media, the catastrophe on Gaza has become all too clear; we see live the footage of children trapped under rubble, fathers carrying the remains of their family members in bags, or the hundreds of other documented and systematic war crimes, as UN rights experts say, committed against the Palestinian people. These images and sounds are interlaced on our feeds with whatever random content is put out by our peers who could not be bothered about the suffering of our people.
Why must I see pictures from a birthday party after witnessing a Palestinian child take their last breath? I have seen more posts and “hot takes” on the feud between Drake and Kendrick Lamar than the several mass graves found at al-Shifa hospital. Is Palestinian life worth so little that people simply do not care? Is the death of our people inconvenient to normalcy? Here in the States, the media and administrations have spent decades telling us that war is endemic to the Middle East and that the Palestinians have brought this destruction upon themselves. To those in power I ask, do you not hear the screams of the Palestinian child?
But the disillusionment to Palestinian suffering goes far beyond the Met Gala. It is ingrained in the media coverage, or lack thereof, that has led to western disregard for the lives of my people. Each day for the last seven months, I, and those in my personal life, have felt an indescribable grief – not a breath goes by where the constant thought of my family back home or destruction of Palestine does not weigh heavy on my lungs…..
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The Arsenal of Genocide: the U.S. Weapons That Are Destroying Gaza
Bertrand Russell’s Last Message on Israel and Palestine
Mohammed Hanif: The rest of the world has had it with US presidents, Trump or otherwise
Renewed Fascism: In Gaza Western Elites Live Out Genocidal Fantasy Against Global South
After the truth-shower 