I post regularly about Palestine on my personal Instagram account, and I occasionally get comments asking “what about the hostages?”. This increasingly so since I changed my account back to public, thereby allowing a broader audience access to my personal perspectives. But even still, a lot of my friends and connections are not as obsessively active on social media as I am, and so when we have conversations in real life, the differences in our understanding of “October 7th” and the events that have followed since, are often revealed to be drastically different. Even otherwise progressive individuals, who would often be active in other social justice issues, have been incredibly cautious and seemingly wary of “picking a side”.
I can understand their concern. It feels vulnerable to put yourself out there and take a stand.
It should not be controversial to challenge a genocide, but unfortunately it seems it is. Especially when it seems like we are being given very different narratives, depending on what news source we rely upon.
It feels dangerously close to a conspiracy theory to even suggest that our major news outlets may not be giving us the full story. It feeds into old antisemitic tropes of the world being controlled by a group of powerful Jewish people! But sadly, regardless of what the reasons may be, our usual (Western) news sources are not sharing anywhere near as much as our Middle Eastern sources, like Al Jazeera. Coverage of the recent International Court of Justice case revealed this so clearly – with the South African case not being streamed live by BBC or Sky, yet the Israeli rebuttal was streamed live on both those channels. (Source: The New Arab).
On a recent visit to Seattle, I was pleasantly surprised to see strong support for Palestine and all occupied territories, and delighted to join a protest at short notice in Seattle Central College against the bombing of Yemen.
This solidarity was less surprising once I read this piece in the Seattle Times by Naomi Ishisaka in honour of Martin Luther King Day: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/on-mlk-day-i-have-to-speak-out-on-gaza/
The current round of bombing began after Hamas’ attack on Israel on Oct. 7, where 1,200 people were brutally killed and hundreds of people taken hostage. But any honest accounting of the war that followed cannot start the clock on Oct. 7.
Naomi Ishisaka, Seattle Times
Ishisaka summarises the situation so well that I won’t repeat her entire article here, but I urge you to read it in full: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/on-mlk-day-i-have-to-speak-out-on-gaza/
I don’t write about “October 7th”, because, as I have written before, this situation did not start on that day.
I don’t write about “the hostages”, because the Palestinian people have been held captive for decades – figuratively and literally. (Source: Human Rights Watch).
But I do aim to write about what I know for sure has happened, and continues to happen, and what we can all do to hopefully stop it. As soon as possible.
Siobhán Kangataran 