Catarina Pinto
Since Israel launched its ground offensive in Gaza last Saturday, the ever-lasting conflict between Israeli and Palestinians has escalated rapidly once more. We’ve seen this before. Over and over again. The death toll now tops 501, the BBC has stated.
It really feels like it never stops. And I don’t even live in Gaza or Israel.
The conflict has been dragging on for so long that I can’t pretend that I understand it in its full complexity. Nor can I hold the pretension of knowing its true essence. I feel that I’m far from knowing, actually.
We have been watching the conflict from afar for quite a long time now. This is the type of conflict that cannot be understood through only history books, newspaper columns, newspaper feature stories, or through the voices of war correspondents.
To have at least a glimpse into what the conflict means today we would have to be there, and talk to the people standing on both sides. Only their views could provide us with a reality closer to the truth. And the truth – we know – depends from where we stand.
Whenever the conflict escalates again, another feeling I have is that if we provide our opinion, we are often accused of choosing a side. If we criticize Israel for its offensives, we are anti-Semitic. If we criticize the Palestinian side, we are accused of being against the Arab community, too. It’s as if we were talking about football and criticizing one side’s actions meant that we were clearly on the other sides’ team.
This is not about teams, nor about taking sides. It’s not about the rights and wrongs anymore. Or at least it shouldn’t be. This is not about understanding if Israel was entitled to that land or if Israel was the best solution for the Jewish community. Israel exists, in its full strength, and it seems like such a fascinating place.
But as the conflict has reemerged, I read over a few articles a Portuguese journalist wrote while living in Israel. In an interview with her, Israeli journalist Akiva Eldar said that “people are dying and they will die for nothing.”
In his opinion, “both sides are doing everything against its people.” He blames the leaders of both sides for not having enough courage or imagination to come up with alternative solutions. He recalled that the world is watching cynically, without helping. He is right.
The conflict has existed for so long that the rest of the world has come to the conclusion that it’s something that will always be there. The conflict. The Israeli offensives. The Palestinian rocket attacks. The deaths.
And I think this is one of the most dangerous ideas to be thought. Accepting war. We have been accepting this war for too long, thinking it as a never-ending conflict. Like everything in life however; it has to somehow stop.
I cannot imagine what it is like to be in a city where rocket attacks are falling from the sky but then again, these are followed by far more powerful and deadly attacks from Israeli armed forces.
As in other war stories, this one too has a weak and a strong side, with one side now losing far more lives than the other, which having to live strangled in a small area called the Gaza strip in truly worsening conditions.
Leaders of both sides are accountable for a number of obscene mistakes but I think nothing can justify such offensive attacks over such weaker side. Mostly because civilians are caught in the middle of it. Always, in fact.
We should think about human atrocities such as the World War II and refuse to forget. We cannot accept war, particularly one that has been dragging on for far too long. This has to stop.
Political activist Rachel Corrie – who was killed in Gaza in 2003 – once wrote: “Disbelief and horror is what I feel. Disappointment. I am disappointed that this is the base reality of our world and that we, in fact, participate in it.”
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