We once again witnessed Wael Dahdouh, the Al Jazeera bureau chief in Gaza, as he bid farewell to a family member. The screen that often displayed his presence transmitted the pain and tears during the goodbye to his son Hamza, surrounded by others trying to end the farewell moment as is common in similar situations.
The screen conveyed the farewell, with its tangible end, emotions transcending time and place, and also the beginning of a new chapter of work and return to the field. It showed confronting the bleeding pain both internally and externally in front of reality and the camera, without the ability to scream or cry continuously as befitting for the deceased, or preserve a personal space for grief as befitting for death.
Nothing But Pain and Loss
Dahdouh represents a part of the general Palestinian narrative, specifically in Gaza, amidst Israel's campaign of destruction and vengeance launched upon the strip with no restraint or accountability.
While the surrounding reality speaks of the absence of the simplest things, the most basic meanings of dignity, and humanitarian values for Palestinians in Gaza under the Israeli warfare proclaimed under the guise of stripping the inhabitants of their humanity and treating them as "human animals," as stated by the Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.
In Gaza, there is nothing but loss and pain, despite resilience. No time to fully feel anything, despite a love for life and the attempt to nurture hope. Farewells are swift, grief is postponed, hunger is present and satiety delayed, war is present and security deferred, fear is omnipresent and safety postponed, tents are present and statehood postponed, refuge present and law postponed, talk is abundant and action deferred. The cycle of condemnations and promises are repetitive, with implementation always delayed.
Nothing in Gaza resembles life, nor does death resemble death. Everyone is a target, everyone is at risk of destruction, and there are still voices within Israel calling for inflicting more pain. Because death alone is a quick punishment that does not align with the desired revenge of Israeli Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu, who did not rule out dropping a nuclear bomb on the Gaza Strip during the first month of the war.
For the Heritage Minister, death does not meet the shock of October 7th, 2023, does not restore deterred stature, and is not in line with the desires of the extreme right he represents, as a member of the far-right "Jewish Power" party to which Itamar Ben-Gvir, the Minister of National Security, belongs. It also does not align with the desire to utilize events for erasing the Palestinian cause and annihilating anything Palestinian.
A Sick Desire for Revenge
Israeli vengeance is evident within a broad range of targets encompassing Gaza, the entirety of Gaza and its residents, stretching beyond it to Nablus, Jenin, Tulkarm, and other cities and camps in the West Bank and Jerusalem. Vengeance grows with the pain, intensifies with Palestinian suffering, and calls for more death and destruction, amplified by voices and policies dominated by the far and extreme right.
Voices clamoring for extermination dominate the scene, while on the margins a few hesitant voices raise a necessary and crucial question about the increasing savagery of society and the spread of genocidal rhetoric in Israeli discourse, without accountability, shaping a future characterized by fear and violence.
This question brings forth deeper inquiries about Gaza's place in the face of democracy and Western values that are supposedly based on protecting human beings and respecting rights and freedoms.
Israel, claimed not only as a democratic state but as the sole and unique democracy in the region repeatedly affirmed over time and by some Western voices, continues in the background to violate rights and freedoms, to kill humans without accountability, to destroy without constraints, and without dismantling the contradicting democratic rhetoric against the reality, as if democracy is naturally restricted in application, and violations are permissible in politics and practice, provided they occur against a different group or an "other" not recognized as part of the civilized West.
Contradictory Discourse
Western democracy is evident in an American electoral battle where the current President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump struggle over the concept of American democracy, who has maligned it, and who has upheld and supported it.
However, this democracy manifests differently in our Arab world, where death is prioritized, international law is absent, and former U.S. Vice President Mike Pence signed a shell targeting Lebanon, bringing death and destruction with it.
Pence's act is part of a continuous series of speeches, statements, and actions emanating from various Western countries, complicit with Israel in shared values and democracy, which did not hesitate to accept death in Gaza, Lebanon, or Yemen; supposedly for Israel's self-defense or for its security, and paradoxically, to defend regional and global stability and prosperity, while contradictions persist between rhetoric calling for the limitation of war and non-expansion of conflict zones, and policies and stances that fuel the expansion of war and ignite conflict zones.
The World Crushes Justice With Contempt Every Day
Faced with popular pressure and images of human suffering, some voices in the West retreated from their previous stances in favor of more humanitarian discourse, without necessarily condemning Tel Aviv. Meanwhile, others focus merely on aid talks, as if the only difference in confronting death is whether it should occur before or after the entry of humanitarian aid, rather than stopping the killings and protecting humans, international law, and humanitarian regulations as presumed.
Israel, supported by Western countries, drags us into a recurring debate over details, the future, and who bears the cost of eradicating Palestinians to forget the essence of the issue, that an occupation expected to be held accountable and stopped, rather than continuing at the expense of the Palestinian people, neighboring states, and the world, shaping the future of those states and the region beforehand.
In Gaza, values, laws, and democracy give way to the stark truth once highlighted by Ghassan Kanafani: "The world crushes justice with contempt every day," and it continues to do so.
Yet, in the face of this decline, Palestinian resilience holds as long as thyme and olives exist. Despite pain and loss, Dahdouh's dignity stands tall like an olive tree – a message not only to the interested observer but also to the world's conscience, or what remains of it.
