Demonstrations In New York Make Several Things Clear

[AloeVera]

222. Those who want to see, will.

Those who don't, pick apart analogies.

The people of Gaza are being murdered, starved and terrorized daily for 8 months in an orgy of war crimes, in a manner that raises the plausible risk of genocide. The government of Israel doesn't want the world to focus on that abominable reality occurring in the present moment. It wants us to focus backwards, on the victims of Oct. 7th and Nova.

This exhibit plays into that strategy. Sure, it is presented as a commemoration, and it is for some people, but look closely and you will see the elements of propaganda. It recreates the horrifying scenes at Nova to instill fear, loathing and outrage in patrons. As one survivor who is part of the exhibit explained - rather tellingly- the purpose of the exhibit is to make people realize it could happen to them, to their children. In other words scare the sh**out of them, make them feel they are personally vulnerable. What better way to elicit support for the ongoing slaughter than to invoke the primitive, irrational parts of our brain? Sort of like 9/11 redux. There is also the unsubtle but surely effective repetition of Light vs Darkness, Children of Light vs Children of Darkness, Evil vs Good, the elevation of an electronic music festival to near-sainthood representing love/joy/peace/freedom, the lost shoes evoking the Holocaust etc. It's the weaving of a myth where the forces of good are all good, never did bad and are incapable of doing evil. The context, the full story, the suffering of the other side are simpply ignored.

Yet the context exists, and evil is being done. A lot of it.

Just yesterday I saw a video of a bulldozer clearing the rubble of a building in Gaza. The body of what appeared to be a young boy popped out of the rubble and the bulldozer picked it up, the body straddling the top like a rag doll. It was then dropped into a big dumpster, along with the rubble. Disappeared. No hope of being found, no commemoration.

How can a person even try to process something like that, let alone turn the other way and say that's just war, or human shield, or any other excuse? The answer is people who are able do that, have fallen for that mythology, they can't see beyond the outrage, loathing and the manufactured fear.

So yes, such an exhibit helps to prop up, enable, justify, continue the genocidal war. For example, the 270 victims of the Nuseirat Camp massacre have been nearly as "disappeared" from the discourse as that young boy was from his existence. They don't matter nearly as much, they are on the wrong side of good and evil.

A true commemoration, based on putting equal value on all human life, needs to wait until after the killing has stopped. There should be no distinction made based on nationality, religion or ethnicity. Wouldn't it be something to see, a commemoration based on those ideals?

Stop this abominable war so there will be fewer victims to commemorate. Isn't that what we all want? This exhibit doesn't help us get there.