Now Is Not the Time

My thoughts in response to Caitlin Johnstone's post "Gaza Doesn't Need Our Tears, Gaza Needs Our Anger"

Photo by Who’s Denilo ? on Unsplash

Now is not the time for tears. Now is not the time for sadness and pity. Now is not the time for gestures of sympathy and sentimental outpourings. Now is not the time to feel sorry for starving children, for grieving parents, for broken families, for lost lives.

Now is the time for anger. Now is the time for rage and fury. Now is the time for disgust and revulsion toward a rogue country whose misled people have learned nothing from their history but hatred, vengeance, arrogance and brutality. Now is the time to seethe against the corrupt and feckless leaders of our so-called democracies for their complicity and inaction. Now is the time for them to roast in the flames of righteous wrath and to choke on smouldering contempt.

Now is not the time for words. Now is not the time for feeble promises and vague statements about a two-state solution. Now is not the time for half-hearted plans and half-baked conditions full of if’s, but’s, and’s, or’s. Now is not the time for more lies, fabrications and misrepresentations of the facts on the ground. Now is not the time for choices that offer Palestinians no choice but to leave or die.

Now is the time for truth. Now is the time for sincerity, sobriety and clarity. Now is the time to speak unequivocally of genocide, ethnic cleansing, war crimes, famine. Now is the time to stop referring to two years of disproportionate military assault upon civilians and children as a war against Hamas terrorists and Israel’s right to defend itself, just as it is time to stop using October 7 and the hostages to magically erase decades of Israeli oppression, aggression, destruction, murder, theft, torture, rape and abuse. Now is the time to stop branding as terrorists those people of conscience who stand for peace, justice, democracy and freedom of speech when it is all too obvious who the real terrorists are.

Now is not the time for excuses. Now is not the time to moan and complain that everything is much too complicated, and there are too many opinions, too many contradictions, too many sides to the story for anyone to know what to trust and whom to believe. Now is not the time to attribute the conflict to religion and safely refrain from getting caught up in a thorny issue. Now is not the time to claim powerlessness because what we’re seeing is how the world works, how it has always worked, how it always will work, and nothing will ever change. 

Now is the time for commitment. Now is the time to turn words into deeds, plans of action and binding agreements. Now is the time to prod, provoke, pressure and persevere, no matter how small each step, no matter how slow the process, no matter how long it takes to stop Israel and its genocide of the Palestinian people because if this crime against humanity doesn’t stop now, who will be next? Now is the time to transcend historical grievances and to forgive, reconcile and made amends. Now is the time to rise from the blood-soaked rubble and forge a brave path toward lasting peace in the name of the martyred children, the orphaned children, the scarred children, the children yet to be born and loved.

If now is not the time for anger, truth and commitment, exactly how much more time do you think we’ve got?

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