The Fight is too Big - an Impromptu Post

How do we take on such obdurate evil?

Photo by Felix Weinitschke on Unsplash

This morning I saw photos of dead, mutilated children in graves outside the hospital complex in Palestine, their hands zip-tied behind their backs. Tortured and executed. Their hands were zip-tied behind their backs. Suddenly, my vision felt strange. It felt like everywhere I looked, I was staring through a cloud. Not white or misty, but just slow-moving, ethereal.

As I walked through the hall, I saw someone post something through the door, so I went to collect it. It was a leaflet for the local council elections; the Tory candidate was in our street posting them. I went outside to hand it back to her. “I’m sorry, we won’t be voting for anyone who has supported the aiding and abetting of the genocide in Palestine.”

She stopped and said she wanted to have an ‘open discussion’ about it. What she meant was that with me being a brown woman, she wanted to grill me about Oct 7. “Was it right what happened on that day?” she asked. “Which Oct 7?” I replied. “1948, 1949, 1950, 1951, 1952, 1953, 1954…2022?” She did not answer.

She said, “I think Israel has the right to defend itself, but it went a bit far.” I told her that she should not mislead and make false statements about the law. The law says no such thing; it says that an occupying power has no right to defence over those it occupies.

I asked her if she’d read any UN reports. No, she said. I asked her what happened on Oct 7? Because there were no systematic rapes, no beheaded babies, and no babies in ovens. We know there have been rapes for 75 years though. In Palestine. We know that a pregnant woman was raped in front of her husband and kids, a gun to his head forcing him to watch, then they killed her and the baby anyway. Did she read the UN report about it? No, she said.

We know Israeli helicopters bombed Israeli citizens and shot into Kibbutz on Oct 7 2023, under the Hannibal Directive. I asked her if she knew what the Hannibal Directive was? No, she said. I asked her if she would like to see the photos of what was happening. No, she said.

I told her I consider anyone who does not care about the 75 years of oppression and murder prior to Oct 7, 2023, to be someone who does not care about Palestinian, brown, or Muslim lives. “You’re calling me a racist!” she exclaimed, indignant. She then walked off, attempting to coax my neighbours to vote for her.

“Do not return to my property,” I said after her, ensuring my neighbours would hear, “telling me that Palestinian lives do not matter, that Muslim lives do not matter, that brown people do not matter, that my family does not matter. Do not come back here, on my driveway, at my house, espousing those views again.”

The cloud did not pass after this. It got heavier. I cannot call these views ignorant, not anymore. I cannot call them stupid. They are heartless and cruel; they are malevolent and evil.

I got into bed and tried to sleep the evil around me away. Time raced past whilst staying utterly still. The fight is too big.

They zip-tied the hands of children behind their backs. Then they inflicted pain on their tiny bodies while they could not defend themselves. Then they killed and mutilated them, and not necessarily in that order. Then they buried them in mass graves as if they were nothing. They TikToked their way through it, laughed and joked on social media about the pain they inflicted. Sang sweet songs as bulldozers flattened dead bodies.

How do we fight such evil? The evil is too big.