A ‘magic pill’ made Israeli violence invisible. We need to stop swallowing it

"The world has never listened to Palestinian voices or taken seriously the existential threat Israel poses to Palestinian life, and this has not materially changed despite the increase in performative angst. To the contrary, Palestinians have for three-quarters of a century endured the world telling us that Israeli “security concerns” – however defined by Israel – are more important than our rights and lives. As a result Palestinians live with two omnipresent forms of violence: Israeli violence directly inflicted upon our bodies, land and society, and western violence, where only our erasure prompts the world to notice us and see our humanity – but only barely.

I reach this conclusion from observing up close, for a quarter-century, how this mode of western thinking and operating plays out. Despite two years of carnage in Gaza, and everything the world has learned about Israel’s true intentions, that mode is repeating itself as I write this, with global powers lining up behind a proposal that does little to ensure Palestinians gain any say over their future.

Rhetoric without consequence has been the west’s modus operandi for decades. The cost has been catastrophic."

read essay by DIANA BUTTU

A ‘magic pill’ made Israeli violence invisible. We need to stop swallowing it | Gaza | The Guardian