Palestinian doctor, Dr Ezzideen, should be read and understood by every Western politician and journalist. From October 15th, 2026:
"Two days ago, Israeli warplanes bombed an apartment in Gaza. A woman named Reem Awad was burned to death before the eyes of her little daughter, Maryam, who was not yet four years old. Perhaps you have seen the video of Maryam lying on her bed, watching the flames consume everything around her, including her mother. I keep wondering what a little girl of four could possibly think at such a moment. Did she call for her mother? Did she wait for her to get up and carry her away from the flames, as mothers always do when their children are frightened? Did she wonder why her mother would not come to her anymore? I do not know. And I wish no child had ever been made to discover the answers. It is terrible enough to think of a person burning to death. But to think of a little girl watching her own mother burn, unable to do anything, is more than my heart can understand. Maryam’s father was killed at the beginning of the war. She has no brothers or sisters. Now she has no mother either. At an age when a child should still be learning the simplest things about life, Maryam must somehow learn to live without the person who was meant to keep all the frightening things in the world away from her. And the last thing she saw of that person was her death.
I do not believe in conspiracy theories. But I have come to believe that we live within a global political system that has become extraordinarily skilled at accommodating our dissent, absorbing our anger, and continuing its business as though nothing had happened. Throughout three years of war in Gaza, hundreds of thousands have marched through the streets. Universities have risen in protest. The world has been filled with outrage. Allegations of genocide have reached the highest international courts and human rights institutions. The world knew. The world watched. The world protested. The world cried out. And the killing continued. This is what compels me to ask whether we must reconsider everything we have done in the name of protest, measuring it not by the sincerity of our convictions, but by what it has actually succeeded in changing. I fear that the political system has drawn the boundaries within which we are permitted to say “no” as often and as loudly as we please, on the condition that our refusal never acquires the power to compel it to change. Perhaps the system no longer needs to silence us. Perhaps it has learned that the more effective way to preserve itself is to allow us to speak, while ensuring that our dissent never becomes powerful enough to threaten it."
