As Eid – the end of Ramadan celebration – is approaching, Israel has shown once again that its state violence doesn’t stop on holidays.
You might have seen the videos of Israeli forces brutally beating the worshippers in Al Aqsa mosque during the holy month of Ramadan.
If you haven’t, you can see these graphic images below:
Days later, we saw Christian worshippers attacked, too, as they were trying to reach holy sites in Jerusalem during Easter:
Needless to say, we can only imagine the outrage and the condemnation if the situation was reversed: if those were Jewish worshippers being brutally beaten in a synagogue by state forces of a predominantly different religion.
But the actual situation is not new. So what is there to say about violence that is expected and that repeats itself every Ramadan?
What is there to say about the oppression that is going on for decades?
One thing we can say is that while all this violence is out in the open for the world to see, condemning it is still not widespread. In some countries – Germany being a sad example – this condemnation can even bring you accusations of antisemitism, without sparing Jewish activist voices.
Which leads us to the second point: we have to make our voices even louder. They have to cut through the Israeli state narrative, the mainstream media silence, and even legal systems that are now designed to criminalise speaking out against Israeli state violence.
So during Ramadan, Easter, Christmas, or any other holiday: wishing peace for our Palestinian friends has to come in a very active form.
“Solidarity is a verb”, after all.
Listen to my episode on the concept of the erasure of the Palestinian people here.
Find my episode on impunity surrounding Israel’s crimes below:
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