You Don’t See Your Children in the Children of Gaza
…and perhaps, that is what hurts the most.
Dear beloved,
How are you? And how is your heart?
But no, really - how is your heart? I really do wonder.
Because I see you and I know you see me, too.
Well, perhaps you don’t really see me, but you are watching - clicking through my stories and scrolling down your Facebook feed.
Do you remember back when this fresh hell began? The video of the little boy who became the image of trauma personified? The way his terror-filled eyes seemed too big for his little body, his little body quaking like I’ve never seen a human quake before. The image of his tiny face still haunts my heart - facing terror head-on that no human being, let alone a little one, should ever have to face. Yet he and a million others are, day in, day out, as we watch from behind our phone screens - helpless and in despair.
But you’re not helpless or in despair, are you? You seem to see them. But you don’t really see them - do you?
And do you remember - during your scrolling - hearing the desperate, heartbreaking pleas of little Hind? Do you remember how they killed her - mercilessly murdered her - shooting over 300 times at the car she was trapped in, surrounded by dead members of her own family? Imagine. Hundreds of bullets in the body of a precious little baby. She was just 6 years old. She was alone and absolutely petrified. And they murdered her and her whole family.
She was just 6 years old.
6. Years. Old.
But I guess you scrolled on then too, unmoved.
And I don’t know if you saw it - well, actually, I’m sure that you did because I shared it on my stories and I saw that you saw it - but do you remember the little girl, just a year older than Hind, I think the same age as your son? Half a body, hanging from the middle of a broken building, like a rag-doll torn to pieces? Except, she wasn’t a rag-doll. She was a real, live human being, and her name was Sidra. Maybe you’ve known a Sidra in your lifetime, too? School, college, university, or work? Ah, yes, I thought so.
But this little Sidra’s mutilated, hanging body still wasn’t enough to move you, was it?
So you moved on instead.
And most recently, the tiny baby girl… the starving, skeletal baby girl - one of thousands - who is so weak that she can’t even cry. Eyeballs protruding from her gaunt skull, ribs cutting through her taut, pale skin - while trucks full of aid sit just across the border, purposefully being held back by the devil himself. She’s probably dead now, or still painfully dying, having only known a life that was nothing but the hell and horror of the Israeli regime.
And you must have seen that one, no? Because Ms Rachel shared the photo and video, and then shared it again. Your kid loves Ms Rachel, right? You must love her too - all the times she’s saved you and bought you back some precious scrolling time 😜.
Ah, but you don’t love her when she speaks for the children who have no voice? You don’t love her when she stands up for the children who need it, in a world full of silent sheep?
You’re just there for the content. Oh okay, I get it. Just not the real content.
But hang on a minute, I saw just today how a white British family died abroad, and you shared a post about that with a 😢 emoji. And a few months back, you did the same at the death of a little white British boy.
And I remember when the whole Ukraine-Russia thing kicked off, and how you were actively sharing and using your voice back then. You weren’t just scrolling. I remember seeing you rally together with your friends, opening your doors, your arms and hearts to the fleeing Ukrainians entering the U.K. How you simply couldn’t do enough to help them. So bold of you. So kind of you. Genuinely, I mean that. Do you remember?
And I remember when the horrific Southport killings happened. Both of us sharing our heartbreak at the murder and loss of these beautiful little girls who had simply gone to a Taylor Swift dance class, never to return home again.
And then, of course, remember the Manchester arena attack at the Taylor Swift concert? This is going years back now, way before your hypocrisy was so blatant. We’re both from Manchester, so I think this one struck both of us deeply, right in the heart.
You shared the same sentiments as me: How could such evil things happen to such pure, beautiful children? Just, how?!
Yet, they do. THEY DO.
And right now, the most evil of all evil is happening to the most precious little Palestinian children. And we’re seeing it. We’re watching it. A live-streamed genocide.
We’re watching these beautiful, beautiful children being tortured for fun.
We’re watching them being slaughtered for profit.
We’re watching how the world tells us that they don’t matter, we’re seeing in real-time how in this world, they really don’t matter.
And you are living proof of that. You are living proof that they don’t matter. They don’t matter to you.
You don’t see them because they don’t look like you. You don’t hear their desperate cries because they don’t speak like you.
Some of them love football just like your son, some of them love music just like your daughter. But right now, they’re just trying to cling on to life while we watch - starving, traumatised, broken, limbless, homeless, family-less.
They don’t seem to be worth the breath in your body, the words on your tongue, or a simple share on your Facebook feed. Yet, miraculously, their white counterparts are.
Do you not see? Do you really not see?
I guess what I’m coming to realise and accept is that you don’t. And you never have.
You don’t see them.
Because you don’t see your own children in them. Because your children don’t look like them.
And that’s the problem.
Ironically, you recently found Jesus, and I’m really happy that you found faith for yourself.
Yet… Jesus was Palestinian. Born in Bethlehem. Jesus was one of the greatest awakeners of human consciousness of all time. Jesus would never stand for this. Jesus would never stand for genocide.
But, somehow, in a roundabout way, you do. As long as it’s happening to people who don’t look like you.
So this is why I ask you of your heart. How it is. How it’s doing. Because a heart that is alive and open to the whole of humanity, could never see the images and videos that we as a race have seen over the last 20 months, remain unmoved and simply scroll on. It just couldn’t.
As Jesus himself said, “Forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
And I forgive you. I really do. And I also pray for you. I deeply pray for you, for the awakening of your heart and for the development of your morality.
May your heart open to the whole of this human family, and may your morality extend far beyond white skin.
“The children are always ours, every single one of them, all over the globe; and I am beginning to suspect that whoever is incapable of recognizing this may be incapable of morality.” ~ James Baldwin.
With Light, Love & Peace,
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Sabah, I have no words for the inhumanity and hypocrisy we are witnessing. So thank you for using your voice to reflect the one I seem to have lost. It is so painful to realize that there is so much blindness in the world. Zara Sheriff recently wrote about how seeing is a spiritual act. When we disconnect so completely, our mind, body, and spirit, then yes, we become blind. And that is what we’re witnessing. Blindness brought on by such a misalignment - demonization of the spirit, idolization of the intellect, and dissociation with the body. A decline in empathy, a rise in us vs them thinking, an amnesia of the reality that we are all one.😭😭😭