Will We Ever Learn?

My heart is heavy as I take in the reality that Gaza is uttering its last breath.

Israel is forcing starving Gazans further and further south luring them with food drop-offs, which have become death traps.  To date 400 Gazans have been murdered rushing for a bag of flour. The handwriting is on the wall.

Palestinians carry a man who was shot while waiting for aid in Rafah on Monday © AFP/Getty Images

The ethnic cleansing of Gaza is imminent.  The few remaining Gazans will be forced over the border to be deported.  Comparisons have been drawn to the Warsaw Ghetto where the Nazis enticed starving Jews to board trains to the death camps.

I’m still in disbelief that a 20 month live-streamed genocide failed to stir world leaders into demanding a ceasefire to stop the genocide.  Their silence has been devastating and unforgivable.

Thankfully global citizens have never let up on their massive public protests for Gaza, but they  failed to impact their leaders, save for a few exceptions like Spain, Ireland, and Norway.

Spain’s foreign minister, José Manuel Albares, announcing his country would reject any ship carrying arms to Israel.

Genocide is not a new phenomenon.  We ethnically cleansed Native Americans.  Turkey decimated the Armenian population.  The list goes on and on, but never before has a genocide happened in real time, where daily images filled our screens: wounded infants attached to breathing tubes; dazed sole survivors of large families; journalists reporting as drones circled overhead and exhausted doctors and nurses begging the world to do something.

To date, 50,000 children in Gaza have been killed or injured.

US led wars have punctuated my life.  I came of age during the Viet Nam War. I joined with other young protesters and celebrated when we forced Lyndon Johnson to resign, although it was another seven years before the war ended.  Later we stood for human rights in South and Central America, Africa and Afghanistan.  I protested for weeks in the lead-up to the Iraq War.

I was disillusioned over and over.  Barbara Lee of California was the lone elected official to vote against entering war with Iraq.  Presently only a handful of Washington’s Representatives and Senators have denounced Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

Rep, Barbara Lee casting the lone vote against authorizing federal money for the war in Iraq, 2001

Once again, we are poised to enter an unnecessary war, siding with Israel’s provocation against Iran, employing false arguments startling similar to those in defense of attacking Iraq.  Now the stakes are doomsday-like since Israel has nuclear bombs.  If the war goes nuclear, we are all doomed.  It could be WWlll.

In spite of our government’s history of provoking war after war, leaving behind decimated countries, I can’t give up.  I have to believe that somehow human decency will prevail, but it won’t come from heads of state.  As former CIA officer Ray McGovern has said,  “We have no moral leadership . .  there is only us.”

Ray McGovern warning about a war with Iran becoming a nuclear war

We have to make the “us” count.  I’m not sure how to do this, but I’m hopeful the surge in opposition to Trump’s cruel policies as evidenced by the millions who took to the streets last Saturday can form a movement to upend Trump and restore some basic decency.

Change takes more than large street protests.  Mass mobilizations have to be accompanied with strategies for change.  Many are looking to the midterm elections to out Trump elected officials.

An image from Saturday’s “No King’s” nationwide march

Others insist that the two-party system can’t be reformed, citing evidence that both parties are controlled by corporate interests which bankroll their campaigns.  This coalition is represented by Kshama Sawant, socialist candidate for the US Congress from Washington State, running a campaign based on a platform that organized labor is the way forward where a large labor contingent pressures corporate America to enact a livable wage and universal health care.

Whichever side you embrace, we all can do something to put the brakes on the growing authoritarianism and war mongering threatening our very existence.  We owe it to our children and grandchildren to work towards a peaceful, compassionate society. It is our moral imperative, but time is running out.