Small Bodies

I cannot take one set of small bodies being more important than the thousands of other small bodies on the other side of the wall.

It’s the inequality that kills me. Watching it daily, how did I not notice it before Gaza? Or was it not egregious enough to break through our perception? Watching Palestinian people be so worthless in the eyes of the entire world, watching the Israeli Armed Forces dump their bodies, excavate their bodies, drive over them, steal their organs—bodies of people they tortured with glee, before turning them into lifeless bodies.

Watching Hamas hand over the small bodies of the Bibas children, small bodies that were never supposed to be taken in the first place; how desperate you have to be to steal small children, to have a bargaining chip, to force the world to pay attention to your decades-long plight, acknowledge your existence—how desperate you have to be to resort to war crimes to bargain for your human rights that should have been inherent?

I don’t want to hear judgments from the warm sofas in your living rooms, all of you who bark at strangers on the street who bump into you and invade your personal space by accident, or cut you off in traffic—how dare you decide what’s morally righteous when someone takes your house, snipes your children in the head and uses your parents as human shields.

I mourn these children. My heart dropped when their death was confirmed! Why are children paying our tabs with their lives?

Their small bodies, handed over in the casket, with white gloves on those who carried them. White gloves, a sign of respect; these kids weren’t supposed to be taken. I mourn these children. Red Cross was there, present, to hand them over. Where was Red Cross when the Palestinian bodies were dumped like cattle, stolen four times, excavated, and dumped again, wrapped in blue plastic bags?

Where was Red Cross when children carried the small bodies of their younger siblings in grocery bags?

I cannot take the sight of lifeless small bodies, I cannot take the inequality of some bodies being more important than other bodies. I cannot take the sight of thousands of small bodies being mauled to death, shredded to pieces; small bodies are small bodies, wherever they come from.

Those children weren’t supposed to be taken.

Those children weren’t supposed to be shredded to pieces.

I cannot take legacy media talking about one set of small bodies while ignoring the enormous amount of other small bodies that just happened to be born on the other side of the wall.

I cannot take the occupier and their supporters working overtime to flip the reality on our heads.

We have phones, and you like to brag.

When will this cycle of violence ever end? Violence begets violence; when will the legacy media start talking about the violence that begot all this violence?

Have you ever heard of an occupation that wasn’t violent? Why is the violence that occupies legitimate and self-defense, while resisting the violence is just—violence?

Why is one set of small bodies being unalived intolerable to the world, but unaliving the entire population for decades is tolerated and encouraged? It’s like the world’s entire balance depends on harming these 2.2 million souls in that small, remarkable strip of land.

Sorry, 1.8 million, the president told us when he planned their luxury move. Where is the missing 400,000? Dust on their own land?

Land.

There is so much land in this world, and so many resources—enough for every breathing soul. It’s the inequality that kills me, how some people hoard everything while others must suffer for the basics.

What is about this small remarkable strip of land that everyone covets?

We know what it is.

Only one set of small bodies unalived is important to this world. Other small bodies with 355 bullet wounds riddled into their small body aren’t important to this world.

It’s the inequality that kills me. Rage is justified, handing over small bodies in caskets is seen as a spectacle. Meanwhile, boat tours are offered to Israeli families to watch small bodies in Gaza burn to death, and it barely registers in the Western conscience.

Those children weren’t supposed to be taken.

But they were.

Killed by their own government.

Handed over in the white gloves.

It isn’t complicated.

It’s only complicated when you want to stake something from someone, Ta-Nehisi Coates once said.

Land. Resources.

There’s nothing complicated about decades-long, brutally oppressed people bursting for liberation.

These people have repeatedly told you, begged you—they want liberation.

There came a moment when they stopped asking nicely.

By any means necessary, Malcolm X once said.

It’s exactly in the violence where we come to the biggest injustice. One side is allowed by the world and morally justified to violate the other side, and the other side isn’t allowed, Aaron Mate once said.

I cannot take the sight of small bodies unalived anymore.

I hate myself; I spent an hour looking for a pretty picture of lifeless small bodies for this article.

Or is this a poem of my rage?

Those children weren’t supposed to be taken.

Why aren’t any Palestinian voices allowed in mainstream spaces to plead their case? Must they plead it by means of violence and by taking small children?

This inequality is killing me.

Selective rage is killing me.

And I cannot take one set of small bodies being more important than the thousands of other small bodies on the other side of the wall.