“It’s complicated” a man yelled out his car window at the Ledyard-bridge peace protestors who demand an end to the ongoing genocide against the Palestinian people. This phrase, repeated often, is a line straight out of Israel’s propaganda playbook. It is from the same Jews-versus-Muslims religious conflict false narrative and the “they have a right to defend themselves” pablum.
“It’s complicated” is a demeaning phrase that says that it is beyond the average person’s ability to understand. It is designed to create uncertainty and hesitation, to make us question the trust we place in our own eyes and common sense that the slaughter and starvation of a civilian population is not only morally wrong, it is a war crime quickly advancing to a crime against humanity as we watch.
“It’s complicated” is a lie, or disinformation if we want to be polite. It is not complicated.
Israel illegally occupies much of Palestine, well beyond the questionable U.N sanctioned grant back in 1948. Since then, they have stolen homes, farms and entire villages as they terrorized the Palestinian people into submission. They have slaughtered, tortured and illegally imprisoned tens of thousands of innocent civilians under the false pretense of self-defense. These are the conclusions of the United Nations and almost every single humanitarian group on the ground in Palestine.
The root cause of the violence in Palestine is Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine. International law not only prohibits it, but also sanctions armed resistance against such illegal occupations.
Israel’s war crimes of ethnic cleansing, genocide and collective punishment against the Palestinians is now spreading into a regional war, instigated by Israel to fulfill its brazenly and overtly stated plan for a “Greater Israel,” which, in some versions, includes all of Palestine and Lebanon, as well as much of southern Syria, and Iraq. They are executing this plan in front of our very eyes using weapons and money that we hand them, just as we watch them openly declare their intentions of committing the war crime of collective punishment, such as mass starvation and water deprivation of civilians.
Yet, somehow, our U.S. State Department, so quick to declare Russia’s attacks on hospitals in the Ukraine as war crimes, says that we are still waiting on a full investigation. Of what? Israel openly declares its crimes, which are also amply documented in South Africa’s assertion of war crimes in the International Court of Justice. By whom? An independent commission? No, such commissions are banned by the Israeli government and are called anti-semitic whenever they decry any of Israel’s crimes. We are waiting on Israel, the perpetrator of these war crimes, to investigate themselves, as they commit more atrocities — as we watch, somehow convinced of the false narrative of the pseudo-complexity of the situation.
According to international law, the United States is not only prohibited from aiding in such war crimes by supplying arms, money and military support, we are required to actively intervene to stop it, by force if necessary. Yet, our leadership, bought and paid for by the dark money of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), continues its complicity in the ongoing crimes against humanity.
We, citizens of the United States of America, are letting them get away with it, under the uncertainty cover of “it’s complicated” and “they are only defending themselves.” Morality and law are not the sole purview of governments. The United States government represents us; it works for us. We the people have a moral obligation. We must do better. In the end, if we fail to stop this situation in every possible way, we share moral responsibility for what we are allowing to happen.
If not for these reasons, know that Israel’s regional war could easily escalate into a global war that could kill everyone on the planet. Speak up. Act. Demand change now, before it is too late.
O. Sami Saydjari is a cybersecurity expert and former senior executive of the Defense Department. He lives in Hartland.