Opinion //

The world roots for Israel. What about the Palestinians?

In a divided world, we often forget it’s the most ordinary of us that gets hurt from wars.

I chose not to put a cover image on this article. Because no image or video or media could ever portray the destruction and pain of the people in Israel and in Palestine. Children torn from the arms of their parents, endless exploding shells over their heads and blood splattered everywhere. Nothing we write or say or capture, could ever convey to us the urgency and desperation of the conflict.

A whole year after Russia shocked the world with its invasion of Ukraine, Hamas shocked us again with its bombardment of Israel. Now, the whole world has rallied behind Israel — and perhaps rightly so. Its people have been victims of terrorism, and more than 1400 civilians have died while more than 200 have been taken hostage. The sense of outrage is fair, and I offer my utmost condolences to those in Israel who have lost family or friends to the conflict. I, like you, hope for a quick and peaceful ending to the conflict.

But are we so quickly forgetting a group of people?

A zero-sum game, with no winners. Only losers

Consider two families, living just miles apart, but worlds away in terms of their daily experiences. On one side of the border, you have the Cohen family, residing in a small town in southern Israel. They’ve had to adapt to a life filled with uncertainty, marked by the frequent sirens and the harrowing dash to bomb shelters as rockets rain down from the Gaza Strip. One immediately feels sympathy for them, as the world rallies for them.

While the Cohens’ story, emblematic of the resilience of Israeli civilians, is broadcast globally, we must not forget the Al-Mansour family living on the other side of the border in Gaza. The Al-Mansours endure daily hardships, from prolonged power outages to limited access to clean water and medical care. Their story, however, rarely makes the headlines, leaving them to navigate their struggles in relative anonymity.

The media covers all the sensational news. The rockets, the bombings… But life in the Gaza Strip, where everyday existence is marred by basic needs going unmet, rarely receives similar media attention.

We want peace and stability, not daily conflict

The Palestinians are stateless people. On one side, they are governed by a corrupt, bankrupt and incompetent Palestinian Authority (PA). As much as the west and their allies want to portray the PA as the one legitimate government of Palestine, they remain deeply unpopular in the West Bank. On the other side, they are governed by another corrupt (perhaps less so than the PA) and violent Hamas, which retain popular support in many parts of the Gaza Strip, despite international refusal to admit their legitimacy and their classification as a “terrorist group”.

Israel enjoys substantial support from Western nations, particularly the United States. This support not only includes substantial financial assistance but also political backing, which inevitably impacts the global discourse.

Yet on the Palestinian side, internal divisions and leadership struggles have complicated their quest for self-determination. The legitimacy of Palestinian factions like Fatah and Hamas is a contentious issue, impacting their international standing.

Despite this, millions of Palestinians desire peace, stability, and a future free from the spectre of conflict.

A very human conflict, with very human costs

Notice that in the title I wrote “What about the Palestinians?”, instead of “What about Palestine?”

This is a conflict between states. Not between peoples.

The ordinary people — the civilians — of Israel and Palestine want to live in peace, not see their world torn apart by fire and conflict.

The people of Palestine deserve better. The world does not rally to their aid, even though they suffer as much as their neighbours. They are forgotten, looked down on even — and thrown into the same category as Hamas. Why do terrorist peoples deserve aid?

But they are not. They are civilians. They are ordinary people. People like you and I. People with hopes and dreams. People with families and friends. People whose one wish is to live peacefully with a good job and a safe home. People who want to come home and feel safe in the knowledge that they have a home to come back to.

All those at the top, they never fight for those at the bottom. They fight for themselves, for their own ambitions and grand plans. But all those at the bottom, they are the ones who pay the price.

To help is to see. To understand is to feel

For far too long the world has refused to see that the Palestinians are people too. That they deserve our help and support and protection too. That they need the humanitarian aid that they have been deprived of for far too long.

So while we root for Israel to clean Gaza of the terrorists, why are we so dead set on seeing every Palestinian as one too? Why are we so dead convinced that they don’t deserve our sympathy or help?

This is not a call for conflict or politics; this is a call for empathy and understanding. We must remember that ordinary people in this conflict do not want violence; they want peace, safety, and the chance to live their lives free from the shadows of war. It is time for the world to recognize the Palestinian people’s suffering, needs, and dreams, just as we do for their Israeli neighbours.

The world has been blind and too cold for far too long. It is time to see.