In the Middle East war, every death on one side or the other, every heart-rending scene, every indefensible shooting becomes justification and ammunition for the extremes that sustain that horrible thing called fanaticism. There are too many wise men (learned and bewitched) pontificating on the confrontation, and I personally feel incapable of outlining solutions; nor am I going to fall into the traps that seek to cut a classification between blessed bullets and murderous bullets, between heroic combatants and terrorist fighters.
I am clear about my feelings in the face of violence and the dead bodies of hundreds of children, no matter what religion their parents practise or which army their older brothers and sisters fight in. I know what I feel when I see images of cities destroyed by bombings, and the testimonies of the families of hostages. I am clear about my concept of those who find no better way of attacking and defending themselves than leaving entire territories condemned to die of hunger and thirst, of exodus and explosion; and I also know what terrorism produces in me, whoever carries it out.
I say it in plain language: I will never be on the side of terrorism. Neither of Hamas’ terrorism nor of anyone else’s, just as in Colombia I have rejected with absolute forcefulness the terrorism of the insurgent guerrillas, the paramilitaries and the military; of the politicians who poison us with mouthfuls of fear and lies, of the priests who condemn us to eternal fire and of everything that sucks our blood and hope drop by drop. Barbarism sickens the world; and the brutality committed by the extreme left and the extreme right, by the extreme cult of the cornered and the cornerers, is harmful. Violence is still humanity’s worst failure, and we should have learned by now that hate speeches, invasions, angry threats and revenge as a slogan are of little use when people are being killed by the hundreds, by the thousands, in pieces of bodies, piles of orphans piled under the rubble, asking ourselves why they were not born in another time when adults were less savage and less cruel.
I don’t hate or defend states or factions. But I do reject with all my might – without dwelling on the name of their faith or their nation – I reject, I say, those who give the order to fire missiles and raze populations to the ground and think that the death of civilians is acceptable collateral damage.
I am a tiny atom in the midst of this chaotic planet, but I beg, I plead with the international bodies, with the countries that run the world as they please, to stop this horror. Nothing, neither human nor divine, justifies the barbarity committed by the fundamentalists, nor the criminal waste displayed by Netanyahu, nor the complicity of the powerful; nothing justifies the death of more than three thousand people and the wounding of ten thousand, in a confrontation that violates inescapable rules of international law.
Hamas’ attacks are insane, and Israeli apartheid is a disgrace: more than 6,000 people per square kilometre, enclosed by barbed wire and concrete!
While Hamas has the world in check, Israel orders the evacuation of more than 1 million inhabitants and 22 hospitals from northern Gaza. Iran warns that “the situation could spiral out of control” and once again death and violence are rampant. We of flesh and blood have failed so badly that peace has become too big for humanity. Poor God and Allah… so powerful and so defeated by their own creatures.
Article first published in el Espectador
