What does it profit a man to gain the world and lose his soul?
I fear that we have permanently lost our souls, and what is left of our humanity...
From Bikrum Gill:
With the West approaching its holiest of days, and I watch as the Kamal Adwan Hospital is attacked with no protest, I am haunted by this verse from the bible: "What does it profit a man to gain the world and lose his soul?”
I fear that we have permanently lost our souls, and what is left of our humanity, in watching time and again, Palestinians desperately appeal to us to stop our governments from arming Israel in its genocidal attacks. Yet, whether due to powerlessness or cowardice, we just watch. (Powerlessness or Cowardice—What is the difference at this point?)
Yesterday, the director of the Kamal Adwan Hospital, Dr. Hassam Abu Safiya, issued an urgent appeal to the world to protect the hospital as Israel openly threatened it with destruction.
They threaten to destroy the last functioning hospital in the North. An open act of genocide and ethnic cleansing, to have artillery and bombs rain down upon the sick and wounded. Telling Palestinians either leave or you will be starved and tortured to death.
The West is aware that Israel cannot achieve its aims of conquering Gaza by following the accepted rules of war. The Palestinian resistance, refusing to compromise its soul, the land of Palestine, draws upon a strength that withstands and defeats the zionist army in battle.
This reality of resistance is born out of a sense of belonging that the colonial West cannot grasp. The land does not simply belong to the Palestinians, it is they who are of the land, belong to the land. So, they defend the land, and the land defends them.
The resistance feels the land under its feet in a way inaccessible to the colonizer, and moves organically between the seen ground and the unseen earth, re-emerging each time to bring justice to bear upon the colonizer. The latter lumbers mechanically upon the land in its tanks.
Realizing that the zionist army will never be able to defeat the resistance fighters, the West works collectively to remove any vestiges of the laws of war. From its media to its academics, politicians, etc., they make normal and acceptable the massacre of the unarmed... Massacre them as they queue for water, for bread. Massacre them as they seek care from besieged hospitals. Burn them alive as they sleep in their tents. The West breaks any and all rules of engagement, laws of war, in an attempt to break the will of resistance among the people.
And we watch. Watch as today Dr. Abu Safiya tells us that the hospital has now been attacked, the ICU bombed, shrapnel flying around the maternity ward, patients already in pain now in sheer terror. His words just now: "We wonder why a medical facility is being pounded... We have demanded and still demand that the whole world provides us with the protection guaranteed under the Geneva Conventions, but the whole world still ignores us. All hospitals and medical staff are supposed to be protected under these conventions."
Dr. Abu Safiya concludes: “Hospitals are still being targeted and medical staff slaughtered before the eyes of the whole world. Regretfully all our appeals have fallen on deaf ears.”
What does it profit us to have this rotten world, and lose our souls? A world where the great many of us stay in debt, watch as the wealthy spend hundreds of millions on their weddings while we struggle with basic costs — It is to preserve this world that we silently watch the Kamal Adwan Hospital be attacked by US arms?
The only path forward for humanity, where the soul and the heart remain at the center, is those who resist this carnage in Gaza, who resist it from Yemen, from Lebanon, from Iraq, from Iran.
Our task remains to support their resistance, to redouble efforts towards an arms embargo, BDS everywhere and a decriminalization of the Palestinian resistance. Counter the support our governments give to those destroying hospitals by giving as much as you can to Gaza fundraisers.
Support a campaign from Gaza Funds. Support the Sameer Project.