Let Us Not Lose Our Humanity
Posted on October 15, 2024
“What kind of society delights in mass mourning and bloodshed in Lebanon and Gaza? A sick, militarized, violent, and inhumane society that joyfully sacrifices its sons and daughters. The devastation in Beirut and Gaza is the moral downfall of Israel, and we must fight against it—for a humane, democratic, egalitarian, and free Israel. For an end to war! For an end to bloodshed!”
These are part of the remarks made by Ofer Cassif, a Hadash member of the Israeli Knesset. He went on to address his fellow lawmakers:
“Oppose any bombing among a civilian population—whether in Gaza, Beirut, Kiryat Shmona, or anywhere else. Such an act, by any definition, is terrorism.”
Ayman Odeh, head of Hadash, also said on Saturday:
“For decades, Israeli governments have carried out assassinations, including against the top leadership of the Palestinian people. These assassinations have neither brought more security nor ended any war, contrary to their claims. There is only one solution: recognition of the rights of the Palestinian people, an end to the cursed occupation of their lands, and the beginning of a process that respects the rights of all the region’s peoples. The wars in Lebanon and Gaza must be stopped immediately. We must fight for the exchange of hostages and Palestinian prisoners and prevent the dangerous actions of Netanyahu’s government, which aim to spark a regional war.”
The above is part of a report recently published on the website of the Communist Party of Israel. Compare these statements and the words of Israeli party leaders with the statements, articles, and interviews by members of the Iranian opposition over the past year. In these reports—published by both communist and non-communist Israelis—you rarely find Hezbollah and its leaders referred to as terrorists or fundamentalists responsible for war and atrocities. In contrast, you will not find even a single statement or article by the so-called bankrupt Iranian opposition that does not begin with verbal attacks against Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, or Iran.
How tragic that the Iranian opposition—especially those who claim to be on the left—has fallen so low, both morally and politically. (1)
Look at the statement by more than 50 Communist and Workers’ parties and see how they speak, how they analyze the region’s issues, and what they advocate. (2)
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/7JpTE9xfTzodqTT4/?mibextid=WC7FNe
Ask yourself: why have Iranian leftist intellectuals and political activists fallen so far, morally and politically, just because of their opposition to the Islamic Republic? Why can’t they open their mouths without spewing abuse at Hamas, Hezbollah, or other radical Palestinian organizations?
Is this the result of desperation and inability to confront the Islamic regime? Or is it the hope for a miracle collapse of the regime by the West? Or perhaps a result of long-term life in the West, a dependency on and absorption into its societies and governments? Or just helplessness in understanding and analyzing global and regional matters, and a habit of repeating the dominant narratives of Western media?
How did we end up here?
Listen to the words of Arundhati Roy, the renowned Indian writer and this year’s recipient of the PEN Pinter Prize, who said after her award was announced that she would donate her share of the prize money to a fund for Palestinian children. In her speech, she declared:
“No, I refuse to take part in the game of condemning ‘both sides.’ Let me be clear: I will not tell an oppressed people how they must resist, or who their allies should be.” (3)
She went on:
**“I’m fully aware that as a writer, as a non-Muslim, and as a woman, surviving long-term under the rule of Hamas, Hezbollah, or the Iranian regime would be extremely difficult—maybe impossible. But that is not the point. The point is to educate ourselves on the history and context that gave rise to them. The point is that right now, they are fighting against an ongoing genocide. The point is to ask whether a liberal, secular resistance force can stand against a genocidal war machine. When the entire world is against them, who else can they turn to but God?
I know Hezbollah and the Iranian regime have opponents in their own countries—some in prison, others facing even worse consequences. I know some of their actions—like the killing of civilians and hostage-taking on October 7 by Hamas—are war crimes. And yet, we cannot equate that with what Israel and the United States are doing in Gaza, the West Bank, and now in Lebanon. The root of all the violence—including the events of October 7—is Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land and its domination over the Palestinian people.
History did not begin on October 7, 2023.
I ask you: which of us sitting here would willingly submit to the daily humiliations that Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank have endured for decades? What peaceful means have the Palestinians not tried? What compromises have they not accepted—except that they are expected to kneel down and eat dirt?”** (3)
Unlike many Iranian political activists and intellectuals, she believes:
“Israel is not fighting a defensive war. This is an offensive war—a war for more land, to reinforce its apartheid regime, and to intensify its control over the Palestinian people and the region.”
I implore you—let us open our eyes. Let us remember that the world did not begin with the birth of the Islamic Republic, and it will not end with its fall. Let us remember that we are not, and have never been, the only victims of oppression and injustice on this planet.
Let us not, as Gideon Levy says, “lose our humanity,” as Israel has. And as one Holocaust survivor said:
“The victims of the greatest genocide in history should be more sensitive to the genocide of other peoples. But the Israelis are doing the opposite. They believe that after the Holocaust, they are entitled to do whatever they want. And no one has the right to tell them what is permissible or not, what is moral or not.” (4)
It seems that a segment of our own intellectuals and people, after enduring oppression under a theocratic regime, have come to believe the same—that we, too, are entitled to do whatever we please, and no one has the right to question us on what is right or wrong, what is moral or immoral.
No matter how monstrous the crime, it must never consume our spirit and turn us into criminals ourselves. That is exactly the process that has turned yesterday’s victims in the death camps and gas chambers into today’s soldiers and perpetrators of atrocities in Israel.
As Ofer Cassif said, it is “a society that delights in mourning and widespread bloodshed in Lebanon and Gaza.”
Let us, as Iranians, not become monsters. Let us not lose our humanity.
Reza Fani Yazdi
October 15, 2024