In Gaza or Majdal Shams: all children deserve our compassion
People who took the trouble to proclaim with chilling pride that they have no place in their hearts to feel sorry for the children of Gaza are suddenly showing off their bleeding hearts for the children in the Golan Heights
By Orly Noy • Translated by Sol Salbe
In these indescribable days, we continue to discover how many shades of darkness there can be, darkness deepened further by the massacre of the children of Majdal Shams. How many synonyms are there in Hebrew for horror? What other words are there in the lexicon that we haven’t used yet?
Everything is immersed in deep darkness and foul-smelling rot. People who took the trouble to proclaim with chilling pride that they have no place in their hearts to feel sorry for the children of Gaza are suddenly showing off their bleeding hearts for the children of Majdal Shams. Apparently, when the political gain from children’s blood is on the right side, it’s easier to be shocked. The same people who concluded on October 7 that the response to the massacre of civilians, children and women was an existential need to massacre civilians, children and women in Gaza, conclude following the terrible carnage in Majdal Shams that we must, really must, spill the blood of Lebanese civilians, because otherwise how will they learn? Perhaps this is the definition of the end of civilisation? That the lesson of every blood spilled is that there is no choice but to shed more blood?
Perhaps now, when it seems there’s no more blood left in everyone’s hearts out of the sorrow and terror, this is the right time to reiterate: children are not supposed to “earn” the empathy of any of us in order for their lives to be sacred. The same applies to every civilian, wherever they may be. The question of for whom do we have or not have compassion is completely irrelevant to the duty of everyone, on all sides, to protect the lives of civilians, especially children.
The fact that you have compassion for the children of Majdal Shams but not for the children of Gaza is a testament to your rotten dark souls, and it has no bearing on the duty to protect the lives of children everywhere under international law, morality and conscience. If your pity and empathy for slaughtered children depends on how much political gain can be derived from their blood, you are a rotten people who needs a long rehabilitation to return to human society. But the ongoing, unimaginable carnage of children wherever they are, first and foremost in Gaza, where tens of thousands of children have already been exterminated and are still being slaughtered, must be stopped.
