The children matter. But so do the adults. So do the men.
Dehumanisation is insidious.
It’s estimated that 4,000 Palestinian children have been killed in Gaza by Israeli forces over the last month. More than 40% of the dead in Gaza are children, the UN has reported.
These numbers should make you sick, enraged and spurred into action- marching, writing letters, sharing Palestinian voices.
But we must not forget the Palestinian adults. We must not forget the Palestinian men. We must remember the 6,000, too.
All people who are oppressed are victims, and rhetoric around innocence and victimhood fuels dehumanisation. We are especially witnessing the dehumanisation of Palestinian men throughout media and discourse; so normalised is Islamophobia, that there is an undercurrent implying that somehow Palestinian men deserve what it happening. This is largely because Islamophobia frames them as inherently violent, as terrorists and people who innately are not “innocent”. This is racism.
And whilst the majority of people talking about Palestine right now will not be consciously fuelling this narrative, by not mentioning men in any of your articles, posts or conversations, you are contributing to this. Keep sharing for the children, but also share for the adults.
“No child should have to go through this” is true. But neither should any adult.
All innocent Palestinians deserve justice; no matter their age or gender. We must be intentional with our language, it is imperative when discussing oppression that we are not vague. Call for justice for all, because if your justice is tiered by who you think is more ‘worthy’, then that is not justice.
If you can only sympathise with children, you are forgetting we were all children once.
Over on TikTok, Leen unpicked this better than I ever could.
For those able, we will be marching on November 11 for a ceasefire now. Details here.