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The fire under our feet: a journal piece

I’m OK.

Actually, personally, my family and I are well, Alhamdililah! But I can feel the intensified fire under our feet.

I know the feeling. And I know the explosion that comes after it.

This week alone the Israeli apartheid government has escalated its actions, bombing Gaza daily while tightening the already lethal siege around it, announcing that the PLO fund that provides support for families of Palestinian martyrs is illegal, while killing more young boys and men, escalating land theft through settlement construction and land confiscation, and promoting a law that will regulate that theft, announcing that colonial settlers will invade al Aqsa under armed guard during Ramadan while making the call to prayer from mosques illegal … The ground under our feet is burning.

I have felt this before. And I can only conclude that those in charge of the apartheid authorities know what they are doing. I have seen them do it before. They must know the Palestinian people will not just decide to roll over and die quietly. They must want a violent reaction in response to these actions, and I have no doubt that they will get one. Young people with no hope of being allowed to live with their dignity intact and with nothing to lose will sacrifice their lives in the hope that this situation will change for others.

And the apartheid authorities will then respond by doing what they do best: a torrent of death and destruction that they can then display at the international arms trade exhibitions, with clinically proven, effective weapons, tested live in the modern battlefield of urban warfare, on a besieged and imprisoned population. They will show your military and police force, “We got them where it hurts, we destroyed essential public infrastructure and killed x people in x days and, the best part is, we got away with it. If we can do it, you can do it too. All you need is a smart system of security cameras and a fleet of killer drones. All for the discount price of …” and your countries are literally buying this.

Now tell me again why BDS makes you uncomfortable?