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A statement of Gaza from a local Doctor who is a member of Irish Health Care Workers for Palestine:
These statements are not controversial:
- Mass starvation is a crime against humanity.
- Killing children is never justified.
- Forced removal of a people from their land is ethnic cleansing.
- Hospitals and healthcare workers are protected under International Humanitarian Law.
But when it comes to Gaza, we are self censoring.
According to all the major Humanitarian Agencies, Human Rights organisations and UN experts, Israel’s current assault on Gaza is consistent with Genocide.
Hundreds of thousands of people are at imminent risk of death from preventable starvation.
Access to food water and medical aid is being used as a weapon of war.
It is a civilian population being punished for the actions of a few and International Humanitarian Law being completely disregarded.
Fear of personal consequences is stopping many people from speaking out. Every one of us with a moral conscience can only be deeply conflicted by the gravity of what we are witnessing and the continued suppression of those who speak out against it.
Moral Injury is the term for the psychological trauma experienced when our deeply held moral values cannot be reconciled with the immoral acts we are seeing.
When our leaders do not condemn or take meaningful action and our mainstream media portray what many consider a biased view, this causes deep feelings of confusion and self-doubt.
Moral injury may cause feelings of shame and guilt, emotional numbing, or paralysis. This is damaging to our mental health, crushing to our moral and ethical belief systems. It can lead to a betrayal in our sense of trust in establishments we may previously have believed trustworthy.
Coming together with others at a time of collective moral injury helps us to realise we are not isolated is what we are experiencing and not the ones to blame.
According to the Harvard School of Political Science, peaceful protest is twice as likely to succeed than armed conflict. If just 3.5% of the population engage in non-violent protest, then this will typically bring about meaningful political change.
Remember that “One day everyone will have been against this”.
The tide of public opinion is changing and every single voice matters; now more than ever.
