Palestinian-Kentuckians are grieving. Please join us to demand an end to violence. | Opinion
To help put a stop to the genocide occurring in Gaza, Palestine, please attend an educational End the Genocide in Gaza rally Tuesday, Oct. 17 at 5:30 PM at the Fayette County Circuit Court on 120 N. Limestone.
When I phoned my brother to tell him I was writing this piece, I suppose he sensed my grief and said to me, “At least you are writing rather than being written about.”
I am a product of Lexington’s public school system, I attended the University of Kentucky, and was involved in student government. My whole life, I have volunteered and worked in Lexington throughout college and graduate school.
As a Palestinian-American, I’ve grown up acutely aware of the consistent support that both major U.S. political parties offer to Israel, often with very few reservations. In spite of this prevailing political landscape, my parents made it a priority to ensure that my siblings and I held a deep and unwavering sense of pride in our Palestinian heritage.
As a Palestinian, I am now in grief. My people are facing a horrific nightmare in which an army is planning to decimate the civilian population, in the name of ousting terrorists. The Health Ministry of Gaza, as well as Human Rights Watch, reported the extermination of 45 entire families due to relentless white phosphorus bombings over the past weekend.
White phosphorus, an illegal substance, causes severe burns, often down to the bone, and can reignite when exposed to oxygen. What’s unfolding in Gaza is nothing short of a horrifying humanitarian catastrophe.
The escalating death toll has created a children’s rights crisis in this densely populated region, where 2.3 million people inhabit a space roughly the size of Philadelphia. Shockingly, the world is witnessing harrowing images of decapitated children, and hospitals, once considered safe havens, reduced to rubble.
This is not a battle between equals; it is a deliberate, systematic campaign involving starvation, subjugation and the destruction of an unarmed civilian population.
Nor is the violence confined to Palestine. On Oct. 15, Wadea, a 6-year-old Palestinian-American child, was stabbed to death in Plainfield Township, Ill., after his landlord barged in and stabbed his mother, Hanaan Shahin. She remains in critical condition. The perpetrator is a 71-year-old man named Joseph Czuba, who allegedly used anti-Muslim statementscl.
Three days ago, U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham openly promoted this ongoing ethnic cleansing as a “religious war.” This should find no acceptance in any civil society, let alone the United States.
Simultaneously, thousands of brave Jewish New Yorkers gathered outside Senator Chuck Schumer’s residence, passionately urging him to intervene and put an end to the Palestinian genocide, with one participant boldly proclaiming, ‘No genocide in our name.’ It is an affront to Judaism and humanity to exploit this horrific trauma to justify the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. No innocent life taken is OK, no matter where it occurs.
As escalations furthered, on Oct. 14, Israeli forces killed 11 Palestinians in the West Bank. On Thursday night, Israel’s National Security Minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, distributed assault rifles to ‘civilian security teams’ issuing directives for the Ministry of National Security to acquire more than 10,000 firearms. Israeli authorities have given the green light for the distribution of firearms and weapons to around 26,000 settlers in the occupied West Bank and Israel.
I urge my fellow Kentuckians to demand that our state representatives call for an end to Israel’s siege and collective punishment, which is recognized as a war crime under international humanitarian law, and to refuse to be intimidated. I urge you, regardless of your current position, to use your influence to prevent hate from furthering in our community. Kentuckians must commit to taking a firm stance against ethnic cleansing and genocide.
Ensuring the protection and preservation of international law will help save Kentuckian, Palestinian, and Israeli lives.
If you want to know more, I recommend following journalists on the ground in Gaza, such as Plestia Alaqad and writer Mohammad El-Kurd, for an encompassing perspective on the situation.
Please join us Tuesday at the rally and lend your support to help us bring an end to the ongoing disaster.
Hadeel Abdallah is a Lexington writer.
