Yes, moral injury is exactly the term I was thinking of when I was out walking. I saw the imagine. It was the most horrific thing I ever seen. I thought I couldn’t see anything worse than that image of those two dead boys. As awful as it seems, maybe we have to be confronted with the horror. Maybe it’s the only way we’ll act. It’s also n…
Yes, moral injury is exactly the term I was thinking of when I was out walking. I saw the imagine. It was the most horrific thing I ever seen. I thought I couldn’t see anything worse than that image of those two dead boys. As awful as it seems, maybe we have to be confronted with the horror. Maybe it’s the only way we’ll act. It’s also not like people in Palestine can’t not look the other way. Bombs and missiles are raining down on them. Our foreign minister said today that Hamas needs to stop using Palestinian as human shields. I really feel as if I am being gaslit by our political class. Are they not seeing what we’re seeing? I want it to stop but so much damage has been done. I see those images and think there are children who’ll never breathe, never play again. It’s just appalling and I feel so powerless.
You're in Australia? Penny Wong said that? The human shield argument just can't hold. There is deliberately putting humans in front of/on top of you. And there is fighting a war in the same confined place in which the humans/civilians have been caged. Whilever the latter scenario is forced upon Palestine, no one is in a position to make the human shield argument.
Yeah she did. It was a jarring statement. It has a whole “sorry, not sorry” feel about it. It was the second most infuriating thing I saw today (the other being Julia Gllard’s patronising and condescending remarks).
I have a reflection after reading you considered writing and the comments that followed . We personally need to stop using the language of the oppressor, Israel are not fighting a “war” or defending themselves . The Palestinians have no army, navy or organised force. Hamas was funded and created by Israel , this is well documented.
This is genocide, the mass extinction by any occupying force on an indigenous people to gain the territory and resources.
This has played out time and time again in history , this time it’s being “televised “. Sending much love as we all need it now ❤️🩹
Exactly Sarah. They. Live. There. I’ve never felt such a desire to punch a screen as when reading “human shields” or “elected Hamas”. It’s from the same tired old playbook as “weapons of mass destruction” but actually more evil.
I felt exactly the same when I read that sickening statement.
We should remember that Penny Wong was also happy to fly to Israel, meet and pose for photos with Isaac Herzog, who only a few weeks earlier had been photographed signing bombs that were about to be blasted into Gaza (and no doubt killed numerous children).
And just today, failed Republican presidential nominee Nikki Haley was photographed in Israel, also taking part in this apparently time-honoured tradition, writing the words 'Finish them!' on IDF artillery shells... There are no words for the degree of evil we're witnessing.
When our leaders here can't even set laws, that the people who elect them want in place to stop domestic violence against women, what hope really do countries who don't even have fair contestable elections, have convincing narcissistic and morally corrupt men to do what's right?
your explanation of moral injury was a great flashlight moment for me to help understand a little more of my emotional (and physical reaction) but also magnifies the issue of other moral injury compasses that seem to be non existent *horrified sigh*
100% Siobhán - no words and no way to rationally process what’s happening. [Formerly] trusted leaders like Wong freaking *endorsing* it 🤮, and ordinary citizens powerless to stop it. Every day I wake up and think “what can I do”? Donating and pushing to increase refugee intake are better than nothing, but imo the only Western citizens with power to curb the horror are American voters. It’s their money that’s paying for the weapons. Imo protest action outside the US should be aimed at putting moral pressure on those voters.
1. I would vote for Biden because everything must be done to stop Trump. With Biden, at least protest and debate will still be possible. Americans can protest Biden once he's in office. They can hold him to account.
Equally any RFK options must also be ignored.
2. There's a side to me that thinks, let it rip. So much seems to be conspiring to funnel Trump in (including Biden's support of Israel) I wonder whether humanity should be standing in the way.
Yes, I keep oscillating between these kinds of thoughts too. I can understand the argument for doing anything to stop Trump, but couldn’t bring myself to vote for someone who’s so proudly supporting, arming and funding a genocide. I just don’t think Biden deserves anyone’s vote. Part of me also thinks that a slide into civil war and then full-blown fascism is an inevitability in the US – and that another Biden term is just postponing a future that's already been mapped out, but then I’m not a Mexican immigrant or a Black transgender woman or a pregnant teenager in the Midwest needing an abortion, or anyone else who’ll be directly and horribly impacted by the plans that Trump and the Republican Party have in store if they win.
I don’t know what the third option is – whether voting for an alternative candidate will have any positive impact, or whether voting informally will send a message that needs to be heard, or if there’s some other ‘third way’, but options A and B both seem impossibly awful.
I think most commentary is saying a vote for RFK is a vote for Trump. In effect.
I have come to realise voting is not a popularity contest, it has to be tactical. The US election, I feel, needs to be a tactical effort to save democracy.
I think RFK is really dangerous too and definitely popular with the Trump crowd. Aren't Cornel West and Jill Stein still in the running? Both seem head and shoulders above the other candidate, though I can't see either of them getting as many votes as RFK will likely get, so maybe you're right.
I think Gaza has shown us though (those who didn't already have their doubts) that democracy is largely an illusion. I don't know - I'm feeling very down about it all...
The gaslighting by all but a small handful of politicians is off the charts. I felt so much rage when I read that statement by Penny Wong - the worst thing is that she's a smart woman and knows exactly what she's doing. It's sickening.
“Human shields” is an ugly trope with a long and deeply racist history. This episode of the excellent ‘Citations Needed’ podcast provides a very good overview of this history and is well worth a listen:
“Viet Cong Use Children as Human Shields," the Associated Press alleged in 1967. "'Civilian casualty?" That's a gray area," Alan Dershowitz argued in The Los Angeles Times in 2006. "We can’t ignore the truth that Hamas uses human shields,”"Jason Willick wrote in The Washington Post in 2023.
For more than five decades, military forces with overwhelming firepower, including the US, Israel, and others have accused enemy combatants of using “human shields.” According to these allegations, militant resistance throughout the world, from the Vietnamese National Liberation Front to Palestinian militants, herd civilians in front of them, or hide in hospitals, religious institutions, and other public places, in order to evade attacks. In turn, they force the enemy to “risk” killing civilians, and they themselves bear responsibility for those who are killed. But rarely, if ever, have these accusations been true. Indeed, the term “human shields,” despite having a clear legal definition, has become a catch-all for militias or insurgency groups that merely operate among a civilian population, functioning as a convenient pretext for invading, occupying and colonial forces to kill civilians, and reinforcing racist conceptions about besieged populations. So why, and how, do media provide cover for governments that lie about and instrumentalize supposed “human shielding”?
On this episode, we dissect the decades-old “human shields” accusation, examining how it dehumanizes and militarizes people living under occupation and invasions, demonizes resistance movements, and sanitizes civilian-killing aggressors as reluctant actors who "simply had no choice."
Yes, moral injury is exactly the term I was thinking of when I was out walking. I saw the imagine. It was the most horrific thing I ever seen. I thought I couldn’t see anything worse than that image of those two dead boys. As awful as it seems, maybe we have to be confronted with the horror. Maybe it’s the only way we’ll act. It’s also not like people in Palestine can’t not look the other way. Bombs and missiles are raining down on them. Our foreign minister said today that Hamas needs to stop using Palestinian as human shields. I really feel as if I am being gaslit by our political class. Are they not seeing what we’re seeing? I want it to stop but so much damage has been done. I see those images and think there are children who’ll never breathe, never play again. It’s just appalling and I feel so powerless.
You're in Australia? Penny Wong said that? The human shield argument just can't hold. There is deliberately putting humans in front of/on top of you. And there is fighting a war in the same confined place in which the humans/civilians have been caged. Whilever the latter scenario is forced upon Palestine, no one is in a position to make the human shield argument.
Yeah she did. It was a jarring statement. It has a whole “sorry, not sorry” feel about it. It was the second most infuriating thing I saw today (the other being Julia Gllard’s patronising and condescending remarks).
I caught JG's remarks and I didn't want it to be true.
Julia reopened Australia's own concentration camps on Manus Island and Nauru when she was PM. She's no humanitarian.
I have a reflection after reading you considered writing and the comments that followed . We personally need to stop using the language of the oppressor, Israel are not fighting a “war” or defending themselves . The Palestinians have no army, navy or organised force. Hamas was funded and created by Israel , this is well documented.
This is genocide, the mass extinction by any occupying force on an indigenous people to gain the territory and resources.
This has played out time and time again in history , this time it’s being “televised “. Sending much love as we all need it now ❤️🩹
Exactly Sarah. They. Live. There. I’ve never felt such a desire to punch a screen as when reading “human shields” or “elected Hamas”. It’s from the same tired old playbook as “weapons of mass destruction” but actually more evil.
I felt exactly the same when I read that sickening statement.
We should remember that Penny Wong was also happy to fly to Israel, meet and pose for photos with Isaac Herzog, who only a few weeks earlier had been photographed signing bombs that were about to be blasted into Gaza (and no doubt killed numerous children).
And just today, failed Republican presidential nominee Nikki Haley was photographed in Israel, also taking part in this apparently time-honoured tradition, writing the words 'Finish them!' on IDF artillery shells... There are no words for the degree of evil we're witnessing.
So much of the moral injury we feel comes from this - being so fundamentally let down by our leaders.
When our leaders here can't even set laws, that the people who elect them want in place to stop domestic violence against women, what hope really do countries who don't even have fair contestable elections, have convincing narcissistic and morally corrupt men to do what's right?
your explanation of moral injury was a great flashlight moment for me to help understand a little more of my emotional (and physical reaction) but also magnifies the issue of other moral injury compasses that seem to be non existent *horrified sigh*
100% Siobhán - no words and no way to rationally process what’s happening. [Formerly] trusted leaders like Wong freaking *endorsing* it 🤮, and ordinary citizens powerless to stop it. Every day I wake up and think “what can I do”? Donating and pushing to increase refugee intake are better than nothing, but imo the only Western citizens with power to curb the horror are American voters. It’s their money that’s paying for the weapons. Imo protest action outside the US should be aimed at putting moral pressure on those voters.
Yes, absolutely. If I was in the US, there's no way I could vote for either Trump or Biden though – it's such a grim choice they're facing.
I have two thoughts.
1. I would vote for Biden because everything must be done to stop Trump. With Biden, at least protest and debate will still be possible. Americans can protest Biden once he's in office. They can hold him to account.
Equally any RFK options must also be ignored.
2. There's a side to me that thinks, let it rip. So much seems to be conspiring to funnel Trump in (including Biden's support of Israel) I wonder whether humanity should be standing in the way.
Overall, however, 2 is far too dystopian for me.
Yes, I keep oscillating between these kinds of thoughts too. I can understand the argument for doing anything to stop Trump, but couldn’t bring myself to vote for someone who’s so proudly supporting, arming and funding a genocide. I just don’t think Biden deserves anyone’s vote. Part of me also thinks that a slide into civil war and then full-blown fascism is an inevitability in the US – and that another Biden term is just postponing a future that's already been mapped out, but then I’m not a Mexican immigrant or a Black transgender woman or a pregnant teenager in the Midwest needing an abortion, or anyone else who’ll be directly and horribly impacted by the plans that Trump and the Republican Party have in store if they win.
I don’t know what the third option is – whether voting for an alternative candidate will have any positive impact, or whether voting informally will send a message that needs to be heard, or if there’s some other ‘third way’, but options A and B both seem impossibly awful.
I think most commentary is saying a vote for RFK is a vote for Trump. In effect.
I have come to realise voting is not a popularity contest, it has to be tactical. The US election, I feel, needs to be a tactical effort to save democracy.
I think RFK is really dangerous too and definitely popular with the Trump crowd. Aren't Cornel West and Jill Stein still in the running? Both seem head and shoulders above the other candidate, though I can't see either of them getting as many votes as RFK will likely get, so maybe you're right.
I think Gaza has shown us though (those who didn't already have their doubts) that democracy is largely an illusion. I don't know - I'm feeling very down about it all...
I feel compelled to dignify it, hold it up, remind people that it's the goal.
It's a disappointing reframing...but actually not an inaccurate take on how democracy is meant to work.
The gaslighting by all but a small handful of politicians is off the charts. I felt so much rage when I read that statement by Penny Wong - the worst thing is that she's a smart woman and knows exactly what she's doing. It's sickening.
“Human shields” is an ugly trope with a long and deeply racist history. This episode of the excellent ‘Citations Needed’ podcast provides a very good overview of this history and is well worth a listen:
https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/citations-needed/id1258545975?i=1000644521245
“Viet Cong Use Children as Human Shields," the Associated Press alleged in 1967. "'Civilian casualty?" That's a gray area," Alan Dershowitz argued in The Los Angeles Times in 2006. "We can’t ignore the truth that Hamas uses human shields,”"Jason Willick wrote in The Washington Post in 2023.
For more than five decades, military forces with overwhelming firepower, including the US, Israel, and others have accused enemy combatants of using “human shields.” According to these allegations, militant resistance throughout the world, from the Vietnamese National Liberation Front to Palestinian militants, herd civilians in front of them, or hide in hospitals, religious institutions, and other public places, in order to evade attacks. In turn, they force the enemy to “risk” killing civilians, and they themselves bear responsibility for those who are killed. But rarely, if ever, have these accusations been true. Indeed, the term “human shields,” despite having a clear legal definition, has become a catch-all for militias or insurgency groups that merely operate among a civilian population, functioning as a convenient pretext for invading, occupying and colonial forces to kill civilians, and reinforcing racist conceptions about besieged populations. So why, and how, do media provide cover for governments that lie about and instrumentalize supposed “human shielding”?
On this episode, we dissect the decades-old “human shields” accusation, examining how it dehumanizes and militarizes people living under occupation and invasions, demonizes resistance movements, and sanitizes civilian-killing aggressors as reluctant actors who "simply had no choice."
Very useful and interesting info, thank you.
I love Citations needed. They really cut through all the utter nonsense.
Me too - they're just brilliant!