Why are *you* not speaking out on the genocide?

A blame-free Community Thread to get to the moral heart of this shame-riddled, perplexing, confronting quandary.

Amid all the confronting discourse on the Middle East crisis, a hoary moral question hovers:

What is stopping more people from speaking out, with moral outrage from their human core, about what the Israeli state is doing in Palestine, and now Lebanon?

I ask the question genuinely, without accusatory under -or over- tones.

I’m also committing to leaving out as much potentially inflammatory language and triggering detail as possible.

To be clear, I’m questioning why the majority of people are reticent to opine on this history and humanity defining subject on their social media, in proportion, say, to other matters (eg climate or over-consumption). And to even talk about the subject beyond their close circle¹. I’m also wanting to understand why my peers - other journalists and public commentators - are not writing or broadcasting on the topic on their platforms, again in proportion - and with the same balance given - to the other issues they cover.

Israeli air strikes hit the Ridwan neighborhood of Gaza City October 23, 2023. Getty Images

I also do not see this question being asked elsewhere, not in a way that invites us to open up into our humanity, that gets us usefully working through the complexities, the fear, the pain, our shame, our shadows, and in a way that encourages us to rise bravely to our nobler nature.

It’s a proverbial elephant.

Can we talk about this here? Can we enquire together in the comments thread? Please share your ideas, reflections and further questions. Feel comfortable getting gritty and transparent. I will ensure it remains a sane, progressive place in which to do so.

I’ll share some of my reflections below.

They are not comprehensive…

There is certainly the role of the Israeli lobby, in its various guises (AIPEC etc) at play. It has powerful and problematic reach, particularly in the English-speaking world and in realms of influence - politics, on university campuses, media and in the arts. Its reach impacts official discourse, but also silences counter discourse (via actual threats or by seeding disorientating information that creates sufficient doubt).

Australian journalist John Lyons has written and broadcast on the lobby’s influence in Australian politics and beyond.

The film Israelism documents how many American Jews are indoctrinated in a particular pro-Zionist narrative. You can watch it here.

Additional references and examples can be found here and here. The Intercept is currently covering how Israeli money is impacting the US election.

I know several artists who have had gigs cancelled and funding withdrawn in response to their public condemnation of human rights abuses in Gaza. There are countless reports of this happening in many different realms and around the world.

Me, I get hit with messages from influential Jewish Australians in the arts and media (always via my DMs, never publicly) when I’ve spoken out. The messages don’t threaten me directly; they mostly contain links and memes that are, in most cases, deep fakes or contain fake or skewed news, in many cases created by the Israeli Government (this sanctioned propaganda - or “explaining” - is called “hasbara”). These messages, however, leave me extremely self-conscious and worried about what it means for my prospects of being included on literary festival lineups, invited onto Australian television panels etc. in the future, and they have seen me censor myself on far too many occasions. As I write this post I’m aware it will be passed around certain WhatsApp groups. I feel…monitored. I am struggling with this.

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When we feel ignorant, confused (see my Chapter 13 post on the role that confusion plays in steering a civilisation) or ashamed, we avoid and side-step. There is a lot of collective guilt going on too. I think anyone who is honest about their benefiting from colonialism is feeling it. Mirrors are hard.

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I want to be careful that in asking this question I’m not “calling people out”. As I wrote last October, attacking or stigmatising well-meaning people fuels the very polarisation that landed the world here (it’s also the subject of Chapter 13). We should be able to talk about the phenomenon of this silence and misrepresentation and ask questions, as I am here, without pointing fingers. Appealing to our shared humanity works best. To this end, check out this video…

As I posted last week, Tim Winton uses a similar device in his essay for The Monthly.

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As a trained journalist who has worked for most of the major news outlets in Australia (and quite a few internationally), I am shocked at how quiet and biased my peers have been on this subject. Journalist David Milner calls it out in The Shot, targeting the erstwhile liberal Insiders program on the ABC, and argues that Australian media is gaslighting the nation.

I’m normally quite defensive of attacks on “MSM”, but I have to agree with this sentiment having witnessed slanted headlines for over a year that repeatedly dehumanise Palestinians. Shamefully, I’ve not felt brave enough to get super vocal on this (particularly as I’m based overseas now) but felt emboldened seeing ABC’s Media Watch picking up on the matter this week, admittedly from the narrow perspective of media not coming to the defence of fellow journalists.

Watch Here

Per the final grab: “If you’re a journalist and you’re not speaking out in solidarity…why?” I’d be so interested to hear other journalists’ thoughts on, well, why?

There is a palpable difference between Australia and Europe in terms of how many people - including journalists and politicians - are speaking out. This is not to say those who speak out elsewhere in the world don’t get a hard time. But they do get air time. Australian journalist David Milner agrees. I’m keen to know what you think might be the reason for this.

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When I sit with the above question I feel that it might boil down to this for many: “I don’t want to be seen as that kind of person”. I can feel this fear in myself. I regularly pan out to view myself through Mainstream Australian’s Eyes and…I see a “hysterical woman in her fifties spewing the language of a late-Marxist radical”. The fact that I let this perceived perspective hold me back is cowardly. Thankfully, whenever I do look in the mirror (as I am here), and face my smallness and caught-up-ness, my visceral disgust sees me ricochet up and out, into action. Hence this post.

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As a relevant side point: I highly recommend listening to this conversation between Ezra Klein and Ta-Nehisi Coates discussing their experiences visiting Israel and Palestine. I don’t always agree with both of the men, but the way the manage this interview is inspiring. It touches on the silence around the Palestinian cause: “I felt lied to”.

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I also think of Hannah Arendt’s take: We have to live with ourselves when we silently consent to something we abhor. She wrote:

“If I disagree with other people, I can walk away; but I cannot walk away from myself... if I do wrong I am condemned to live together with a wrongdoer in an unbearable intimacy.

And:

“We humanize what is going on in the world and in ourselves only by speaking of it, and in the course of speaking it we learn to be human.”

For more on how to resist this slinking, or slumping, into ignoble acedia, check out yesterday’s post (Chapter 13 of my book).

As I say, I’m enquiring genuinely. What are you seeing, what are you reflecting on, what are you reckoning with?

Sarah xx

PS This post provides some detail on the media bias and dehumanising of Palestinians, and lists more diverse voices to follow on social media.

Q: What should we be doing to help, not hinder, in Gaza? Do our social media posts do ANYTHING?

1. Someone said to me the other day that there is no other topic where he finds he has to whisper when talking about it in, say, a local cafe or while walking with a friend.