The Guardian newspaper published an article by Owen Jones, who began by asking this question: “What is the value of a Palestinian’s life?” Then he answered his question by saying: “For those who maintain illusions that have not yet been buried under the rubble of Gaza, along with entire families - such as the Zorob family, the Qashtan family, and the Atallah family - Joe Biden gave a specific answer last week...in the statement he issued on the occasion of the 100th day since the start of the war. In the current horror, he rightly showed sympathy for the plight of the hostages – whose kidnapping by Hamas represents a serious war crime – and their traumatized families. However, there was no mention of the Palestinians.”

Jones stressed that “the lack of interest by politicians and the media alike in concealing their disdain for Palestinian life will be of great importance.” The truth is that this phenomenon is not new, and these repercussions are now being felt violently. If the powerful countries of the world had not so impudently ignored three quarters of a million Palestinians who were expelled from their homes 76 years ago, accompanied by an estimated 15,000 who were violently killed, the seeds of today’s bitter harvest would not have been sown.” The writer wondered: “How many people know that last year, before the inexcusable atrocities committed by Hamas on October 7, 234 Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces in the West Bank alone, more than thirty of whom were children?” They say life is cheap. “It seems meaningless if you are Palestinian.”

He pointed out that if there had been some value attached to Palestinian life, perhaps decades of occupation, siege, illegal colonization, apartheid, violent oppression and mass massacres would not have occurred, as oppressing others becomes difficult when their humanity is accepted.

He said that even some who had succumbed to Western indifference towards Palestinian lives might have expected that after this deadly massacre, the dam would eventually collapse. Certainly, the violent killing of 10,000 children, or 10 children having one or both of their legs amputated every day, often without anesthesia, would arouse strong emotions. Certainly, the 5,500 pregnant women giving birth every month – many of them undergoing caesarean sections without anesthesia – or the deaths of newborns from hypothermia and diarrhea would arouse unstoppable revulsion.

He added that it is certain that projections that a quarter of Gaza's population may die, within one year, due to Israel's destruction of the health care system alone, would lead to urgent demands to end this obscenity. It is certain that the endless stories of aid workers, journalists and medics being slaughtered along with many of their relatives – or even their entire families – by an Israeli missile will eventually spark condemnations in Western society to stop this madness.

But this did not happen, and therefore the consequences will be dire, stresses Jones, who says that undervaluing Palestinian lives is not an assumption, but rather a statistical fact.

According to a new study of coverage in major American newspapers, for every Israeli death, Israelis are mentioned eight times — or 16 times more often than Palestinian deaths. An analysis of BBC coverage by data specialists Dana Najjar and Jan Litava found a similarly devastating disparity, and that humanitarian terms such as “mother” or “husband” were used far less often to describe Palestinians, while emotional terms such as “massacre” or “Carnage” was only used for Israeli victims of atrocities committed by Hamas.

The writer warned that all this would have a profound impact. “First, we must forget any future Western claims regarding human rights and international law,” he said. Much of the world has already viewed this self-justification with disdain, as merely the latest ploy to advance the strategic interests of countries that have grown rich at the expense of the rest of the world: centuries of often genocidal colonialism have generated lasting cynicism, as have more pigeons. Recent bloodshed such as the Iraq War, or active support for resilient authoritarian regimes across multiple continents.” He added, “After the West armed and supported Israel while imposing mass death on Gaza through bombs, bullets, hunger, thirst, and the destruction of medical facilities, no one but the naive will listen to such claims again.”

Then he said, but it is not only other countries that Western political and media elites should be terrified of. They are facing moral collapse at home as well. Younger generations in countries such as the United States and Britain have grown up taking racism much more seriously than those before them, and opinion polls show that they are more sympathetic to Palestinians than older citizens.

He points out that they are avid users of social media, watching footage of the seemingly endless atrocities in Gaza, and Israeli soldiers happily presenting war crimes as fodder for public amusement. Irish lawyer Blaine Ni Graleigh, while presenting South Africa's case against Israel at the International Court of Justice, described what happened as "the first genocide in history, with its victims broadcasting their destruction in real time amid desperate hope... that the world will do something." For the younger generations who have watched numerous videos of mothers screaming while cradling the bodies of their newborn babies, these entire events have proven to be instructive.

Then he wonders: “So what do these young people think of the media coverage, or the statements of politicians, which do not seem to treat Palestinian life as having any value at all?” What conclusions are drawn about the growing minority populations in Western countries whose media and political elites make so little effort to hide their contempt for Palestinian lives as they are exterminated on such a biblical scale?

The writer concludes that this treatment of the lives of Palestinians will certainly constitute a turning point with repercussions that will not be understood until it is too late. He says: “Yes, we have seen how the refusal to treat Palestinians as human beings has made today’s nightmare inevitable.” We can see how the moral claims used to justify Western world domination are being permanently shredded. But little thought has been given to how political and media elites in Western countries set their moral authority on fire, leaving it to fester alongside the thousands of unidentified Palestinian bodies buried under the rubble. “It is certainly a turning point, with consequences that will not be understood until it is too late.”

Source: Sama News