Middle East Shoah

Image by Paola Bilancieri.

A Shoah is taking place in the Middle East and

few people seem to notice,

certainly not those responsible for the thousands of bombs rained over

innocent civilians, mostly

women, children, old people and those with disabilities.

Those who ordered it and made it possible

Sit comfortably in their plump offices

oblivious to the suffering

They preach peace while waging interminable war

In the meantime (a real mean time)

more than 40,000 Palestinians have been killed, several thousand left with permanent injuries

their future all but destroyed forever

while more than a million displaced people wander the roads lacking the most basic necessities

Those Israelis whose relatives were killed on October 7

experience the same bereavement, albeit in drastically more limited numbers

their hope all but destroyed

This happens as Bibi Netanyahu whose hands, made unrecognizable by the blood covering them,

boasts of the Israel Defense Forces’ ability to identify adversaries in a crowd, and kill them without mercy.

Is this the world we want to leave for our children?

I cannot but wonder how the leaders of the people who suffered the unspeakable horrors of the Holocaust

can inflict a Holocaust on other people.

Dr. Cesar Chelala is a co-winner of the 1979 Overseas Press Club of America award for the article “Missing or Disappeared in Argentina: The Desperate Search for Thousands of Abducted Victims.”