Breathe
By Susana Moscatel
They say that a picture speaks a thousand words. When words are not enough, those images have to tell the stories. And even then they are not enough. Especially those images that we see in real time and have not gone through any kind of editing and therefore editorialization. And as devastating as they are, that's what they have to do. Yes, they are whole families slaughtered. Grandmothers disappeared. Children taken from their parents with high caliber weapons. Screams of terror on what used to be a holiday. Words can be twisted, omitted, silenced, used without being attached to reality. The real-time images we saw throughout this terrible weekend of Hamas attacks on citizens and visitors to Israel speak volumes.
These are the times when we are warned when a podcast is going to talk about topics that may disturb us. Then we decide whether to listen to it or not. When it comes to terrorist acts, we must be disturbed. Very disturbed. It seems like a long way off. We want to believe so. It is not. Fundamentalism has always been one of the most devastating forces in humanity. And today we live in all kinds of extremes. This war that started all at once, killing at least 700 people all at once, kidnapping thousands, is not something that can be lost in discussions about our political affiliations. There is no Israeli or Palestinian who will not suffer the consequences of what Hamas has done. And today's wars are characterized by the fact that we can see them in real time and from the battlefield, which seconds before the alarms sounded were homes. Peace festivals. Cafes. Human lives.
