This is an obvious point but needs to be said. There are valid reasons that the aid workers killed in Gaza hijacked the world’s attention. Their bravery is unfathomable. The chef seems really cool, and we love our cooking shows! But it enraptured the media, led to the first Israeli admission of wrong-doing and (limited) contrition, and “outrage” by Joe Biden because … (most of them) are white.
I was really emotional too. I definitely cried: Looking at their young faces, lit up with near-religious ecstasy at the prospect of helping starving people eat (I’d guess with a mix of adrenaline junkiness, but adrenaline junkies are my favorite people, even though I’m whatever the opposite is). But … the message of this war from every Western politician and media outlet has been: 1,200 dead Israelis equals 32,000, and growing, dead Palestinians. Now, there’s such a lack of awareness at the optics of that math that we’re doing 7 aid workers = a bigger tragedy than 32,000+ Palestinians.
In every media outlet there are glowing profiles. These include, as a throwaway line—literally just one line—that 200 Palestinian aide workers have also been killed. The message that Palestinians don’t matter, outside of bromides, is beamed out in countless ways. Everyone trumpeted the absurd NYT Hamas rape story, “Screams without Words,” but you rarely hear the ACTUALLY existing testimonies of Palestinian victims of sexual assault. In the designation of Hostages vs. Prisoners, even though the Israeli treatment of “prisoners” including children, is an ongoing crime against humanity.
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