Given how quickly some have swept the atrocities of the terrorist group Hamas in Israel under the rug, I think about the song a lot night and Fog by Jean Ferrat about the horrors of the concentration camps.
“I’ve now been told that these words are no longer valid / that it’s better to just sing love songs / that the blood dries quickly when you get into the story / and that there’s no point in picking up a guitar take.
I would like artists to pick up the guitar today to denounce what happened on October 7th…
SILENCE, WE ARE BEING HURT
In England, 2,000 artists signed a letter from the group Artists for Palestine UK calling for a ceasefire and condemning Israel’s actions as a “war crime.”
They say: “While we condemn all acts of violence against civilians and all violations of international law, regardless of who commits them, we are committed to doing everything in our power to end the unprecedented cruelty inflicted on Gaza. “
You read that right. Not a word about the “unprecedented cruelty” inflicted on the Jews on October 7th. No word that specifically refers to Hamas. No word for the 199 hostages. Not a word for the entire families, fathers, mothers and their numerous children who were found tied up and burned alive.
Musicians sign a letter and don’t say a word about the 260 young people who were killed like ducks at the Supernova music festival? No word about Noa Argamani, a 25-year-old university student whose pictures we have seen screaming, “Don’t kill me!” as she is kidnapped by Hamas robbers?
David Mencer, former leader of Labor for Israel, called the letter’s signatories “outsiders” and “crazy people.” “I invite you to try your luck in the Gaza Strip under the Hamas regime. I promise to sign a letter upon her detention asking for her release.”
I really like the actress Tilda Swinton. But when I see that she is among the signatories of this letter, I wonder why she did not insist that a modicum of compassion be shown to the women who were raped and the elderly survivors of the Holocaust who were tortured. What happened on October 7th is not an anecdote.
On October 13, on French radio France Culture, Palestinian and Canadian writer Yara El Ghadban was asked by the presenter to respond to the October 7 massacre.
She said that when she saw the first images of parachute landings in Israel, she perceived them as images of the “liberation” of Gaza. And she condemned the media’s rejection of “context.”
“It’s easy to say: here are the bad guys, here are the victims. We must remember how we got here. We try to portray Hamas as if it were a separate group. You should know that Hamas is the product of a very, very clear context of colonization and occupation. In my opinion, we cannot talk about Hamas without mentioning these things.”
Grab a guitar
Yes, Mr. Ferrat, the blood dries VERY quickly when you get into the story.
