Death in the City

And just like that... the world keeps spinning...

Jazz Grant, Fragments 02, 2023

Malak Mattar

Too many drafts. Too many open windows. Too many sites for sore eyes. Yeah, I’ve written a lot. Trust me. Been reading. A hundred mental tabs while trying to keep tab of not going mad. Getting overwhelmed easily. Conflicting ideas of responsibility.

What can I say that’s not already been said?

When I think about Palestine, I’m shattered. When I feel about it, I’m gutted. Feels selfish even saying that, being that my experience is negligible. Incomparable. Relatable though, perhaps. To the sheltered and caring. It’s a live-streamed abomination, after all. One I’ve followed my entire life. 33 years on this planet.

I was going to write something about Star Wars. About how in Star Wars: Rouge One, I played a member of the Rebel Alliance called Corporal Stordan Tonc. I was part of a band of shaggy rebels who organise in an attempt to win an asymmetrical war against a highly militarised enemy with a weapon capable of destroying planets. Ring any bells? Spoiler but it becomes a suicide mission. A suicide bombing if you will. Have I wondered which side of global warfare I was supposed to be portraying? Most certainly. Do I find it weird that American audiences have lauded the movie as arguably the best Star Wars film outside of the originals and yet haven’t grasped that they are part of the Galactic Empire we were fighting? Yes. In fairness, some of them have.

America and every extension of it. Including Israel. The US project has had some part in nearly every major global atrocity in my lifetime. And nowadays me even publishing that could mean I’d be denied a VISA. Actual fascism. Maybe that’s not new.

I daydreamed about writing another piece which begun by quoting Christopher Nolan’s Joker played by Heath Ledger. In The Dark Knight, there’s a scene where the Joker confronts Harvey Dent while he’s in hospital. It’s essentially the birth of the character 'Two Face’. He says…

… You know what I've noticed? Nobody panics when things go "according to plan." Even if the plan is horrifying! If, tomorrow, I tell the press that, like, a gang banger will get shot, or a truckload of soldiers will be blown up, nobody panics, because it's all "part of the plan". But when I say that one little old mayor will die, well then everyone loses their minds.”

I think about this part of the film a lot. I believe in balance and I believe in empathy. Even in the face of atrocity. I recently checked in on a blog written by an ex Israeli rep, for example. It’s important to understand the alternate perspective because all I’ve seen are the same stories approached from different angles. Even something as clear cut as a burning hospital. Each time fulfilling the required narrative. Each time bleeding further division into the discourse. Obscuring reality.

“War is hell. We didn’t want this war. We didn’t start this war. We didn’t even expect this war. But by God, we have to win this war. Or there will be a next, worse war, which we don’t want. And that means all the goals of war. Defeating Hamas and bringing back the hostages.” - Eylon Levy

Almost trippy to read a passage like this in 2025. From an Israeli much less. One that appeared on telly saying things. But it’s just as the Joker says. Around 1300 Israeli’s being massacred wasn’t “part of the plan”. The plan has always been a slow, torturous, dishonourable degradation of a country many Israelis don’t even believe exists. Just in my lifetime I’ve had two or three Jewish acquaintances try and explain to me why Palestine “isn’t a real place”.

My mum, born of a Jewish father, had a Free Palestine sticker in the window of her Toyota Yaris when I still wanted to be a pro skater. I’d watched videos of Palestinian children being spat at in the street ten years ago. Members of press being shot. I’d heard account after account of people coming back from Gaza in total shock. Horrified by what people were living through. Most memorably John Snow off of the news. Literally any person of any background at any point through my entire life returned calling for change. Everyone has come back in shock and terror at the blatant apartheid.

And yet the Israeli talking point to this day is that Israel is being held to a higher standard than any other country in the history of war. Innocent people dying is normal. Part of it. Starving kids. Also normal. Israel have one of the most advanced militaries in the world and nuclear weapons. Apparently Gaza not being annexed in one fell swoop is a testament to their impeccable standards.

And yet at no point has anyone asked if Palestine are being held to higher standards than any other country in history. Any other occupied territory in history. Decades worth of theft, prevention of industry, humiliation. Mowing the lawn. Just straight up stealing property. Constant surveillance. Imprisoning children. How on earth can someone claim to not have expected resistance? It’s delusional.

Maybe I wanted to write something about honour. A value lost in the wind along with freedom and self determination. Honour on all levels. What is the responsibility of the side with greater power? There’s a reason why boxing is in weight categories. May I never engage in warfare with an unequal force. May I never coerce, gaslight and manipulate someone into blind rage and then unleash violence on them claiming it to be their fault.

And I don’t understand how there’s so much power. Genuinely. Outside of US aid. From what I understand this is all to do with stories from books. I keep hearing from grown adults about a country having the right to exist because it’s in a book written thousands of years ago. Popstars are twiddling daisies in space while children are being bombed because of words in a book that may or may not be a work of fiction? We are preposterous.

And never have I faced such contorted conflation. Everywhere I turn is another complication. Another wiggly mirror. We’re talking about a race, state and religion. They are separate but the same. Zionism not specific to Jewish people but adjacent to anti-semitism. Because it’s about a homeland. I was told this was about a homeland for the Jewish people.

“[Supporting Israel] is the best $3 billion investment we make. Were there not an Israel, the United States of America would have to invent an Israel to protect her interests in the region.” - Joe Biden, 1986

Can you see why it’s all so confusing?

And yet Israel is such a small country. That’s another point. It’s so small. Jewish people are such a small community in regards to the world. But, in contrast, incredibly well represented in powerful positions across multiple industries. Especially entertainment. I’ve seen friends lose hundreds of thousands of pounds for standing up for Palestine. I’ve lost money for it. I’ve had friends receive threatening emails. Careers get rug pulled entirely. How is this possible?

Just recently, 30 record label executives tried to privately pressure Glastonbury festival into removing the Irish punk band Kneecap from performing. Main point being, isn’t that a real representation of how power works? Instead of leaving it up to the court of public opinion. Kneecap have taken a public pro Palestine stance but the attempt to have them removed for performing is underhand and secretive.

I sat with a friend last year discussing the fact that all of this was happening at the same time as an awakening around Congo. Wondering whether information was being suppressed or people just didn’t know as much. My friend told me that Congo and Palestine were the same thing. A complete imbalance of power. When I looked up who owned the mines in Congo, I was shocked to read it was an Israeli man named Dan Gertler. He oversaw a project so corrupt and so exploitative that the UN stepped in. Can you imagine a Conogelese man overseeing the exploitative labour of thousands and thousands of Israeli children? With no consequence? I can’t.

It’s not part of the plan. Maybe the plan is white supremacy. As usual. White death is the real horror. Outside of that it takes a lot before anyone cares. Arabs have been dehumanised in western society for most of my life. Post 9/11 was absolutely insane. But even prior to that. My partner’s grandparents came to the north of England from Yemen and started naming family members ‘Alan’ and ‘Brenda’. African families do this too. Just to be taken seriously.

And of course this Arab dehumanisation has been an attempt to distract from the reason as to why that whole area is destabilised anyway. UK and US intervention. Tony Blair jumping into Iraq in spite of proof that there were no weapons of mass destruction. Remember that guy got murdered on the side of the motorway? The guy who was doing a report into the weapons in the middle east? But no, we’re the upholders of freedom and democracy.

“This is a struggle between the children of light and the children of darkness, between humanity and the law of the jungle.” - A since deleted tweet from the President of Israel.

We know what it is. What it’s always been. A disregard for brown and black lives. Israel stands out in the region because that entire region has a different culture. It’s not European. It’s not American. That’s how the world works. It’s not supposed to be monolithic and it never will be. You don’t have to agree with it. But you let the region reason with itself.

This isn’t even new information. None of it is.

I was going to write about the man I just heard on the radio, claiming that pro Palestine protestors are ‘naive’. That we’re marching for the rights of an undemocratic, savage state. I feel as though he might be naive in misunderstanding what it is about this particular circumstance that resonates with so many. Being occupied and simply punished for existing. Being born into a world where you’re kicked in the leg and then blamed for not standing.

That feeling of being occupied and restrained and contained just in case you might become a threat. Because people similar to you in one way or another found a way to challenge the ones in control. The constant surveillance. It feels too tangible. Watered down, of course, because we aren’t being publicly murdered. But it’s not hard to feel a kinship. Certainly not as part of the 99%.

The conversation will never be perfect. Palestinians will never be perfect. We will never be perfect. Perfection shouldn’t be the expectation of a people who have a natural right to self determination. Have we lost that right within ourselves?

I have nothing new to add. I’m just appalled. And I always have been.

There’s more to be said in fact but the consequences are real.

I guess everyone dreams of a homeland nowadays.

Perhaps people should stop interfering.

There’s no point to this. I’m just venting.