Echos of Genocide: The Price of Our Indifference

Nancy O'Brien Simpson

Photo: commons.wikimedia.org by Makbula Nassar مقبولة نصار, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

Палестинцы

The world’s eyes are wide, unblinking, watching as Gaza is gouged from the earth, one block, one family, one life at a time. And from the iron seat of Washington, the U.S. government—the holy arm of destruction—pays for it. We're the ones who feed the beast—we who arm the devouring machine of death, who write the checks in silence, who stand by as the walls of devastation rise, as the cries go unheard. What is this? What do we, this land of liberty, have to do with it?

Since 2001, the U.S. has shoveled over $100 billion into Israel’s war chest—money for airstrikes, drones, military operations that crush civilians, crush the very bones of a people. Over 20,000 Palestinians dead—those children, those futures—slaughtered in their homes, in the streets, in the rubble of their world. One million displaced, homeless, wandering in a storm of fire and concrete. This is not a “conflict,” it is the erasure of a whole existence. A people turned to dust.

And still, I hear the words—“collateral damage,” “self-defense.” The lies—the dull hum of the mind turning away, putting its hands over its ears to sleep easy, to sleep without the screams. But it’s not defense when you bomb children, when the walls are already closing in on the people you call “the enemy.” It's not defense when you wipe out families, when you tear neighborhoods to bits, when the sky is filled with bombs and the ground filled with graves. This isn’t a war, this is genocide, this is massacre.

And we—the United States of America—are paying for it. We’re sending the weapons, the bombs, the fighter jets, the tanks. We’re the ones who make it all possible, year after year, while the world turns its back and watches it burn. This isn’t a tragedy across the sea—it’s our tragedy. Our hands are stained in the same blood as those who pull the triggers, who give the orders. We are complicit. We are the murderers in this blood-soaked play.

But still, the American people—those who claim to care about human rights, justice, the freedom they say they cherish—turn away. They turn away because it’s too hard to face, too ugly to confront, to admit that we are a part of this, that we are the ones funding the slaughter. They turn away because they have been taught to believe Israel can do no wrong, no matter how many children’s bodies pile up in the streets.

Here’s the truth—the raw, bloody truth: we are funding genocide. We are signing the death warrants. We are the ones pulling the strings. And the world is watching—horrified. But we, the great U.S., send 85% of that military aid to Israel for advanced weapons, the kind that tear families apart, destroy homes, and send the living to the grave. The very weapons we fund with our tax dollars are used to end life, to rip apart every semblance of humanity in the path of destruction. And the average American? They remain ignorant, blissfully unaware of the devastation they’ve paid for, of the blood they’re washing clean from their hands.

How long can we ignore this? How long can we pretend this is something distant, something we didn’t do? How long can we justify funding this in the name of "peace," of "security"? How many innocent lives must be taken, how many more children must be buried under the rubble, before we wake up and see our reflection in the mirror of death we’ve created? How many more images of bloodied children must flood the screens before we admit we are here, that we are the monsters, the accomplices, the silent killers?

We’ve let it happen for far too long. And for those who still, still turn their eyes away, I ask: How long can you look away? How many more Palestinian children must fall? How many more lives must be erased before we—the people of the United States—finally rise up, stand in the light, and demand the accountability we’ve long denied? How long before we look at the blood on our hands and stop pretending it isn’t ours?