For decades, Gaza was described in the language of foreboding: an ‘open-air prison’, a ‘pressure cooker’, a graveyard of dreams where every ten-year-old had witnessed four bloodcurdling massacres, write Nahed Elrayes and Plestia\u00a0Alaqad. [GETTY]<\/p>\n
\u201cLet them\u201d is fashionable advice now. Let them misunderstand you. Let them stir chaos. The fear is that we are \u201cletting\u201d everything happen now.<\/p>\n
The most dangerous war of our lives has been sweeping an entire region; we let it. Our leaders lie and plunder; we let them. We let our thumbs scroll past the bombs between messages, meals, and jokes. Letting reality go, to call it \u201chealing\u201d. Letting bloodshed, to call it \u201cbloodletting\u201d.<\/p>\n
We let ourselves believe this would only happen to \u201cthem\u201d, not us.<\/p>\n
Only a short time ago, \u201clet them\u201d was said about a small place named Gaza. And when \u201clet them\u201d was said there, it didn\u2019t end.<\/p>\n
It was the beginning of everywhere.<\/p>\n
This is the story of Israel, and the world that made its expansionist ideology possible. The world that armed it, excused it, and let it push an entire region – and perhaps all of us with it – into the abyss.<\/p>\n
The ongoing catastrophe<\/p>\n
In 1948, with the violent expulsion of around 700,000 Palestinians from their homes, a new state was born. For decades afterwards, many in the US and across the West would call Israel their \u201conly friend in the Middle East\u201d, as if the region had always been a natural theatre of hostility waiting for this alliance. But to paraphrase Fr John Sheehan: before Israel, what exactly were America\u2019s enemies in the Middle East?<\/p>\n
Who created this permanent battlefield? Who benefits from pretending it has always been one?<\/p>\n
Even now, the post-WWII West can trace back almost all Arab and Muslim animosity to this one moment: the first great \u201clet them\u201d, helped by the West\u2019s own genocidal guilt. The Nakba.<\/p>\n
And so it was decreed: let Jewish nationalists empty 531 villages and call it their state. Let them build. Let them take. Let us Palestinians be reduced from a people into a \u201cquestion\u201d, a \u201cproblem\u201d, a \u201cdemographic threat\u201d.<\/p>\n
Let an expansionist colonial ideology call itself \u201cself-determination\u201d while denying the same right to the people it uprooted. The world did not merely fail to stop this. It absorbed it, normalised it, and then spent decades managing the symptoms while refusing to confront the cause.<\/p>\n
Then came the long rehearsal for this chapter: siege, settlement, blockade, bombardment, and a peace process twisted into a weapon of occupation. For decades, Gaza was described in the language of foreboding: an \u201copen-air prison\u201d, a \u201cpressure cooker\u201d, a graveyard of dreams where every ten-year-old had witnessed four bloodcurdling massacres.<\/p>\n
Then came 7 October 2023.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Since that day, the logic of impunity has stood naked and grotesque. The Biden Administration watched as Israel crossed one supposed red line after another. Let it starve Gaza. Let it flatten neighbourhoods, hospitals, universities, and refugee camps. Let it widen the war\u2019s geography. Let it turn Lebanon, Yemen, Iraq, Iran, and the Gulf into fronts in an ever-expanding inferno.<\/p>\n
Now the Trump administration has escalated again, waging a joint US\u2013Israel campaign against Iran while publicly tying any off-ramp to coercive demands – including threats of further strikes on Iran\u2019s critical infrastructure – as Israel says it is prepared to keep hitting Iran \u201cfor weeks to come.\u201d<\/p>\n
It would, of course, be too generous to say these two administrations simply \u201clet\u201d Israel do these things. More accurately, Washington \u201clet\u201d Israel lower the moral bar, then at each step adjusted itself, ratified it, and gave its full material support.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the world invokes international law, then retreats from enforcing it. Even Canada, after its defiant and lofty speech in defence of Greenland, is backing the US goals of this illegal invasion.<\/p>\n
Each time the language from Western capitals suggests concern, the material reality suggests consent.<\/p>\n
And then, there\u2019s us. Crying, laughing, refreshing our screens. Seeing it in real time, and letting it happen.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s hard not to conclude why: because we stopped believing in our power over our governments\u2019 foreign policies long ago. We watch, object, march, sign, grieve – and still, the machinery moves. At first, it shocks you. Then, it overwhelms you. Finally, it numbs you. And that numbness does not feel accidental. It almost feels like a tactic in itself.<\/p>\n
We all know that \u201clet them\u201d is not a viable response to genocide. It is not a response to a regional war.<\/p>\n
When the stakes are millions – and then billions – of lives, anything less than mass, sustained disruption only feels like another way of letting them.<\/p>\n
What if we don\u2019t?<\/p>\n
Nahed Elrayes is a Palestinian writer and composer, named in Arab America\u2019s 30 Under 30 (2023). He is\u00a0featured in Meanjin\u2019s \u201cEssays That Changed Australia (1940 to Today)\u201d, as well as\u00a0The Guardian, SBS, the Los Angeles Times, The Associated Press, Al Jazeera, and The New Arab.<\/p>\n
Follow Nahed on Instagram: @NahedElrayes<\/p>\n
Plestia\u00a0Alaqad is an award-winning journalist and author who has emerged as a powerful voice in digital media. She gained international recognition for her heartfelt, on-the-ground reporting during the genocide on Gaza, where her raw, personal storytelling brought global attention to the human impact of the violence. She recently published her book The Eyes of Gaza, that became an instant New York Times, Indie, San Francisco, and Boston Global Bestseller.<\/p>\n
Follow Plestia on Instagram: @plestia.alaqad<\/p>\n