Call for total peaceful mobilization to end the cruelties inflicted on the children of Gaza
Faced with the resumption of indiscriminate bombings in Gaza, the CFCM calls for a total peaceful mobilization of French people of all faiths, aware of the value of human life, so that the massacres of civilian populations stop as quickly as possible. No one should allow Gaza to be transformed into an open-air mass grave and a slaughter of children and babies.
The children of Gaza are not responsible for anything. Yet the price they are paying is the heaviest of any conflict of our time. According to UNICEF head Catherine Russell, the Gaza Strip has become “the most dangerous place in the world for a child.” The professor and humanitarian doctor, Raphaël Pitti, describes what is happening in Gaza as “ real genocide ”, and according to the spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Frédéric Joli, Gaza “ It’s hell on earth.”
Like every child in the world, the children of Gaza do not deserve to be exposed for so long to so much suffering, terror, and horror amid such indifference and inaction of humanity.
In France, it is clear that the tragic images showing the inert bodies of children, their arms or their legs protruding from the rubble in Gaza, broadcast in certain networks, are absent in the majority of our media, even in mode blurred. Only aerial views of collapsed buildings are broadcast, suggesting simple material damage.
In these media, unfortunately, we prefer to give more voice to those who insist that Israel is the “only democracy in the region”, or that the Israeli army is “the most moral army in the world”, while turning a blind eye to the barbaric crimes perpetrated by this army against these thousands of Palestinian children who are dying and suffering in inaction and general helplessness. For these media, is it now accepted that human lives are not equal, even when it comes to children?
In the end, the mainstream media finds itself discredited as a whole. Some will head to other alternative spaces where they will discover, sometimes without support and without moderation, terrible images of the tragedy of the Palestinian people. They may also be exposed to great risks of manipulation and abuse, with consequences that should not be underestimated.
Faced with this cruel reality, the CFCM calls for:
– Continue to demonstrate solidarity with the Palestinian populations by all legal means and demand an immediate and lasting ceasefire.
– Continue to form a nation and society with our compatriots of all faiths and beliefs, particularly with our compatriots of the Jewish faith, to defend peace and combat violence, hatred and division.
– Raise awareness among our political leaders of the atrocious suffering of the Palestinian people which is unfortunately invisible in our media and restore their dignity and humanity to Palestinian children and civilians by evoking their ordeal, their history, their faces and their names.
Any expression, support or position that encourages violence and is not in line with a call for ceasefire and peace must be vigorously denounced. With this in mind, the CFCM perfectly understands the citizens who stand aside and move away from signs that display their unconditional support for Israel’s military action in Gaza.
– Denounce the imposture of those who are trying by any means to exploit this tragedy to turn it into a war of religions or civilizations, imported onto our territory. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict does not pit the West against Islam as some would like, but humanity and law against barbarism and war crimes, wherever they come from.
Those responsible for these inhumane, anti-religious crimes, contrary to human rights and international law, must be held accountable before international courts. To renounce it is to irremediably call into question our most precious and fundamental values as well as all international conventions for the protection of human rights and human dignity.
“All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.” This principle is not an empty slogan. It must apply to everyone, including Palestinians and their children.
Those who participate in dehumanizing Palestinians will, in reality, only lose their own part of humanity.
Paris, December 5, 2023
The French Council of Muslim Worship (CFCM)
