The sound of gunfire echoes all through the town. Explosions mild up the evening sky as bombs destroy properties, faculties, marketplaces and any indicators of life in them. Overwhelmed and beneath assault, well being employees in a number of, barely functioning hospitals wrestle to assist the injured, principally youngsters. Nowhere is protected – hunger, thirst and demise are all over the place.
No, this isn’t the siege of Sarajevo, some three many years in the past. That is Gaza, now. Although one could be excused for mistaking one for the opposite. Right now, Palestinians within the besieged enclave are dealing with a disaster that’s in some ways equivalent to the one my individuals, Bosnian Muslims, needed to endure within the Nineteen Nineties.
Israel claims its struggle is towards Hamas, and never the civilian inhabitants of Gaza. It says it’s merely “defending itself”, and never aiming to displace a whole bunch of hundreds of individuals and purchase extra Palestinian land. But the fact on the bottom doesn’t match these claims. Israel’s relentless offensive will not be solely concentrating on Hamas. Its siege and bombs are killing civilians of their hundreds, eradicating total bloodlines, displacing many extra, and – by the admission of a few of Israel’s leaders themselves – aiming to erase all traces of Palestinian life and heritage from Gaza. This isn’t self-defence, this isn’t disproportionate retribution, that is genocide.
In 2001, the Worldwide Felony Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) judged that what occurred in Srebrenica in 1995 – the focused killing of greater than 8,000 Bosniak males and boys in addition to the mass displacement of tens of hundreds of different Bosniak civilians – was genocide. Asserting the ruling on the Hague, Presiding Decide Theodor Meron said that “By in search of to remove part of the Bosnian Muslims, the Bosnian Serb forces dedicated genocide.” Is that this not precisely what Israel is attempting to do in Gaza? What can clarify the concentrating on of extremely populated residential areas, hospitals and United Nations faculties sheltering displaced civilians with allegedly surgical air strikes apart from a need to “remove” at the very least part of the inhabitants dwelling there?
There isn’t a doubt that crimes had been dedicated by Hamas in southern Israel on October 7. Tons of of Israeli civilians had been killed, maimed or taken hostage, which can not in any means be justified. However the genocide Israel launched into in response to those crimes, or its decades-old repression and dispossession of Palestinians that led to the emergence of Hamas within the first place, can’t be justified, both.
As a survivor of the Bosnian struggle, whose kinfolk had been put in focus camps, I can not keep silent as Israel commits a genocide. Failing to sentence what Israel is doing to the individuals of Gaza would imply that I discovered nothing from what has been performed to my individuals.
Bosnians have skilled first hand the horrific penalties of the worldwide neighborhood remaining silent within the face of blatant struggle crimes and crimes towards humanity. Certainly, we all know what occurs when the world decides to take a seat again and watch the gradual destruction of a individuals in silence. I consider because of this there may be now a sea of Palestinian flags fluttering within the wind throughout protests in Sarajevo. Unusual Bosnians are standing with the individuals of Gaza and saying no to genocide as a result of they know that is the best factor to do.
And but, not all Bosnians appear to really feel this manner.
In response to the criticism of his deafening silence on Israel’s ongoing assault on Gaza, Emir Suljagic, the director of Srebrenica Memorial Centre, stated, “This isn’t our battle.” In a November 26 interview with the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Suljagic detailed how the Hamas assault on October 7 reminded him of the early days of the Bosnia struggle, and condemned the Palestinian armed group. He went on to defend his refusal to touch upon Israel’s consequent struggle on Gaza, saying he is not going to sacrifice his organisation’s work “on the altar of no matter Hamas’s agenda is”.
I discover this stance totally perplexing, and deeply disappointing.
If this isn’t “our battle”, then why say something? If it’s not to sentence struggle crimes on either side, why communicate in any respect? If commenting on worldwide conflicts dangers damaging the work of the memorial centre, why does it look like OK to publicly help Ukrainian resistance towards Russia’s invasion?
Some tie Sulajic’s seemingly unconditional help for Israel to his long-term collaboration with the World Jewish Congress (WJC) and different pro-Israel teams, as a part of his work for the memorial centre. But by failing to talk up towards this struggle on Palestinian civilians, for no matter motive, Sulajic is failing to do his obligation. Certainly, by turning a blind eye to the continuing bloodshed in Gaza, Sulajic is betraying the teachings discovered from the Srebrenica genocide. And by attempting to attract a false equivalence between Hamas and people liable for the Srebrenica genocide he’s undermining the gravity of the crimes dedicated towards Bosnians.
In a now-deleted tweet from November 21, Sulajic claimed that there was “no distinction” between Hamas and the Chetniks – the Yugoslav royalist and Serbian nationalist guerrilla pressure which dedicated among the worst atrocities throughout the Bosnia struggle.
Chetniks put Bosniaks in focus camps. They looted and besieged Bosnian cities. They tortured, starved, abused, raped and killed civilians of their hundreds. They bombed hospitals, killing docs and sufferers. They attacked libraries and city halls shielding the displaced. The mass graves Chetniks created and stuffed with Bosniaks throughout these darkish years are nonetheless being unearthed throughout the nation at the moment. They did all this as a result of they wished to exterminate Bosnian Muslims. They dedicated genocide. And Sulajic, as a survivor of genocide, is aware of this very nicely.
Hamas’s crimes towards Israeli civilians on October 7, nonetheless horrific, had been by no means comparable. There is just one social gathering on this battle which has ever dedicated crimes towards civilians which can be as systemic and widespread as these dedicated by Chetniks towards Bosniaks within the Nineteen Nineties, and that’s Israel.
It’s Israel that’s protecting civilians beneath siege. It’s Israel that’s indiscriminately bombing and ravenous them. It’s Israel that’s imprisoning younger Palestinians en masse, stealing their desires and futures. It’s Israel that’s committing a genocide.
Suljagic’s silence on Israel’s occupation, apartheid and ongoing genocide displays an “I’m alright, Jack” angle that suggests Bosnians can flip a blind eye to genocide, and declare it’s “not our battle”, beneath sure circumstances. In that case, nonetheless, we are able to not level the finger at those that remained silent after we had been dealing with genocide. We can not stand tall and say we are going to do all the pieces we are able to to make sure this doesn’t occur once more, to anybody.
So for the Palestinian individuals, and for humanity’s collective future, we should always all do higher. Bosniaks, and everybody else who recognises what is going on in Gaza as genocide, ought to communicate up and demand an finish to this atrocity. However simply an finish to this struggle will not be sufficient. We must always demand an finish to the occupation and apartheid. We must always demand a return to the 1967 borders. Palestinians ought to be allowed to stay freely and with dignity on their very own land.
We should help the Palestinian individuals and their wrestle for liberation. Silence and abstention will not be choices, particularly for these of us who’re unlucky to have skilled struggle, genocide and oppression. Now that we’re on the opposite aspect, now that we’re not those beneath siege and dealing with bombardment, we have now an obligation to talk up for individuals who are – even when it means upsetting allies and mates. Within the phrases of Martin Luther King, “The final word measure of a person will not be the place he stands in moments of consolation and comfort, however the place he stands at occasions of problem and controversy.”
The views expressed on this article are the creator’s personal and don’t essentially replicate Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.