| First, as a clarifying note on the article I shared earlier, I want to clearly state that I offered this resource because I found it to be at times illuminating. I do sincerely apologize for any harm I caused in doing so (especially to Frieda, whose work and character I admire and respect very much, and whose thread I did not mean to destabilize); that was certainly not my intention. Simultaneously, I worry it endangers the integrity of all our intellectual freedoms to treat the act of sharing an article, or any resource for that matter (and I believe that this idea has come up on Connect before) as a wholly uncritical endorsement of the ideas contained within. In my reading, I did not interpret the author's intention as being to overtly discredit, but rather to place overdue pressure and skepticism on the continued disproportionate response to and emphasis on sexual violence occurring on Oct 7, when there is this robust and extensive body of documentation of ongoing sexual violence against Palestinians that is frequently totally absent from these conversations. To be abundantly clear: I do not condone any sexual violence by any party, and I am not, by way of sharing this uncomfortable and critical article, trying to suggest that sexual violence did not occur on Oct 7. I do, however, still think that this piece offers some valuable perspectives for framing and going about these conversations in the obvious absence of balanced information. The crux of the article seemed to me that we cannot talk credibly of what transpired on Oct 7, while simultaneously ignoring the well-established history of sexual violence against Palestinians that has both preceded and followed it. We have to care about sexual violence universally, or else our efforts mean nothing. I highly recommend reading some of Frieda's writings on this topic, which are far more comprehensively informed and eloquent than anything I could say here. Having clarified that, and returning to the original article by expert Holocaust and genocide scholar, Dr. Bartov: it is our moral imperative as librarians to denounce this blatant genocide of the Palestinians, along with the devastating, deliberate destruction of their libraries and cultural institutions. I am very, deeply sorry, from the depths of my heart, that some people still cannot see these unspeakable horrors for what they are. It is a deep and irreconcilable shame. We have so much readily available information about the decades-long history of mass displacement and massacres that preceded Oct 7. About the nonviolent efforts of the First Intifada in the 80s/90s, and how its leaders were consequently imprisoned and sent away. But even without that, there is nothing that, in my mind, could ever rationalize or excuse the indiscriminate mass maiming and killing and starving of children (I personally think people of all ages, including men, not just women and children, fundamentally deserve to live, but I know that children's rights are more broadly palatable in these conversations). Yesterday, the first thing I saw on my phone was a very small Palestinian child, maybe 5 or 6 years old, fully lucid and writhing on the dirty floor of a barely-functioning hospital with no anesthesia, nothing at all to ease his pain, while one of his little arms was entirely missing. I mean, where his arm should have met his shoulder, there was just this wet, red, stringy nub of pulpy flesh. It ruined my entire morning. Again, I can find the video if anyone really needs me to, although frankly I would rather not revisit it. I see videos of Palestinian kids just like this every day. And these circumstances are no accident; we know this because we have witnessed so many doctors from around the world return from Palestine and testify that they saw unprecedented cases of children who had taken sniper bullets to the head and vital organs-something that is only possible, according to their medical expertise, by deliberate and systematic effort. We have seen the recent videos of starving civilians being indiscriminately fired on while attempting to collect humanitarian food aid at designated sites; we have countless publicly available testimonies from IDF soldiers about the kinds of orders they are being given that directly confirm these scenes for what they are. I personally have seen dozens of videos and photos of maimed and dead and dying Palestinian children every day for almost two years. And I am talking about unspeakable, unforgettable, fundamentally crushing, soul-altering things-things I had not even thought to wish I'd never have to see-like children's mutilated corpses caught up hanging from the rubble of buildings (there are many videos of this); injured kids with their flesh burned off near entirely (I can think of a handful of videos from the past several weeks alone); a beheaded fetus whose mother had been shot (this was very recent and yes, widely recorded); a little girl, also lucid, with her jaw blown entirely off, who I'll never forget the face of. We have all had plenty of opportunities to hear Hind Rajab's ambulance call, to witness that shell of a vehicle with the scars of 335 rounds fired into it at a scared 5-6 year old girl. This isn't conjecture, this is all comprehensively documented and I know that, as librarians, we are all capable of doing legitimate, good faith research. I have to believe that to continue to have any trust in this profession, to which I am admittedly very new but trying my very best. There is so much widely available information online about the unprecedented cohorts of new Palestinian child amputees; these kids are truly everywhere, and their entire lives have been altered. Now on top of that we are seeing, every single day, completely skeletal babies, many of them already dead, having wasted away because much of the population trapped inside the Gaza Strip has already entered Stage 5 of malnutrition, the effects of which are now largely irreversible even if food does ever enter. Countless photos and videos of babies, many less than a year old, completely reduced to bones because they are being deliberately starved; enough formula and enough food to sustain the population for months sits just outside the borders, and now supplies have been stuck sitting so long they are being incinerated. All of this, again, is widely documented. We all have access to this information. We also have hundreds of pages filled with the documented names and ages of dead children from such a small space over such a small period of time. I cannot bear the moral fracture of capitulating and playing these sinister word games anymore. I was raised within a public school system that educated us about the Holocaust in great detail and at great length every single year, beginning in elementary school and continuing all the way through high school. I was raised being shown, repeatedly and in excruciating detail, what the deliberate extermination of a whole people looks like-the kinds of images and stories and warning signs that should ignite rage and deep, deep sorrow in our hearts. I was told time and time again that it is our fundamental moral responsibility to speak up as loudly as possible if we ever see these patterns repeating, because never again means never again for all peoples anywhere and everywhere. I am mortified that the memory of the brutal horrors of the Holocaust, and the sanctity of Judaism, and the kind and loving Jewish heritage that I have only ever known have been so widely smeared and weaponized just to manufacture consent for the genocide of yet another people. I am mortified that there is anyone at all in the whole world who can still confidently and unabashedly deny what is happening in full view of us all, or find any ways to continuously justify it. Even some of the most conservative figures show the ongoing Palestinian death toll dwarfing the Israeli casualties of Oct 7 by almost 50x. How is it possible to witness this scale of slaughter happening before our eyes and still feel it is somehow righteous? After hearing Israeli officials say, openly, the kinds of things articulated even just the other day by Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu, not just on this one occasion but repeatedly and historically and firmly? To witness the sort of rhetoric regularly used by Daniella Weiss, self-proclaimed 'godmother of the settler movement,' and not suspect that something has gone horribly, terribly wrong? After seeing the wildly disproportionate exchanges of a handful of Israeli hostages for seemingly inexplicable numbers of Palestinian prisoners? How do you think it is possible that so many had been detained for longer than 2 years? Why are there so many children? I so desperately want to live in a world where all children get to live rich and full lives; is that not something we can agree upon, unconditionally, as librarians? I've talked on Connect before about my Palestinian friend Duaa: her residence was targeted by quadcopters for hours through the night recently, and the small library in which she had once found solace reading to children has long since been destroyed. I will never understand why it is controversial in any capacity to want her and her family (which includes several younger children, for what it's worth), and other families like them to live. Not just to live, but to have expansive and safe and beautiful and joyful lives. I have a deep and unwavering respect for those of you deeply principled folks who continue to stand in firm solidarity against one of the most definitive moral crises of the century so far. We are truly beyond the point of even questioning what this is called.
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Mads Kerlan, MLIS
they/he
News Editor
Journal of Intellectual Freedom & Privacy
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