How Genocide Becomes Ordinary

Israel killed 92 Palestinians today. You likely didn’t hear about it. Maybe it didn’t even make your feed. That’s how genocide becomes ordinary. That’s how we teach ourselves to scroll past slaughter, to normalize the murder of entire families.

It’s hard to stomach how comfortable the world has become with Palestinian death. It’s harder still to watch how selective the law becomes when Israel is the one doing the killing. An entire population is being starved, suffocated, and bombed and shelled relentlessly, and yet, the world hesitates. Debates. Stalls. As if it doesn’t already know what it’s seeing. As if genocide needs better branding to be believable.

– Ahmed Shihab-Eldin
Excerpted from A Year and a Half of Genocide
– And Still, No One Stops the Killer
Ahmed’s Perspective
May 7, 2025

Image: A Palestinian father, mother, and their child massacred in the Israeli airstrike that targeted a restaurant in the densely populated area of the Al-Rimal neighborhood, west of Gaza City – Wednesday, May 7, 2025.


Related Off-site Links:
“Pools of Blood”: Israel Kills 100 Palestinians in Gaza, Including Attack on Restaurant and Marketplace – Democracy Now! (May 8, 2025).
Women, Children, and Journalists Among Nearly 100 Killed in Gaza – Julia Conley (Common Dreams, May 7, 2025).
100 Palestinians Killed in Weekend of Israeli Airstrikes on Gaza – Brett Wilkins (Common Dreams, April 27, 2025).
Israel’s Genocidal Attacks on Gaza Continue, Slaughtering Children and Displaced Palestinians – Democracy Now (April 17, 2025).
“One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This”: Omar El Akkad on Gaza and Western Complicity – Democracy Now (April 17, 2025).
“Not in Our Name”: Protesters Decry U.S.-Backed Assault on Gaza – Democracy Now (April 8, 2025).
Israeli Attacks on Gaza Kill 58 Palestinians in a Day, Including Journalist Ahmed Mansour – Democracy Now (April 8, 2025).
The Dead Children We Must See – Jay Caspian Kang (The New Yorker, April 7, 2023).


See also the following chronologically-ordered Wild Reed posts:
• October 7, 2023: “Nothing About Today is ‘Unprovoked’”
• Phyllis Bennis: “If We Are Serious About Ending This Spiraling Violence, We Need to Look at Root Causes”
• In the Midst of the “Great Unraveling,” a Visit to the Prayer Tree
• Eric Levitz: Quote of the Day – October 11, 2023
• Something to Think About – October 12, 2023
• Prayer of the Week – October 16, 2023
• Voices of Reason and Compassion on the Crisis in Israel and Gaza
• More Voices of Reason and Compassion on the Crisis in Israel and Gaza
• Ta-Nehisi Coates: Quote of the Day – November 2, 2023
• Jehad Abusalim: Quote of the Day – December 8, 2023
• Christmas 2023 – Reflections, Activism, Art, and Celebrations
• Sabrina Salvati: Quote of the Day – January 2, 2024
• Michael Fakhri: Quote of the Day – February 27, 2024
• Phyllis Bennis: Quote of the Day – March 28, 2024
• Josh Paul: Quote of the Day – March 28, 2024
• “A Genocide Has Been Normalized”
• “This Is a Genocidal Project”
• Outrage and Despair
• Naomi Klein’s Powerful Words on Israel’s and the West’s Ongoing Gaza Genocide
• Judith Butler on the Ongoing Student Protests Against the Gaza Genocide
• Kyle Kulinski: Quote of the Day – May 23, 2024
• Something to Think About – June 28, 2024
• Nina Turner: Quote of the Day – July 24, 2024
• Phyllis Bennis: “We Can Never Give Up Hope”
• John Cusack: Quote of the Day – July 26, 2024
• Progressive Perspectives on the Presidential Nomination of Kamala Harris
• Breaking Down Kamala Harris’s DNC Speech on Gaza
• Yousef Munayyer: Quote of the Day – August 30, 2024
• “It’s a Systematic Slaughter That We’re Funding”
• Protesting Weapons Manufacturer and Genocide Enabler General Dynamics
• Something to Think About – September 26, 2024
• “A Year of War Against Children”
• Anti-Genocide Presidential Candidate Jill Stein Reflects on the First Anniversary of Israel’s Genocide in Gaza
• Liam Cosgrove Confronts U.S. State Department Spin Doctor Matthew Miller: “People Are Sick of the Bullshit”
• “This Is a Tragic, Heartbreaking Moment in the History of Humanity”
• Progressive Perspectives on Kamala Harris’ Faltering Presidential Campaign
• Progressive Perspectives on Where Democrats Went Wrong in the 2024 Presidential Election
• Hope and Courage – Christmas 2024
• Chris Hedges: “Israel Has No Intention of Halting Its Merry-Go-Round of Death”
• The Lamentable Legacy of the Biden Administration
• Caitlin Johnstone: Quote of the Day – January 22, 2025
• Butch Ware: Quote of the Day – January 30, 2025
• The Only Difference
• Progressive Perspectives on Cory Booker’s Marathon Speech
• Silence on Gaza Genocide Is “More Than a Mere Moral Abdication; It Is Lethal”
• The Theft of One’s Soul: Omar El Akkad on the “Lesser of Two Evils” Argument


See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• “The Mistreatment and Discrimination Against Palestinians Is Not Unprecedented. It’s Baked Into the Foundation of the Political System in Israel”
• Progressive Perspectives on the Ongoing Israeli-Palestinian “Nightmare” (2021)
• Something to Think About – July 29, 2018
• Noura Erakat: Quote of the Day – May 15, 2018
• For Some Jews, Israel’s Treatment of Palestinians is Yet Another Jewish Tragedy
• Remembering the Six-Day War and Its Ongoing Aftermath
• David Norris: Quote of the Day – August 12, 2014