A belated salute to the mothers of Gaza

Dear Mothers of Gaza, I apologize that this shout-out comes a little late. It’s not that I didn’t think of you yesterday; it’s just that I was trying to focus on the positive. To that end, I spent time with my own mother, now in her 90th year, and sent greetings to the numerous younger moms in my circle. Unlike you, all of them live lives of relative good health and good fortune. Unlike you, they have access to medicine, food, and health care. Unlike you, mothers-to-be can expect access to fully provisioned maternal-care facilities when it’s time to give birth. Unlike you, never have their children died premature deaths due to starvation or the indiscriminate bombing of their homes. You, on the other hand, have buried at least 15,000 of your children over the past seven months. They have died at the hands of a military that bills itself “the most moral army in the world,” in a war financed and facilitated by the richest country on earth, a country that bills itself “the leader of the free world.” UNICEF tells us that 180 of you give birth every day, in an active war zone where every maternal-care facility has been deliberately destroyed, and where starvation is rampant since food and water are being deliberately withheld. If by some miracle a handful of your 180 daily newborns emerge healthy, their life expectancy, in the circumstances your tormentors have imposed, will be measured in weeks, not years. Mothers of Gaza, I salute you. Mothers of Gaza, please know I am deeply ashamed of our complicity in your suffering. The blood of your children is on our hands.