The illegal abduction of the crew of the Madleen by the genocidal state of Israel is certainly demoralizing. But it isn’t surprising to anyone and certainly not this courageous group of people. Israel is conducting the first livestreamed genocide. Day by day it descends even further into the pit of sadistic barbarism. Yet even as its atrocities and war crimes mount for all the world to see, it cannot help but claim victimhood.

Case in point, Israel’s defense minister ordered the kidnapped crew to be shown a heavily curated and guarded film of the October 7th attacks. He also repeated the ridiculous lie that Greta Thunberg is “antisemitic” and supports Hamas.

To be sure, Israel isn’t on some moral crusade against antisemitism or terrorism. But it has weaponized antisemitism to attack any critic of the regime or of the political ideology of Zionism. And it attempts to smear them as terrorists because that has become the catch-all term used by despotic and ruthless regimes all over the world against anyone who dissents.

No person of conscience supports indiscriminate violence against civilians and certainly not against children. But Israel is in a bind of its own making if it thinks it can shame the crew of the Madleen by forcing them to watch a film that cannot be viewed or verified by any independent body.

After watching 19 months of unhinged and vicious cruelty meted out on millions of people in the world’s biggest concentration camp, Israel still thinks it can garner sympathy. Even after it has bombed, burned alive and starved thousands of children. Even after it has killed its own citizens. Even after its soldiers have proudly posted themselves parading around in lingerie or smashing toys of women and children they had forced out of their homes or massacred. Even after it has bombed hospitals and murdered doctors and paramedics. Even after it has tortured captives. Even after countless statements of genocidal intent by its politicians and media figures.

But this is all Israel knows how to do. It only has one story. And it has spent the last 77 years polishing its brand of perpetual victimhood even as it ethnically cleansed the land and built an apartheid state that rivaled South Africa. It has repeated this fiction that it is the “villa in the jungle” and the Middle-East’s “only democracy” so much that it began to believe it was true. But despite its delusion, the mask has slipped for the world to see. And no amount of storytelling will convince anyone but the willfully ignorant, terminally stupid or psychotically deranged.

Kenn Orphan, June 2025

Some images have an historic weight that places them in a different class. We remember them as markers. As signposts. As harbingers. They are immediately recognizable to most people.

Think of the little Jewish boy in the Warsaw Ghetto standing with his arms up with armed Nazi guards in the background. Think of the young girl running down a street after her village was napalmed in Vietnam. Think of the emaciated toddler in Sudan who had collapsed to the ground with a plump vulture standing nearby. Think of the small Syrian boy lying face down in the sand on the beach of a Greek island.

This image is no different.

It is still from a video that shows a young Palestinian girl trying to flee an inferno. It was from an Israeli airstrike on the shelter where she was staying. Her name is Ward al-Sheikh Khalil, and she is only 7 years old. Miraculously, she survived. Her mother and siblings did not.

Images like this one are powerful because they are an indictment. A testament. A condemnation of blatant cruelty and injustice.

As Israel escalates its murderous war of annihilation against the people of Gaza, half of which are children, the world stands in shock and outrage. Even media figures who were long silent about the atrocities, like Piers Morgan, are beginning to shift their opinion. Even political leaders, like one former Israeli prime minister, cannot stay silent any longer. He accurately described what Israel is doing as a “war of extermination.”

It took 19 months. 19 months of the destruction of over 90% of Gaza’s structures, including schools, mosques, churches, universities, bakeries, water treatment facilities, farms and historic places. Of the daily bombings and burnings of people in tents. Of amputations without anesthesia Of snipers shooting toddlers. Of the slow starvation of children. Of Israeli politicians and media openly expressing genocidal intent and mania.

19 months for some leaders and influencers in the West to finally discover the humanity of the Palestinians. They all saw what we saw. But they chose to ignore it, normalize it, fund it, cheerlead it and chide those of us who denounced it as being “supporters of terrorism” or attempt to smear us as antisemitic bigots.

Before little Ward, there was little Hind. But unlike Ward, Hind did not survive. And we don’t have an image of her plight. We only have her voice. Trembling, terrified. Sitting wounded in a car with her dead family. Pleading with emergency services on the phone to save her. And they tried. But they too were annihilated by an Israeli tank.

There are countless little girls and boys like Hind and Ward. We will never hear their voices or see their faces. Buried under rubble, incinerated, shredded from bombs, wasting away from starvation. But they all matter. And they all deserved far better than this hell we have allowed.

Kenn Orphan, May 2025