Hating injustice and the death of innocent people is not enough. As I was researching a sports topic regarding sponsorships and freedom of speech, I came across Addidas and Puma's ending of partnerships with Israel. Now, that topic in itself will be talked about in details in a different post. However, it did help me come across a particular understanding of how those partnerships were ended.

Those partnerships didn't end abruptly but through concentrated efforts happening over the years. Now, I know someone might come out to say both Addidas and Puma came out to say that Israel's actions had no bearing on the ending of this partnership, but I have read the statements and I can use my brain to connect the dots. Not being cocky, but I am ahead of most if not all here on this particular topic.

What Even If The Point?

I am pretty sure anyone who has read my posts, watched people defending Palestine and calling out Israel, or calling for boycotts may be questioning the point of all these efforts. What's the point of writing about the topic or defending it since it's barely making an almost invisible crack in reinforced glass? Because, let's be real, even if Addidas and then Puma stopped their partnerships with Israel, so what?

The answer to that question is long, not because it takes a long time to explain, but because it is literally long in terms of time. As I was researching and writing my posts in this series, I found myself covering a thought that started in the 16th century and I was talking about its ramifications in the current day. The fact of the matter is, unlike the Holocaust, you can't really make a film about Palestinians' suffering because it didn't happen over a relatively short period of time. What happened in Palestine was more methodical, and more periodic.

The Inertia Holocaust of Palestine

One of the biggest tragedies for humans is their brains. The tragedy comes in the form that one of the biggest, if not the biggest, forces controlling the actions of the human brain is its inertia force. The Inertia Force is actually a physical term used to describe things remaining as they are. A body can either move or stay put, the inertia force would resist any external force aiming to move the body if it is staying put or stop it or change its speed if it is moving.

This term becomes biological or even social when you start applying it in your daily life because it also manifests itself in the form of self-deceiving. To simplify it in an example: You really like video games, you play five hours a day constantly, there's an exam coming up that would require you to at least cut your gaming time to three hours, your Intertia Force would begin its self-deceiving in the form of undermining the importance of the exam, minimizing the time needed to study, and the seriousness of the situation overall.

So, you keep gaming and gradually start thinking, so what if I get 90 out of 100, 80, 70, 60, and so on? It requires an external force that would break this Inertia Force, maybe you would draw the line at 70, maybe 80, or it could slowly drop down to 0 because many people who didn't graduate got jobs and Mark Zuckerberg is a billionaire and he didn't graduate college after all.

So, Palestinians weren't ethnically cleansed at once, it started with lands bought from absentee owners, a boycott of local Palestine farmers, workers, and traders, slowly taking over parts of cities, creating separate and isolated governing bodies and education systems as I covered in the 7th part of this series, car bomb a few markets, instigate a few riots and uprisings, then ethnically cleansing slowly, immigrate slowly, claim more land slowly, and then establish a country. Little do you know, that's slightly less than 50 years.

Compare that to Hitler's actions and quick invasion of Poland, France, Switzerland, and so on, along with the death of nearly six million Jews, and you would find that the latter took like 5% of the time the first took. Taking those countries in a few years is nothing compared to ethnically cleansing villages over time. It's easy to remember the countries Hitler took but not the 500 villages Zionist militias and then the Israeli army ethnically cleansed.

The Inertia of Observers

It's not the worst thing that ever happened or as Bill Maher put it, these things happen all the time. Who cares? It could be worse? That's nothing compared to what the Ottoman Empire did, it's nothing compared to the places Arabs took. So on and so forth. These are the generic responses we tell ourselves even before we tell others because our brains through that Intertia Force are set on battery-saving mode. So what my friend is wrong about this and that topic? What would educating him/her accomplish? Why would I disturb my Intertia Force for this?

All of that is done subconsciously unless you're a psychopath. It's a combination of chemicals and internalized processes that you got the result of before you could even think about it. It has to be consciously fought and that takes effort. This is the tragedy of humans, and so-called humans who are enemies of humanity understand that. It's not a catastrophe, it's a very small disaster.

It's not 4,250 people dying, it's 300 in 2000, 450 in 2001, 1,000 in 2002, 600 in 2003, 800 in 2004, 200 in 2005, 700 in 2006, and 200 in 2007. You probably got bored and skipped over the numbers and that's the point, anything is acceptable if it happens gradually. It's the boiling frog.

No matter how brutal, merciless, and animalistic the actions are, they are more accepted if they happen gradually over time through forward-thinking. They don't shove you down the stairs, but step by step. Israel didn't look the way it looks today, it's only now and compared to half a century ago and then a century ago you realize the difference, it was always "It's not so bad", time after time until it looked the way it does now. After all, tolerance is required so we can live together. So, the process goes from Inertia Force into tolerance.

The Truth About Tolerance

We're obviously not going to live by Mafia rules, an eye for an eye, but, when does Inertia Force mould into tolerance? Well, when all the changes through Intertia Force have been going in one direction and you were always on the losing side of that movement, then no, tolerance isn't an option. Acceptance isn't an option.

Another thing about tolerance as an option is that it requires to be an option, it requires being able to do other things, and it requires autonomy. You can't offer tolerance and acceptance as the only option and call it an option. There's no such a thing as the only option, it's like calling a slave free but still forcing him to work for free, it's like dry water.

This is why it's important to distinguish the actions we do that are seen as tolerance from actual tolerance, they're just complete surrendering to our Inertia Force. It's the Inertia Force against our own humanity and the demand to stand against evil which is mentioned in all religions and even at the basic humane level.

We Only Go Down

The actions of boycotting, online interactions, and articles like mine will be seen as a nothing sandwich, just a beautiful cover over the air to help people sleep at night. That's how we're conditioned, that's why when I say imagine someone strong your mind would immediately go to men with big muscles lifting weights and not a woman giving birth. Unless the change is extremely apparent, it's valueless. No one calls a singer successful when he is constantly touring and performing, but only when the singer's net worth is 300 million.

So, all these little actions, and they are little, are seen as lacking value. The Inertia Force doesn't only make you undermined gradually walking down the steps but makes you undermined going up one step. You undervalue going up or attempt to do so since you won't be high up all at once while accepting the fact that you're going down gradually.

You only become a real human once you fight the Inertia Force, that's why the people who constantly stood in front of Puma and Addidas stores, the players who show solidarity with Palestine, and football clubs who rejected sponsorships from those brands, along with the few people in New Zealand, Maldives, and all those people who have nothing to gain from a free Palestine are stronger than that Inertia Force.

So, are we going to attempt to go up one step at a time, or are we all going to gradually go down?

Previous Parts

The Inertia of Palestine