BLOOD ON ONE SIDE AND GARNIER ON THE OTHER

Published: August 6, 2014  http://blogs.tribune.com.pk/story/23510/blood-on-one-side-and-garnier-on-the-other/

THIS BLOG POST WAS PULLED FROM THE EXPRESS TRIBUNE TODAY AFTER A FEW HOURS ONLINE BECAUSE OF DIRECT PRESSURE FROM GARNIER ITSELF. ITS A SHAME THAT WE CANNOT WITHSTAND PRESSURE FROM EVEN COSMETIC HOUSES. 
SHAME ON PAKISTAN.



‘We are honoured to be delivering these ‘girly’ care packagers for our lovely female Israeli Defence Forces fighters! Today’s packages were stocked with thousands of products for our girls protecting Israel', Garnier. PHOTO: STANDWITHUS FACEBOOK PAGE

Social media is much more than ‘teenage youth using Facebook to have a relationship with opposite sex,’ which appears to be its only side perceived by some. It also consists of forums where people speak up for Gaza for example and for Israel against Gaza.

One such page belongs to a non-profit organisation that delivers care packages to the Israeli army. Some of these packages have been donated by the cosmetic group Garnier, and this is what StandWithUs the NGO says on their post (and I don't see Garnier taking down their page):

“We are honoured to be delivering these ‘girly’ care packagers for our lovely female Israeli Defence Forces fighters! Today’s packages were stocked with thousands of products for our girls protecting Israel. They even received facial soap and minerals, so they can still take care of themselves, even while defending the country.”

All those reading this post are asked to ‘shout out to Garnier Israel’ for this amazing donation. Well, bravo, Garnier. I vow never to use your products again.

On the Eastern coast of the Mediterranean lays Gaza, all 139 square miles of it populated mostly by Palestinians and Bedouins totalling about two million human beings. This is approximately half the population of Lahore living in an area only four times the size of Lahore’s DHA.

This is the Gaza that Gilad, a Major in Israel’s reserve forces, recently called on the Israeli army to ‘flatten’, just like the worm it is shaped like.

Gilad wrote in the Jerusalem Post,

“Flatten all of Gaza”

And since Gaza’s electricity is supplied and its borders are controlled by Israel; Gilad also suggested that the government should force the leadership of Gaza to surrender by cutting off all supplies. He wrote that,

“There should be no electricity in Gaza, no gasoline or moving vehicles, nothing. Then they’d really call for a ceasefire.”

Nothing and dead men do not speak; so who could call for a ceasefire, if there’s supposed to be nothing left?

Gilad is the son of Ariel Sharon, who, eight years ago, was the prime minister of Israel. And Gaza is being flattened as Gilad desires.

Last month, Gaza’s only power plant was destroyed which means that Gaza, already crippled by power cuts for more than twenty hours daily, now also faces a water crisis since water has to be pumped. We, in Pakistan, should be able to relate at least with this particular aspect of the tragedy.

The Guardian reported on July 30, that

“Gaza hospital officials put the total number of Palestinians killed in the conflict at 1,224; most of them civilians. The UN said 182,000 people, around 10% of Gaza’s population, had sought shelter in its premises.” “Around 70% of the wounded will remain disabled,” says Ghassan Abu Sitta, a plastic surgeon, “their lives will never be the same.”

Yamin is the only survivor of an attack which flattened his house and left 19 people dead, the evening the moon was sighted for Eidul Fitr. He is one of hundreds of persons who suffered horrendous injuries in Israeli shell fire. He now lies all alone in Gaza’s single operating burns theatre, awaiting treatment to a face burnt and disfigured for life, and a body broken by several fractures.

Yamin is three-years-old and now an orphan, one of many.

According to UN figures,

“Children continue to bear the brunt of the crisis, with 373 killed and at least 2,744 injured.”

This is war, of course, there has been damage on both sides, but the damage on the Israeli side has been light.  Again on July 30, the Guardian reports, that

“On the Israeli side 53 soldiers and three civilians have been killed since the start of the offensive on July 8.”

If anything were needed to highlight the disparity between the two sides it is those dreadful care packages by ‘Take Care, Garnier’. Images of the women of the Israeli army, who obviously have the time and the stomach for special ‘girly’ products, deodorants and soaps, are superimposed by those of medical workers painting an antibacterial ointment onto little Yamin to help his skin scar over. Yamin is a tiny naked, frail and frightened victim of this holocaust perpetuated by the scented hands of the Israeli army.  Take Care, Yamin, okay?

There are times when something so indefensibly callous occurs that it takes your breath away. In the midst of the tragedy that is Gaza and the slaughter of its children by the people who have for years wailed about the death of a little girl called Anne Frank, this display of shameless insensitivity by Garnier is such a one. Surely Garnier will now be forever engraved in our minds as the grisly Lady Macbeth rubbing and washing her hands, crying,

‘Out, damn’d spot! Out, I say!’

Who could have thought the world would have so much blood in it.