I Will Not Play That Game

I Will Not Play That Game

I keep getting inboxes.
“Why are you not saying anything about the people Hamas is killing in Gaza right now?”

And I just want to ask —
where were you
when twenty thousand children
were killed in Palestine?

Where were you
when hospitals were bombed,
when homes, schools, mosques, churches
were reduced to dust and silence?

You said nothing.
Nothing to debunk the lies.
Nothing to stop the slaughter.
And now — now you find your outrage?
Now you come calling my name?

No.
I won’t.
I will not respond to that.

Because first —
I can’t watch another video.
I’ve seen too much.
I’m too shell-shocked to look again.

I’ve spent years
watching Gaza being bombed,
children buried under rubble,
families erased,
the world scrolling on.

You think I need another video
to believe this horror?

And second —
I will wait for investigation,
for truth, for evidence.
Because again and again —
for decades —
we’ve seen the same pattern.

Israel shapes the story,
the outrage flares,
and when the smoke clears —
the truth lies buried under propaganda.

After October 7th, Hamas called for an investigation.
Israel refused.

And we remember the stories they told.
Forty beheaded babies — debunked.
Mass rape — debunked.
The numbers — one thousand four hundred,
then one thousand two hundred,
then quietly adjusted again.
Babies burned in ovens — debunked.

Every time, Israel tells its story in horror,
and every time, the evidence unravels.
Whenever Israel speaks,
it speaks in lies,
and the truth only crawls out later —
wounded,
weary,
too late for the dead.

Meanwhile, Israel violates the ICJ orders.
The Court ordered Israel to stop acts of genocide,
to allow aid to flow freely,
and, by implication and international law,
for the occupation itself to end.
But the occupation continues.
Gaza is not free.

The IDF still occupies nearly half of Gaza —
foreign troops on foreign land
in defiance of international law.

What’s left behind is a wasteland.
Ten thousand still buried under rubble.
Families unable to bury their dead.
Aid crossings opened and closed
like stage curtains
for Israel’s propaganda show.

The drones still hum.
The bombs still fall.
Hospitals gone.
Schools gone.
Doctors detained.
Journalists murdered.

A Palestinian doctor —
six months renewed in administrative detention —
no charges, no trial,
no explanation.

Thousands more imprisoned —
hundreds of them children.
No due process.
No justice.
But you celebrate that?
You call that defence?
I’m done.
I’m over it.

And now —
the same people who were silent while Gaza burned
say the ICJ case should be dropped.
Dropped!
As if genocide pauses,
and we all move on.

Israel still occupies.
Still bombs.
Still blocks aid.
Still starves.
Still holds thousands captive.
Every major body has said it —
genocide.

And you want no accountability?
No justice?
Because it’s Israel?
What is wrong with you?

And then —
the Hasbara tours.
Carefully curated,
packaged for comfort.

This time, two of Mandela’s grandchildren.
Taken in by Israel,
escorted by the state.
The South African Jewish Board of Deputies
releases a glowing report:
“aid going in to at least 10,000 desperate people.”

But listen to the framing.
The story becomes — aid is going in.
As if that proves mercy,
not guilt.

You can take anyone in on any given day,
show them trucks crossing the border,
and call it evidence.
But you can’t hide ten thousand starving people.
They saw them —
but did not centre them.

Their desperation is the proof —
proof that Israel has starved them.
Even the logic of the Hasbara tour
collapses under its own propaganda.

ALSO READ: Israeli Study Tours, ‘Hasbara’ & Shameful Attempts To Deny The Genocide!

Let in the journalists.
Let in the truth.
If Gaza’s not occupied —
why the blockade?
Why the hunger?
Why the silence?

No.
I will not be distracted
by selective outrage
or curated lies.

I’m tired.

Tired of double standards.
Tired of voices that only rise
when they serve the powerful.
Tired of silence that enabled genocide.
Tired of a media that sanitises apartheid.
Tired of a world
that still demands Palestinians prove
they deserve to live.

Justice doesn’t stop
because the bombs have slowed.
The siege continues.
The occupation continues.
The lies continue.
The complicity continues.

And I —
I will not play that game.
Nigel Branken – 17 October 2025

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