Earlier in the week, Israel launched an aerial attack on a school in Gaza City. The premises were being used as a refuge by approximately 350 homeless families. An instruction from the Israeli Defence Forces for these families to vacate their dwellings in the neighbouring town of Beit Hanoun was the cause of their displacement. The edifice also functioned as a place of worship and consequently, during the bombardment, the morning prayers were being conducted. The assault took the lives of around hundred individuals, among them a large number of children.
The moment the airstrike was carried out, the internet was overwhelmed with horrifying images of immense inhumanity. Decapitated human bodies, disintegrated fragments of cadavers flung around; children crying out in terror over their injured and lifeless loved ones – these are the types of terrifying experiences that have sadly become a part of daily life over the past 10 months. With our morning tea, still groggy and barely conscious, we read about the most recent acts of terror, and decide whether or not to watch footage of unimaginable suffering (“This video may contain graphic or violent content”).
Processing this news can be challenging, as we attempt to reconcile the horrors with our comparatively comfortable lives. On the day after the airstrike on the Gaza school, I came across a heart-wrenching video on Instagram of a young girl grieving over her father’s corpse, a casualty of the attack. Rather than focusing on the well-trodden Israeli justification for such action, I found myself desiring to know how and by what exact method. Some quick internet research led me to CNN’s revelation that the tool of devastation that took the life of the girl’s father and numerous other innocent bystanders was an instrument known as a GBU-39 small diameter bomb. Further research guided me to the website of the bomb’s creator, Boeing, an American company.
Exploring a weapon-making company’s website can be a thought-provoking endeavor, a clear example of mental conflict. The “Our Values” segment of the webpage informed me, “Boeing employees around the world come together through a shared pledge to our guiding principles, which act as the beacon for everything we do. As we work and pioneer to better the world, each of us holds personal responsibility for upholding these values.” The website also has plenty of information about the company’s dedication to diversity and inclusion, its celebration of Pride month, its respect for LGTBQIA+ colleagues, and its sustainability record.
On another part of the site, there is a listing for the GBU-39 bomb. This is the bomb that took the life of a small girl’s father and scattered body parts of many civilians amongst the ruins of the refuge – a school. This “cost-effective, high-accuracy attack weapon system”, as described in the catalogue, is “capable against an array of stationary targets” such as “bunkers, air defence installations, airfields”, and more. The list is extensive but not fully comprehensive; it doesn’t mention, for example, stationary targets like schools or mosques.
The stark contrast between the tech industry language presented on the Boeing website – the lingo of trade, of corporate ethics, of technical details – and the harsh truth of their products’ purpose and impact, is indeed horrific. It makes one contemplate about the individuals who are part of these organizations, and how they reconcile their line of work within themselves. There must certainly be some element of mind trance that keeps the immediate working experience separate from the distant impact of this work. There has to be a mechanism through which the company’s celebration of Pride month, for example, is felt with more depth than the crushing reality of a Palestinian child mourning her deceased father.
Upon browsing Boeing Company’s website, I noticed a stark disparity between a defence of liberal principles articulated in abstract terms and the harsh reality of substantial violence. This discrepancy mirrors the broader tension between the humanist discourse championed by Western liberal democracies and the violent aggression they endorse and support. EU leader Ursula von der Leyen, offers an example, as she flaunts the EU’s role as a “positive catalyst for peace and change”, while simultaneously backing, without question, the attack on Gaza based on Israel’s declared “right to self-defence”. Likewise, the Biden administration projects an image of peace, diplomacy and restraint, while steadfastly maintaining a supply chain of American-manufactured weaponry to Israel, including the kind used recently in an air raid.
As I perused the Boeing website, I was struck by a thought; this is the identical firm that constructed both the aircraft that carried my family and me to our Greek holiday and the bomb that was used in the school air raid. Despite their distinct purposes, both the 737 airplane that transported us to Athens for a peaceful holiday and the GBU-39 bomb deployed in the attack emerged from the same corporate brains and hands, contributing to the same shareholders’ profits.
While I certainly don’t feel as accountable for this as Boeing’s employees—who bind themselves to the corporate ethos—or its shareholders, the realization sharpens an unsettling awareness I hold as a denizen of the self-professed peaceful and cultured West. That as long as this ruthless destruction of a subjugated populace persists, none of us can genuinely claim innocence.