What Kind of Liberation Is This, Paid For by Alaa and Elena?
A Palestinian woman left for work in the morning, and an Iranian girl went to sleep in her bed after telling her father "I love you." Neither was in a barracks, and neither carried a weapon. Yet both were killed by the fire of the Islamic Republic of Iran, which says it is fighting for Jerusalem.
Two short stories, but enough to dismantle an entire narrative. When statements speak of "targets," "waves" and "victories," it is civilians who pay the price, in their homes and on their streets, far from any battlefield.
Alaa: A Daughter of Abu Dhabi
Alaa Nader Awni Mushtaha was a 33-year-old Palestinian, born and raised in Abu Dhabi. The eldest of six siblings and their mainstay, she supported her parents and helped with the household expenses and her siblings' schooling. She worked at the Zayed Higher Organisation for People of Determination, training and rehabilitating them so they could live with greater dignity and independence. Her colleagues describe her as someone who never hurt anyone.
On 16 March, on her way to work, an Iranian missile killed her. The UAE, its leadership and its people, stood by her family: officials and ordinary people came to the house of mourning, as this land does for everyone who has lived on it and loved it. Alaa was no passing guest among us; she was a daughter of this society, who grew up in it, worked in its institutions and served those of its members most in need of care.
Elena: A Child of Iran
Days earlier, on 4 March, Kuwait lost an 11-year-old girl named Elena Abdullah Hussein, from an Iranian family and born in Kuwait. Fragments from an Iranian attack fell on her family's home while she slept beside her younger sister. Paramedics and doctors tried to save her for nearly half an hour, and then she was gone. Her father stood at her grave saying she had been a blessing God gave him and then took back, and thanked Kuwait, its government and its people, for not leaving him alone.
An Iranian child, killed by her own state's fire, and her family consoled by their Arab neighbours. This scene alone is enough to understand the difference between a people whose name is used, and a regime that speaks in its name.
The Slogan and the Truth
In its statements, the Revolutionary Guard says its strikes target only American bases and Israeli targets. It raises over them the slogan "the liberation of Jerusalem," and promises that liberation "is near." But Alaa was not a military base, and Elena was not an Israeli target. They were a woman on her way to work, and a child in her bedroom.
Whoever fires on populated cities knows in advance that fragments do not distinguish between a soldier and a child, or between one nationality and another. Either he does not care, or he cares more for the slogan than for human beings. Either way, the claim of "precision targeting" collapses before the image of a child in her shroud.
What kind of liberation is this, in whose name a Palestinian woman far from her homeland is killed, and whose victim is a child of the Iranian people themselves? And what cause is this, whose banner is raised with one hand while the other buries a daughter of the very Palestine it claims to defend?
Palestine does not need those who trade on it in military statements. It needs those who protect its people, safeguard their dignity and open the doors of work and life to them, as the UAE opened them to Alaa and her family over the years. And the Iranian people do not need someone to raise their name as a slogan, but someone to protect their children from wars they did not choose.
A Memory That Will Not Fade
There is no hostility to any people in these words, and no generalisation about any nation. Iranians are old neighbours with whom we have shared the sea, trade and history, and many of them live among us in safety. The dispute here is with a regime that says one thing and does the opposite, then asks the world to believe its slogans and ignore its victims.
Alaa will remain in the UAE's memory as one of its daughters, and Elena will remain in Kuwait's memory as a child mourned by her family. And their names will remain the truest answer to every statement claiming that these missiles liberate anyone.
We will not forget. Slogans are forgotten; the names of victims remain.