Wars only continue as long as people keep paying attention to them.
As long as people remain engaged and focused on these conflicts, they endure; however, their duration is inherently dependent on the collective interest and awareness of the broader global community.
It might sound harsh and inhumane, but people will forget about the Israel-Palestine conflict just like they forgot about the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
-Aryaneel Shivam (Chief editor/ founder)
The recent Israel-Palestine conflicts in the Gaza strip and the nearby neighboring areas are the talk of the international community and is a global concern. But remember, before the Israel-Palestine conflict, Russia-Ukraine conflict was the talk of the international community. The conflict is still going on, but the general and overall attention and interest of the global community has shifted drastically to this new conflict in the middle east.
It’s not like the number of casualties has lessened in Ukraine, or the situation is stabilized back to normal. Even though, many people have reported to surrendered to the IDF, but things are far from normal in the Gaza strip.
The global support and sympathy, condolences and love for the Palestinians are pouring out from the international community. (Just like it once was for Russia-Ukraine). But for how long will this attention of the global community last? How long will the interest of the people stay regarding the middle eastern conflict?
All of these questions, only conclude to one thing, and that is that “Wars only continue as long as people keep paying attention to them.”
The above statement should not be taken by its literal meaning. It simply means that the relevance of a war/conflict remains till the attention of the global community is fixed on them. Once, the gaze of the people shifts from one conflict to another, the former conflict tends to lose its weight or importance. (Even though the casualties are the same or ever increasing)
When a particular global conflict loses its relevance, news channels, media agencies and social media influencers, political activists tend to stop covering those stories gradually. We feel the conflict has ceased, that the casualties have comparatively declined, and the situations have drastically been stabilized.
It is with a heavy heart that I must accept the fact that, the Israel-Palestine conflict will be forgotten by the global community. That our ideas of their sufferings will decline and lessen.
These things show that, even though we are a part of a global international and multilateral community, regional conflicts and wars only matter when they are part of the region the State is in.
It’s always shocking when a new war breaks out. As of last week, all-out war between Israel and Hamas has apparently begun.
-Wars Always Become Forgotten Wars | by Georgie Nink | Medium
Those first 48 hours we are all glued to our screens, aghast. Pundits popped up overnight. TikTok videos abounded, and Instagram posts about Ukraine were reposted thousands of times. Those first few weeks and months, we couldn’t tear our eyes away from the carnage.
Here we are again, this week, watching the horrifying carnage unfold in Israel and Gaza after the horrifying attack by Hamas.
But wars always become forgotten wars.
-Wars Always Become Forgotten Wars | by Georgie Nink | Medium
Hawkins, who is the author of the book Stealth Conflicts: How the World’s Worst Violence Is Ignored, explains that having a conflict presented in a simplistic way is important. If it’s too complicated with too many players, people don’t engage, he says.
“A story of an ongoing, debilitating, grinding war only gets so much airtime in a Twitter universe and a social media universe. Everybody knows about the war in Syria — that’s not the problem — but they’re only willing to hear so much of it before they change the channel.”
Silent wars: Why we don’t pay attention to the world’s worst violence - National | Globalnews.ca
The global community's will to make a change only lasts as long as the interest in that topic.