Marching in support of Palestine, a seasoned actress of the British stage and screen said she could not remain silent about the thousands of deaths and months of carnage in the Gaza Strip.
In a silent march in London, organized by health care workers, Juliet Stevenson, known for her roles in movies such as Mona Lisa Smile and Truly, Madly, Deeply, told Anadolu: "I'm here to support the protest for over 260 health care workers who have been killed in Gaza, and now over 7,000 children and 20,000 civilians."
Stevenson decried the persecution in Gaza and said: "I have lived for 67 years, and I have witnessed many human atrocities all over the world, but I don't think I've ever witnessed anything on the scale of what we're seeing now. How many more children have to die before I am allowed to be angry, and how many more children have to die before I call for a cease-fire without being smeared as some racist?"
"I think that the silencing of the protest is insidious and dangerous because it's going to lead to so many more deaths, and Israel will not lead to any solutions in this terrifying conflict in Gaza," she said.
"I am here because I do not know what else to do with my humanity, and I can't stand watching it," said Stevenson. "I've been seeing sites I've never witnessed. Children are not only being killed but orphaned. Children are now dying of starvation, diphtheria, and typhoid without medicines, doctors, and hospitals any longer they can get. Doctors did operations on young children without anesthetic."
"None of us have ever witnessed anything like this," she said. "Of course, we have to protest as human beings. We have to protest, or else we have no humanity. My job is to portray human life and the human condition. That is what I am paid to do. What is the point of doing that if, in a situation like this, in the real world, I would stand there and not speak up? I would not be able to look at myself in the mirror if I did not."
"So. I do not know what else to do but to come here and support this extraordinary movement and to support those courageous doctors, nurses and health care workers, ambulance drivers, pharmacists who are still at their workplaces in Gaza, doing what they can in the middle of this barbaric chaos," she said.
The actress spoke about the people who are silent about the attacks in Palestine as they fear criticism.
"I think when you feel that you are being censored, you have to ask yourself, who is censoring me and why? And if you can answer that question with a clear conscience, then do not be censored. My husband is Jewish, and my beloved mother-in-law was a refugee from Hitler's Vienna. Nobody is going to call me an antisemite. It is not antisemitic to ask for a cease-fire to stop the killing of thousands of innocent civilians. It is not antisemitic to ask for the cease-fire to stop children from being bombed and killed, mutilated, starved and denied all medical resources," she said.
"It's not antisemitic to ask for people to support a movement that wants peace for all, everybody living in that part of the world. I want to see a cease-fire. I want to see every medical and humanitarian aid brought into Gaza. Stop selling arms to Israel and put your weight and your authority behind a cease-fire. Stop this brutal slaughter of innocent civilians in Gaza," she said.
