Dina Zbeidy
On the 31st of March the New York Times reported on Hesen Jabr, a nurse who was fired after using the word genocide when referencing Gaza during an award ceremony speech. A labor nurse herself, she said the following when accepting her award: ‘It pains me to see the women from my country going through unimaginable losses themselves during the current genocide in Gaza…Even though I can’t hold their hands and comfort them as they grieve their unborn children and the children they have lost during this genocide, I hope to keep making them proud as I keep representing them here at NYU.’ According to a hospital spokesperson, Jabr was warned in December not to bring up her “views on this divisive and charged issue into the workplace.” The award ceremony was attended by many of Jabr’s colleagues, “some of whom were upset after her comments. As a result, Jabr is no longer an NYU Langone employee” said the spokesperson.
From the above we can deduct a number of things. First, Jabr was probably a very good employee, as she was given an award for her work. Second, it pained her to see so many Palestinian women losing their children, born and unborn. An issue that is probably close to her heart being a labor nurse herself. Third, she used the word ‘genocide’ to refer to what is going on in Gaza, in line with hundreds of genocide scholars and international rights institutions, who either argue that a genocide is already unfolding, or follow the ICJ’s warning of a plausible genocide. Fourth, the hospital deemed her words “divisive and charged”. Her words upset “some of her colleagues” and therefore, her firing was legitimate. Because some of Jabr’s colleagues were upset, Jabr got excluded in the most literal sense, losing her job.
No comments:
Post a Comment