Howdy folks, the Senate will be considering the first ever resolution blocking arms to Israel. This is huge and historic; it would block government contracting and about $20 billion in arms and support. This is an uphill battle, PLEASE urge your senators to support S.J.Res114-115. This is maybe the most important piece of legislation relating to Palestine that we have ever gotten and we must seize this opportunity.

This doc has information on the resolutions and their process, as well as sample messages and a phone script you can use. Please, use this moment to hear witness for your neighbors.

This is a massive call to action even if you live in a blue state! You cannot simply trust that your senator will do the right thing here. They need to hear that we still care even if the election is behind us.

ok last thing. but what people fundamentally need to get through their heads is the significance of gaza fundraisers not being the same as like mutual aid when you're helping someone get groceries, because it is a genocide. there is insane deliberate scarcity and prices are unmanageable, because there is nowhere nearly enough for everyone, so only people who can pay can eat. and what positioning individual fundraisers as the only course of action does is quite simply give a tiny percentage of random people whose fundraisers take off the ability to pay those prices while thousands of others can't. and every one of those thousands of people without a fundraiser is suffering through the same inconceivably horrific reality. it is giving a few completely desperate people out of hundreds of thousands a slightly more favorable position in a horrific war economy of imposed scarcity. and what grassroots community kitchens do is try to mitigate in some small way that inconceivable hierarchy of who can pay and who can't, by stretching ingredients as far as they can last to cook meals at large scale and give them out at no cost. and obviously people are still going to send money to their friends and families because this is hell what else are we supposed to do but please just think about that before promoting endless individual fundraisers as somehow the most ethical way to help

Operation Olive Branch has a spreadsheet dedicated to mutual aid, local distro, community kitchens, etc. in Gaza.

This is a good place to start if seeking to donate to a community resilience action. Just contact the group(s) directly to make sure they are still active. Life in Gaza and Palestine is full of uncertainty.

I know you have all probably seen the esims for gaza posts circulating. Some of you have probably looked at them and thought maybe you should help out, but have weighed up the daunting process of signing up for something you're unfamiliar with vs. the gut-wrenching scale of the things people are going through on the ground right now, and you've put it off or questioned whether it will make enough of a difference vs. some other future kind of activism you could put that $6+ towards. I'm not calling you out or scolding you, it is natural to feel conflicted and ambivalent about the multiple calls for aid that you are seeing on social media.

but consider this: what would you do if you suddenly had to leave your home? how would you cope? how would you begin to plan where to go next, or figure out what to do to take care of yourself? most likely you would reach reflexively for your phone.

telecoms access is not a petty luxury in 2024. a loaded esim means the ability to call family members and find out where they are and whether they're safe, and whether they need anything you can provide for them. it means access to maps and regular updates on the situation unfolding around you. it means you can look up whether it's safe to drink rain water, or how to tie a type of knot you've never had to think about before, or how to treat an injury without medical supplies. it means the ability to tell people outside the situation what you are seeing, what you are feeling, what you are thinking. it is an absolutely crucial resource. and it starts at $6 for 7 days.

many many people have observed that internet access is changing the way the world understands genocide. internet access is life or death, and it is shaping modern history in front of you. and it starts at $6 for 7 days.

please, please visit gazaesims.com and spend 5 minutes and $6 to change the way this plays out for everyone.

If you need a discount code, please check out my tag #esim for multiple different ones from different carriers.

If you have trouble navigating the esim purchasing process, or if you want to help fund esims but don’t have quite enough money to buy one outright, you can also donate through the Crips for eSims for Gaza fundraiser, an initiative started by disabled activists to raise funds for esims.

Connecting Humanity is EXTREMELY LOW on esims right now - yesterday (September 1 2024) they posted an update saying they had ZERO ESIMS LEFT. The need for esims is greater than ever, so if you've got a few dollars to spare, please donate one!

Incentives to donate:

Donate an esim here or here. Don't know how? Check out these resources!

While we continue to donate to personal evacuation funds, I think it is crucial to keep in mind that these individuals as well as millions more in Gaza are currently actively in need of basic necessities like food, water, shelter, and medical care. Keeping this in mind, and recognising that there is no way to know when the border crossing with Egypt will reopen, I think our attention should also be on raising funds for organisations currently on the ground who will have the widest impact on the lives of Palestinians who are still enduring the genocide in Gaza.

Below are some verified donation links of organisations that are currently providing assistance for the people in Gaza directly:

Food, water, and shelter

Taawon has launched a campaign to provide support in Gaza through food parcels, shopping vouchers, fresh produce, water bottles and shelter tents.

Watermelon Relief is a project initiated and implemented by a group of activists in Gaza, who work to provide aid to displaced families in Gaza through meals, support and activities.

World Food Programme (WFP) managed to provide assistance to more than 1 million people in Gaza in May by delivering food in shelters, makeshift camps and shops.

Life for Gaza is an initiative through which the Municipality of Gaza aims to provide basic necessities for the people of Gaza such as water projects, waste collection and the reconstruction of roads.

Arab Group for the Protection of Nature (APN) is working to plant farmlands in Gaza through their "Revive Gaza Farmlands" project, through which they had already started planting vegetables, fruits and leafy greens in Gaza.

Purchasing eSIMs is one of the only remaining ways to keep Gazans connected with the outside world, to get their stories out or even enable them to call for help after Israeli strikes.

The Sameer Project is a donation based aid initiative that provides tents, cash aid, diapers and formula for displaced families in Gaza.

Care For Gaza is an organisation that works to provide essential aid such as food packages and cash to deliver to displaced families in Gaza.

Palestine Children's Relief Fund, through their "Gaza Relief and Recovery" campaign, plan to provide essential medical supplies and treatments, as well as food and clean water.

The UNRWA has an Emergency Appeal for Gaza, where donations will provide families in Gaza with lifesaving food and water, winter kits and to repair UNRWA shelters.

Mutual Aid for the People of Gaza is a fundraiser managed by Mona in Gaza, who personally purchases and distributes basic supplies including food parcels to families in Gaza.

Help Gaza Children is another grassroots effort operating on the ground in Gaza to support families with food, water and clothing.

Medical care

Palestinian Red Crescent has been on the ground in Palestine since 1968 as part of the Red Cross & Crescent movement. They have had a continuous presence on the ground in Gaza as the main source of medical care and assistance.

Medical Aid for Palestine (MAP) provides medical supplies and supports healthcare services in Gaza.

Doctors Without Borders (MSF) provide medical and humanitarian aid in Palestine and have had their teams on the ground operating from MSF-supported health facilities across Gaza.

Gaza Wound Care is a medical team in a tent in Nuseirat, providing care to children and supporting pregnant women.

Children Not Numbers is an NGO dedicated to providing medical care for the children in Gaza including delivery of medical aid and medical evacuation for children.

vetted campaigns for gaza. 🍉🇵🇸

i urge everyone who sees this to share, at the very least, if you cannot donate. please, please, please do not scroll past without reblogging. this post will be updated as/if anyone else reaches out!

update, please share this version.

another update.

July 24, Washington DC - Arrest Netanyahu for War Crimes Against Humanity!

You can donate to the Palestine Children's Relief Fund for as little as $1.00.

There is a fee you can choose to apply to cover processing.

Which if you choose to do leaves you with a total of ~$1.35 (USD) depending on the type of card you have.

PCRF has a score of 97% on Charity Navigator.

Adults and children alike are currently dying in Palestine due to starvation. (World Health Organization Link)

The Gaza Strip is one of two places in the entire world that is categorized as Phase 5 (the highest phase) on the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification scale.

So even if you think it isn't enough, remember that donating even as little as $1.35 helps! It's $1.35 they wouldn't have had otherwise. So donate if you can. 🇵🇸

Since the minimum is so low, this is a great place to put the last of a prepaid card, don't just give it back to the card company by tossing it with money still on it! Even a dollar can do good!

Ok gotta talk about it.

As a Jewish historian, I fucking hate Israel in ways most probably will never be able to comprehend. I'm going to try and explain it anyways. The central creation myth of Israel is that it is Jewish, and then consequently, that Israel is a part of Jewishness. Its easy to simply state this is false, but fully comprehending this and putting it into practice in thought and deed seems rare to me.

The evil at the heart of this violence predates the recent acceleration of genocide. Israel is a colony, and more than that, an antisemitic fraud itself. After WW2, when Israel was being founded, the Jews of Europe generally did not wave goodbye to their neighbors and head to the promised land. Many were expelled from their homes. Zionism itself, as an action, was a false choice at the time. A mere excuse to place an ally in the middle east, and an excuse to complete the expulsion and destruction of the European Jew. The Zionist Jew is more than complicit in this, they actively seek the destruction and assimilation of all other Jews.

Many fail to realize, and largely because of Israel, that Jews are not inherently white, Ashkenazi, European-descended people. Our faith and culture has an immense variety that is spread all across the globe. Jewishness, in population and volume of culture, exists more so outside of Israel than within it. Israel is for a very specific kind of Jew. The kind that lets Yiddish die, that attaches themselves to European things, that makes themselves and their practices as white as possible.

And they have the nerve, the fucking belligerent GALL, to frame themselves as the necessary saviors of our people. To the Zionist, questioning Israel is to question Jewishness itself. They bake adoration for the colonial machine into their very prayers, and push them on us even as children. To *not* oppress, to *not* kill, to *not* genocide, is to invite death. This is the core of fascistic thought, of course. "Kill them before they kill us." And they KNOW this too, they really do. The truth of that irony does not matter, because as is true for all fascists, the truth itself does not matter to them. They wanted this, they wanted this even before the British saw it in their best interest to give them the land. Any excuse to RETVRN, as the neo-nazis say of Rome, or the German Empire, or whatever the fuck stupid country they want to poorly animate the corpse of. Some select Zionists even *sided with the fucking Nazis* in agreement they should abandon Europe to colonize Palestine. (Haavara Agreement)

My people have proved time and time and time again you don't need a nation state to have an enduring culture. We have protected ourselves for thousands of years without the help of these spiteful, doom-saying maniacs. I was going to post something like this on Passover, but that would be hypocritical. The state of Israel doesn't actually have shit to do with Jewishness. שְׁמַע יִשְׂרָאֵל יְה Vi tsu derleb ikh im shoyn tsu bagrobn. [my best translation] Hear Israel (beginning of a prayer in Hebrew) I should outlive him long enough to bury him. (an old Yiddish curse)

Free Palestine. Donate what you can, they need it right now.

Palestine Charity Raffle!

Currently running a charity raffle to support Care for Gaza and Medical Aid for Palestinians, with a £1 per entry, with a maximum of 10 entries. The winner will be drawn out of hat and win a drawing! Two runners up will win a bundle of mystery prints. Winner announced 10th of June!

Link to Ko-Fi here!

Also, let me know if people would be interested in these as pay as you want/free downloadables on gumroad - with the money also being raised there.

this year while we all celebrate pride month and celebrate ourselves as well as those who came before us and paved the way for us to do so, we must also think of those in gaza, queer or not, who live every day under a brutal occupation and don’t have that same privilege. happy pride, and may we see a free palestine in this lifetime.

reminder that donating just a few $ to gofundme campaigns actually helps, you don't have to donate huge amounts if you don't have the funds, every little bit is useful. give $10, $5, even $1. it all adds up. don't scroll past because you think you can't help. help in your own capacity. donate a dollar. share and speak up.

here are a few gofundme links that still need a lot of help

If everyone who reblogs this post donates $5 (which I now know is the minimum you can donate on gofundme) to at least one of these, think about how fast we can help them all reach their respective goals

Since I made this post less than 24 hours ago we've collectively raised over $2000, and a lot of those donations were in the amount of $5-10. Keep sharing and keep donating. There is strength in numbers, and if those in power won't help we still have to do what we can. Small numbers add up. Thank you all for doing what you can. It does make a difference.

Listen Up Columbia! — Portraits from a campus in crisis Photographed by Gabriella Gregor Splaver