Shitposts & Fangirling. What Else Could You Want?

[video description: Muna El Kurd talking to the camera. Transcript reads below:

But still, all the people who are watching us and can't get to Jerusalem and specifically the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, don't feel you're helpless, that you're not doing something important, it's the opposite, believe me, you guys are changing history! You're influencing change, you guys raised our voices and videos for the world to hear and see. Please don't understimate any post, any tweet or anything that we're sharing or doing on social media. This is social media and our movement through social media has changed the world. It brought masses of people from around the world together to be in solidarity with the Palestinian cause, the Jerusalem cause, the Gaza cause, and the cause of Sheikh Jarrah. So don't understimate, on the contrary, we are being repressed through various ways - water, stun grenades, rubber and live bullets. For example, more than once live bullets have been fired in the neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah by the settlers because the settlers have the occupation forces who exist to protect them and take orders from them for everything. We are not only being repressed through various ways on the ground but also on social media. So you guys are fighting just like us / end id]

Pro Palestine movements have been massively censored through all social media. Instagram has deleted posts and shadow banned stories from people in Sheikh Jarrah. IOF soldiers said they would arrest any non-journalists filming the scenes in Sheikh Jarrah and followed through, while also arresting and brutalizing palestinian journalists. Facebook is flagging pro Palestine posts as terrorism.

They're very scared of people seeing what's going on in Palestine because their lie depends on ignorance. Don't look away and show support. Take two minutes to tweet in support of Sheikh Jarrah or share an IG post about the situation in Palestine. The hearing on the ethnic cleasing of Sheikh Jarrah is going to be scheduled soon after the attorney general said there was no need for him to intervene, framing the conflict as a real estate dispute instead of an international law matter, be angry

just an fyi

israel has targeted communications and internet networks in gaza which effectively cuts off palestinians from the rest of the world

a significant drop in content across social media coming out of gaza in these last few days doesn’t mean the violence has stopped or that it’s over, it just means more voices are being silenced. it’s an active campaign by the israeli government to turn the world’s attention away. don’t let it fool you.

we say this after every ceasefire but even if active bombing has stopped, palestinians still face israeli violence on a daily basis. in gaza alone, and as a result of the recent violence, the water supply is now facing 40% shortage, roads leading to hospitals are destroyed, at least 70,000 people have been displaced, 12 families have been completely wiped out, and close to 2000 injured, many of whom will not be able to go abroad to receive crucial treatments as the 14-year siege on gaza continues.

and as always, israel is going to enjoy total impunity on all of these crimes which allows it to continue with the siege on gaza, home demolitions, land/resource theft, detention of children, terrorizing worshippers and so on.

the momentum that was built, especially on social media, has got to continue. it has become quite clear that the movement has done so much specifically in terms of shedding light on the magnitude of israel’s crimes and the absurdity of the justifications that we have been battling for ages.

yes, i cried literal tears seeing people in gaza celebrate the ceasefire but this is a reminder to all that a ceasefire is the bare minimum as different forms of violence enacted by israel never ceased. the fight for human rights has got to continue. keep talking about sheikh jarrah, the occupation, the apartheid, the siege; keep palestine present so that israel is held accountable for its crimes.

From the fundraising webpage:

This fundraiser is to help our dear friend Mohammed Abu Matar to rebuild Tashkeel3D; a key manufacturer of 3D-printed medical equipment in Gaza that was destroyed by Israeli Occupation Forces during this week’s attack on Gaza. Tashkeel3D is where Gaza’s first 3D printer was built, where medical devices have been manufactured for years and led the opensource culture was in Gaza. Tashkeel3D is the original Gaza affiliate of the Canada-based Glia Project, an organization founded by ER doctor Tarek Loubani which works with regional partners to develop and produce low-cost and open-source 3D-printed medical equipment. Among other tools, Tashkeel3D has developed 3D-printed tourniquets: compression devices used to limit bleeding. They were threatened with bombing previously by the Israeli Occupation Forces. While no specific reason was given, they were producing tourniquets to support Gaza’s medical system at the time, which was likely what brought them to attention.

The destruction severely hampers efforts to produce 3D printed tourniquets. Tashkeel3D’s offices effectively represent half of Gaza’s 3D printing capacity. All proceeds will go to Mohammed to help him rebuild Tashkeel3D. We ask that you please donate any amount that you possibly can and that you share this link with your network.

(campaign verified with Mohammed Abu Matar)

We should stand together in this, support, donate, be in solidarity with each other.

Debunk BDS

Hmmm do you think, perhaps, that this is because an active part of Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Palestine involved the pillaging and destruction of Palestinian libraries?

That Israel destroyed tens of thousands of books on Palestinian history and culture because they posed a “security threat” to the state, all so fucking idiots like you can go and make claims like this?

How Israel stole over 70,000 Palestinian books and “recycled” them to be used in paper mills in a concentrated effort to erase Palestinian culture and history?

Or how the few books that did survive are being kept in the Israel National Library, off-limits to Palestinians and historians?

These books include historical texts, personal diaries from hundreds and hundreds of Palestinians living in Palestine pre-1948, paintings and other works of art, and cultural texts documenting life in Palestine pre-1948 and reaching centuries back.

Israel and the armies of the Zionist terrorists in 1948 made a very deliberate effort to destroy every aspect of Palestinian culture and history in its effort to wipe us out, and allow future scum like the op to go and make such claims, as if that in some way invalidates the Palestinian struggle.

What’s funny is that you won’t find any history books that detail Israeli culture or history prior to the 1940′s because *gasp*, there was no Israel!

These scum are so transparent, they’re pathetic

theirs catgirl soldier propaganda accounts on tiktok now

Debunking misinformation around Palestine.

Please spread this truth!

some beginner resources on learning about the israel occupation & supporting palestine

i hope these are helpful ! i tried to list the most comprehensive and introductory resources for people who learn things better visually or by auditory respectively, or need both (like me)

please take the time to go through these resources and/or spread them to help with the palestinian struggle against media erasure and modern day colonialism

ceasefire will take place in a couple of hours I think but just so we're clear: ceasefire is less than the bare fucking minimum. the bottle line is no peace until Palestine is free. and people in Gaza are reporting intensified airstrikes so don't be fooled into thinking israhell has a conscience. as a political entity no settler colonial project, no apartheid state, no genocidal government has one. they said verbatim that they wouldn't stop until 'Gaza was quite' so let's keep shouting alongside them and all Palestinians in their struggle.

Drop whatever you are doing and watch Oriented (2015) on Netflix. Possibly the most un-pinkwashed piece about queer Palestinian youth I have ever seen. 

[ID: Several images of a young Palestinian man speaking to a room of people. He says, “I’ll start with a story that happened recently. A few months ago I receivec a call from a BBC journalist. He said, ‘We want your story. We’re sure you’ve suffered…’ So I said to him, ‘Wait a second… I think you’re speaking to the wrong guy. My parents know about me, and have accepted me, and entirely love and support me. So, I’m not what you’re looking for.’ So then he said: ‘Oh. Perhaps you can find us another Palestinian who did suffer?’ And that really irritated me, because it feels that Israel and the West have monopolized the concept of liberalism and being out of the closet. For the first part of this lecture I want to introduce a new Palestinian generation that you haven’t yet had a chance to meet.” End ID.]

From the Wikipedia article on pinkwashing:

I am still sorry if putting this in blm and stop asian hate offends anyone, but as you know by now, social media platforms are preventing Palestine from trending. And you deserve to know the truth. And Palestinian deserve to be heard

racists getting mad in the notes on this cute video I posted now lmao. the reason I posted it to begin with is because I was seeing too many posts about Palestine where people were talking about Palestinians as if they are a political problem to be solved and not human beings.

uk folks, there are active government petitions to introduce sanctions against israel and formally recognise the state of palestine

with enough support and coverage, this could really make a difference, so please sign and share if you’re a uk resident!

today, may 15th 2021, marks 73rd year since al nakba, or “the catastrophe”, the 1948 forced expulsion of 750,000 palestinians from their homes in order to establish the state of israel. the nakba is ongoing and has not ended. at the moment, israel is committing massacres, war crimes and an active genocide of palestinians.

30+ families are facing forced displacement by israeli forces in the neighborhood of sheikh jarrah in east jerusalem. their houses are to be taken over by colonial settler organizations. [x]

gaza is being bombed actively in illegal attacks and that has been going on for six days. the number of victims is as of right now, evening of may 15th, 145 martyrs, including 40 children. israel dropped phosphorous bombs on unarmed palestinian civilians. white phosphorous is specifically internationally prohibited to use on civilians because it can melt skin and penetrate to your bones. white phosphorus burns are slow, agonizing, can cause organ failure. if you don’t die, you’ll live with holes in your skin for the rest of your life. this is a literal war crime.

pogroms are going on. israeli settlers and israeli police are going door-to-door in palestinian homes, breaking in, beating, kidnapping, burning, shooting every palestinian in sight. they are marking palestinian houses to attack at night.

words are not enough to convey the horror of what’s going on. IDF soldiers detaining sedated palestinian children are joking about selling them. israel bombed an orphanage. a palestinian father found out about his four children being killed by an israeli missile in gaza. a baby was the only survivor of an attack on his family’s house. a guy reporting casualties in a hospital in gaza ended up finding the dead bodies of two of his siblings. and more. watch these videos. see the atrocities palestinians endure with your own eyes.

palestinians have specifically asked for social media activism and coverage. israel cares deeply for their international image: they pay students to defend them online, an israeli airstrike destroyed the al jazeera office in gaza which also houses the AP and other media outlets. consistency in your online activism is essential. sharing videos and posts and photos posted by people in palestine of everything that is happening is essential. israel wants a media blackout. posts about sheikh jarrah are being censored, people have been losing internet in protest sites in the West Bank, there is a threat to israeli bombardment to the main transmission tower for internet services in gaza. by being constantly and consistently vocal, you are aiding more than you think.

the situation is not “complicated”. there is no “two sides” to take into account or whatever bs zionists are trying to feed you. on one side there are colonizers, settlers, protected by an iron dome and bomb shelters that look like hotel rooms, and on another a dispossessed people who are being pulled out from under the rubble because they do not have anywhere to hide from the bombs that are raining down on them. on one side you have people going to the beach and to brunch while crying to the media about the inconvenience they have to endure, and on another you have people who are defenseless, have nowhere to run, don’t have a roof over their head, who are going through a clean water shortage are being bombed a few feet away from those same settlers. israel has killed more people in gaza the past 24 hours than hamas rockets have killed in the past 20 years.

while boosting palestinian voices and sharing every kind of content you see capturing what is happening in palestine specifically from palestinians, please take this time to learn more about palestine, and more on how to help:

as someone who’s been involved in all kinds of pro-palestinian, anti-zionist activism for as long as i can remember, i don’t want to be too hopeful, but it feels different now. all israeli propaganda is collapsing. their narrative is not sticking anymore. people are becoming aware of its genocidal reality. please use your social capital and voice and keep doing so consistently.

i saw a lot of (white) people on twitter talking about the innocent women and children in palestine and... i get it you hate men but read the room maybe? "i'm a misandrist" cool cool but... this is genocide.

absolutely nothing wrong with highlighting the vulnerable but there's nuance you are missing. arab men are constantly stereotyped as terrorists. maybe include them in your activism.

Aaaand sign off. Mainstream Western media, Ladies and Gentlemen. Believe it or not, this reporter was actually somewhat professional by the typical standards we see from channels like CNN. I’ve seen much worse.

Watch the full interview here: https://www.instagram.com/p/COuuzG1l_yj/ 

Kurd’s comment on the interview: “I knew this interview was going to have a biased, inaccurate framing, and it did from the start. But I made sure I course corrected. I’m happy that you cannot edit a live interview, because there’s no way I could have spoken so bluntly about the myth of “both sides” and Israeli “self-defense” had this been prerecorded. Thanks CNN for taking my testimony about settler-colonialism.“

—

Here are some backups (sadly in bits only), since some social media - like Instagram, conveniently deletes some posts about what’s happening in Palestine.

—

The man name is Muhammad el Kurd, he’s one of the residents in Sheikh Jarrah who are facing ethnic cleansing right now, he has just been arrested from his own home by Israeli forces after his interview went viral.

The only reason this interview went viral, is because it’s the first time a major American network like CNN had interviewed an actual Palestinian that’s directly affected by the violence, when all the other networks were busy interviewing Israeli ambassadors about their side of the story. 

Thanks to the fact that this was a live interview, Muhammad managed, without being cut off or having his word edited out, to list all of Israel’s war crimes and straight out called it what it is “settler-colonialism” as well as calling out the US’s historic bias toward Israel.

Muhammad el Kurd, as well as many other Palestinian activists, are regularly arrested and detained by the only democracy in the Middle East (Israel) if them speaking out against the crimes/abuse they face gets too much attention.

If you live in a place with free speech then use it and speak up, because Palestinians living under the Zionist occupation don’t have that luxury.