When I first started writing, I made two mistakes. First: I trained myself to use ‘unbiased’ words. What I’d refer to in Arabic as an ‘entity’ would become a ‘state.’ I wanted my vocabulary void of accusations, so I replaced ‘arrogate’ with ‘confiscate,’ ‘dispossess’ with ‘evict,’ and ‘lie’ with ‘allege.’ This phenomenon is common among writers writing about Palestine, writers who worship the mythology of objectivity instead of satirizing it. There’s a naïve belief that Palestinians will acquire credibility only once they’ve amassed respectability. We do this to appear rational and unhostile. The truth, however, is very hostile.
The second mistake is what I will call ‘humanization’: I portrayed my people only in the ways that adhere to ethnocentric civility, robbing them of their agency. I made them tremble in their victimhood like sticks in the wind. They were mere vehicles for extracting empathy. It was the tendency to ‘women and children’ Palestinians to death, to infantilize Palestinians in hopes of proving that, indeed, they deserve liberation.
Ironically, one of the world’s most lethal regimes does not require humanization. The world can grieve Israeli loss without qualifiers, despite the disparities in the death toll. In contrast, we must qualify our dead with reminders of their nonviolence, humane professions, and disabilities. A Palestinian man cannot just die. For him to be mourned, he must be in a wheelchair or developmentally delayed, a medical professional, or noticeably elderly at the very least. Even then, there are questions about the validity of his victimhood.
Having lived in the United States for [some] years, I realize that much of what I try to expose is already blatant. This indifference to Palestinian death exists despite morality and ‘human rights.’ Humanization, more often than not, does the exact opposite of what it alleges. I no longer feel the responsibility to give humans eyes for humanity.
Don’t forget the West Bank. The death toll is difficult to ascertain exactly, but Doctors Without Borders reports that at least 105 Palestinians, including 31 children, have been killed there since October 7, and other counts are around that number. Settlers have been attacking villages, with more than 100 such incidents, and threatening a second Nakba, as if we aren’t already seeing one in progress. And this was a deadly year for the West Bank even before 10/7.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health released a full report with names, ages and IDs of those who were killed – maybe at least in part as a fuck you to Western media and the US president who suddenly cast doubt on the number of fatalities. Over 7000 people died. Whole families wiped out forever. It’s beyond comprehension. May their memory be eternal.
[ID: Tweet by Verso Books reading “We have collated free resources that offer a clear history of the occupation, Israel’s military industrial complex, and this latest explosion of violence in Gaza. This includes 6 free ebooks:” an image follows of two forms in silhouette holding up Palestinian flags. Text on the image, in black, red, and green, reads “Solidaity with Palestine / free sources and further reading.” The tweet is timestamped October 26 2023 10:11 am and has 51.1k views. End ID]
the misinformation about hamas is unreal even on the pro-palestine side. their current charter even lays out terms for a possible two-state solution (which the israeli government dismissed before it was even finished being written) and in three separate paragraphs they outline that they will not persecute anyone on the basis of religion, race or gender and do not have a quarrel with the jewish people, only the zionist entity of israel. but everyone keeps saying READ THEIR CHARTER! THEY WANT TO GENOCIDE JEWS! i read the whole thing? the only thing they said about jews was that they don't have a problem with jews and they even acknowledge the european antisemitism that lead to the zionist entity...
Most vital, and despite maintaining the right of Palestinians to strive for and achieve their liberation, Article 20 then asserts:
Hamas considers the establishment of a fully sovereign and independent Palestinian state, with Jerusalem as its capital along the lines of the 4th of June 1967, with the return of the refugees and the displaced to their homes from which they were expelled, to be a formula of national consensus.
Hamas thus consents to recognize an Israel along its 1967 lines, before Israel annexed territory in two successive wars and pursued further violent land grabs in Syria’s Golan. Ironically, this leaves Hamas policy closer to international law than the relentless Israeli projects of border and settlement expansion.
Also just so it’s explicitly posted here:
Hamas affirms that its conflict is with the Zionist project not with the Jews because of their religion. Hamas does not wage a struggle against the Jews because they are Jewish but wages a struggle against the Zionists who occupy Palestine. Yet, it is the Zionists who constantly identify Judaism and the Jews with their own colonial project and illegal entity. [Emphasis added]
Hamas rejects the persecution of any human being or the undermining of his or her rights on nationalist, religious or sectarian grounds.
i encourage everyone who wants to engage in BDS to read the BDS movement website and follow the official twitter. the BDS movement has put out a statement about hacking attempts and unauthorized use of their logo on posts that don’t conform to the group’s guidelines. BDS is an organized movement by palestinian civil society, there are actually guidelines to follow. don’t go reposting just anything.
What happens when Israel dismantled and falls? Like I assume the ppl living there can’t stay even if they were born on that land so does anyone have like an idea of where to ship them off to? Cause I doubt anyone in the area wants to take care of their oppressors even if they are just civilians. Idk do u think the usa would take em? That’s honestly why I haven’t been Completely 100% anti-Israel despite being Pro-Palestine bc no one has explained what to do with Israeli’s once there is no more Israel. Like stopping the military and giving back some land is cool but if all of Israel is gone would Palestinians let them stay or would they tell them to get out by force, just as Israel did? Is this a cycle or is there an end in the works?
how many times will it become patently obvious that you guys do not listen to palestinians and are influenced by hysterical zionist claims that palestinians will do unto zionists as zionists have done to them. this position is held by many palestinians
not a single thing any palestinians has said about a one-state solution where everyone is equal under a democratic law, not a single thing hamas has said, is as brutal as the reality israel currently enforces on palestinians
the reality is as long as this hysterical fear persists, the less diplomatic solutions are applied, the more people accept palestinian suffering and consider the occupation as a necessary evil, the less viable this solution will become. we are not past the point of no return, but the reality is there is no fear of persecution and no past suffering on the planet that can justify the existence of the israeli nation-state. it is doubtful that change will come from within israel specifically because the vast majority of israelis do not see palestinians as humans nor do they imagine anything better than “some land back” and “a little less mean military.” israel is a theocratic terrorist state. this is how it was established, how it functions and how it operates with impunity.
palestinians have asked for legal solutions, diplomatic solutions, humanitarian solutions, democratic solutions. and yet they’re the ones seen as monsters and human animals because they refuse to accept the violent dispossession of their land. it’s pretty straight-forward. whatever happens to israel is on israel, the united states, the eu, the uk, and every international entity that has refused to hold israel accountable for their crimes, that has refused to honor the agreement to a two-state solution, that has refused palestinian self-determination, that has refused international criminal court proceedings. palestinian liberation is a just cause.
if you continue to ask “what will happen to israel” while israel enacts a genocide of two million citizens under a siege, you do not see palestinians as human, either. because the question is not “what will happen to israel.” the question is “what is israel doing right now and how can we stop it by any means necessary”
they deliberately targeted the family of al jazeera’s gaza bureau chief. he reported on the airstrike that killed his family without realizing they had been killed, and then found out they were dead live on air.
wael el dahdouh, like shireen abu akleh, is a voice and face familiar to many who have watched reports coming out of gaza. it has already been harrowing watching him report for eighteen days straight in the most dire circumstances, but now its like seeing a beloved uncle or father overcome by grief live on air. we keep saying “there are no words” because really how else do you describe a horror of this magnitude?
I feel like I’m going insane we all know the reaction to 9/11 twenty years ago was a quick descent into fascism and everyone is doing it again border patrol is lying about Hamas and Hezbollah are crossing the southern border Muslims are being attacked in public just for existing people are being fired and blacklisted for any criticism of the state we’ve learned nothing we’ve learned absolutely nothing time is a flat fucking circle
