#Syria … and Twitter

[fancyhandsbakery]

Keep your eyes on Palestine. We know the illegal occupation launches attacks when Western media is distracted.

[miku-earth]

Traditional Syrian Miku!! Real quick colored sketch c: by AnnicaDraws

[rotzaprachim]

you can’t follow, know, recognize, react to, and mourn every mass tragedy and mass conflict and mass killing on earth, but you can avoid using language that talks about them being “not that bad” or “not so many children died” or “imagine if this happened in [somewhere This absolutely has happened]” or “nothing like this has ever happened” because it gaslights the experiences and realities of the people for whom it is real, right now

[federal-reserve-bonds-dog]

The Jewish Alliance School in Damascus was taken after 1948, seized by the Syrian government without a sale, without compensation, without apology. This wasn’t an isolated incident but part of a consistent pattern: after the exodus of Jews, Syria systematically took Jewish communal property - schools, synagogues, homes - without compensation.

The Alliance Israélite Universelle school, a place that once nurtured generations of Jewish students in the Jewish Quarter (today’s Hayy al-Amin), was handed over to UN's UNRWA to house and educate Palestinians.

No restitution, no acknowledgment, just silence. This was not a voluntary sale. The building was expropriated by the state, stripped of its history, and given to an international agency to serve other communities. The Jewish community received nothing in return, no compensation, no recognition of its loss.

By the 1990s, the Jewish community in Damascus was virtually gone, yet the building remained, its story erased. It is a reminder that the seizure of Jewish property happened all across the Arab world. It is a reminder that international organizations like

UN benefitted from this dispossession and never acknowledged it. In 1968 the Jewish Telegraph Agency reported that the school had become a headquarters and recruiting ground for the "El Fatah terrorist organization" who had recently been implicated in the attempted bombing of the crowded Zion cinema in downtown Jerusalem the previous Oct. 9

Hidden Stories of Damascene Jews A collection of the cultural memory of the last generation of Jews in Damascus

[metalobrukht]

[eretzyisrael]

[kirstythejetblackgoldfish]

Hi Kristy I just wanted to say I love your fanfiction about Bashar on Ao3. How do you write them so well?!!! Did u learn Arabic?

Hi!

Thank you so much! Lovely messages such as this really mean a lot to me! 😊🥰

I'm so pleased you enjoy them, and that there is an audience out there for the weird stuff that gets written!

Tbh I haven't been feeling as motivated to write these days, but hopefully I'll feel more motivated soon. The way the world is at the moment hasn't helped much either

If I get a big enough idea in my head, and think about it enough, and let it grow and develop, then I will want to start writing it. Lately I've also been doubting my abilities somewhat, but basically I just try to put effort into it and to enjoy doing it at the same time

No, I have not learned Arabic, I mainly use Google Translate for help with non-English words

Again, thank you so much for such a lovely message, and if you don't mind my asking, which fic is your favourite? I've noticed that the Bashar ones tend to be particularly popular 😛

[helenvaughans]

[alamwamal]

If there was one video you watch about the Syrian revolution let it be this.

[dalibansleeperagent]

[grrrlg3rmz]

People hate on social media apps like tumblr and Reddit because you actually have a choice to view what you want without propaganda micro trend late stage capitalism bullshit shoved down your throat. “you don’t get the trends you’re a sheltered virgin!” I’d rather be a “cheeto dust fat man in moms basement” than be force fed toxic beliefs like dieting and strict two political party bs because I can actually put effort into supporting Palestine, Congo, and other causes without the algorithm throwing me off.

[miku-earth]

Syrian Miku!! 🇸🇾 I've been seeing all the beautiful diverse Miku art and wanted to hop in -^^ by nanamintos

[coughwheezecough]

Ah shit here we go-Ah shit her-ah shit he-ah shit-ah shit

(not a joke let's not do this again..pls)

People & countries mentioned in the thread:

DR Congo - M23, Cobalt

Darfur, Sudan - International Criminal Court, CNN, BBC (Overview)

Tigray - Human Rights Watch (Ethnic Cleansing Report)

the Sámi people - IWGIA, Euronews

Hawai'i - IWGIA

Syria - Amnesty International

Kashmir- Amnesty Summary (PDF), Wikipedia (Jammu and Kashmir), Human Rights Watch (2022)

Iran - Human Rights Watch, Morality Police (Mahsa/Jina Amini - Al Jazeera, Wikipedia)

Uyghurs - Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP) Q&A, Wikipedia, Al Jazeera, UN Report

Tibetans - SaveTibet.org, United Nations

Yazidi people - Wikipedia, United Nations

West Papua - Free West Papua, Genocide Watch

Yemen - Human Rights Watch (Saudi border guards kill migrants), Carrd

Sri Lanka (Tamils) - Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch

Afghans in Pakistan - Al Jazeera, NPR

Ongoing Edits: more from the notes / me

Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh/Azerbaijan (Artsakh) - Global Conflict Tracker ("Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict"), Council on Foreign Relations, Human Rights Watch (Azerbaijan overview), Armenian Food Bank

Baháʼís in Iran - Bahá'í International Community, Amnesty, Wikipedia, Minority Rights Group International

Kafala System in the Middle East - Council on Foreign Relations, Migrant Rights

Rohingya - Human Rights Watch, UNHCR, Al Jazeera, UNICEF

Montagnards (Vietnam Highlands) - World Without Genocide, Montagnard Human Rights Organization (MHRO), VOA News

Ukraine - Human Rights Watch (April 2022), Support Ukraine Now (SUN), Ukraine Website, Schools & Education (HRW), Dnieper River advancement (Nov. 15, 2023 - Ap News)

Reblogs with Links / From Others

Indigenous Ppl of Canada, Cambodia, Mexico, Colombia

Libya

Armenia Reblog 1, Armenia Reblog 2

Armenia, Ukraine, Central African Republic, Indigenous Americans, Black ppl (US)

Rohingya (Myanmar)

More Hawai'i Links from @sageisnazty - Ka Lahui Hawaii, Nation of Hawai'i on Soverignty, Rejected Apology Resolution

From @rodeodeparis: Assyrian Policy Institute, Free Yezidi

From @is-this-a-cool-url: North American Manipur Tribal Association (NAMTA)

From @dougielombax & compiled by @azhdakha: Assyrians & Yazidis

West Sahara conflict

Last Updated: Dec. 15th, 2023

[hero-israel]

This is pseudoscience where it isn’t actively anti-science.

The pines planted in Israel are Aleppo pines, which are indigenous and have been recorded by observers for literally millennia.  Far from “devastating” native oaks and carobs and whatever, Israel planted tons of those varieties too.  And there can be no discussion of the well-being of Israeli forests without noting that Palestinian militants are highly proficient at arson and have practically made mountainous tire-fires their trademark.

As for the idea that the Zionists were “trying to create European-style forests” - the implication that the local environment was “normal” before they “changed” it is entirely a social construct reeking of unexamined privilege.  The Roman Empire massively deforested Israel along with the rest of the Mediterranean.  Our popular concept of the Middle East as a land of desert and scrubland is  artificial, but comes naturally to people who think the world began in like 1700.  

The Palestinian mountain gazelle is indeed endangered in Israel, and some of their populations are jeopardized by habitat and genetic fragmentation caused by the West Bank barriers.  However, the largest and most stable population of the species is found in the Golan Heights, where they roam freely without such barriers and have enjoyed a significant rebound in numbers now that they are no longer subject to hunting from Syria.  More importantly, the Palestinian mountain gazelle has already been wiped out in Egypt, and also in Syria and Jordan - perhaps some invisible Mossad agents went on safari?  The species was on the brink of extinction in Turkey, until it was quite accidentally saved when the Turkish military set up a no-man’s-land on the border with Syria in response to its civil war.    

It’s also worth noting that the first post in that Twitter thread (not screencapped onto the Tumblr post, hmm...) was Heron calling for BDS.  When Israel really is the only country in that region where forest cover is growing and where the mountain gazelles have any chance at survival, uh, why should we overthrow the government, again?  That would help the environment how, precisely?  The Kai Herons of the world would call that “greenwashing,” because they don’t actually give a shit about the environment, they just misappropriate journal-jargon to mask how ridiculous and unprincipled their accusations are.   

Last and least, the concept that “Palestinian liberation is a climate issue” is just a perfect crystallization, French waiter palm-kiss, of how lefty activists try to run in every direction at once and get nowhere.  Climate protection has failed because it requires the entire world to unfuck foundational problems in our economic, technological, and political lives - but Palestinian liberation is still a matter of a signature and a handshake, two parties looking at made-up lines on a very small map.  For white European activists to insist that Palestinians may only make progress if we first make progress on climate change just shows how they only see Palestinians as tools and symbols and not as people.  

CODA:

This is a case of me being ABSOLUTELY fucking petty enough to reconstruct and restart a post after someone blocked me and prevented reblogs of the original.

For more on the pseudoscience and anti-environmentalism of Palestine activists see lots of links here. For more on the actual environmental history and diversity of the region, see the tags.

[happyshoelaces]

it's also impressive how many of these jokes have either been just an excuse to talk about whatever media a person enjoys ("getting drafted before [playing x game/y show comes out/z team wins]"), or outright just a way to be offensive ("feminists when the war starts").

it's reasonable to be concerned about the conflict escalating and expanding to further areas, but you cannot ignore the current situation and the people currently at risk. these lives are worth more than your twitter joke.

Hold the fuck on no way WW3 jokes are trending on Twitter when this is an extremely serious situation that’s threatening to destabilize an entire region. No way everyone’s gleefully looking at this as if it’s the grand show finale they’ve been waiting all along. There is no fucking way