#deconstructing israeli propaganda

[tikkunolamresistance]

BREAKING

ISRAEL HAVE ADMITTED THAT THEIR INTENTIONS WERE ALWAYS ETHNIC CLEANSING!

IN A DOCUMENT LEAKED FROM THE ISRAELI MINISTRY OF INTELLIGENCE, THE GOVERNMENT OUTLINES THEIR INTENTIONS TO BOMB GAZA AND FORCE PALESTINIANS OUT OF THE GAZA STRIP AND INTO SINAI, NORTH EASTERN EGYPT!

THEY FURTHER DETAIL THAT THEY INTEND TO WEAPINISE RELIGIOUS FEARMONGERING AGAINST PALESTINIANS.

You can read the FULL leaked document here, in Hebrew. We also have saved a PDF archive to our Google drive (Linked in our pinned post)

[bonesashesglass]

Palestine mentioned in The Castle of Otranto, by Horace Walpole, 1764.

Israel can pretend all they want, Palestine has always existed. It’s in the fabric of our literature, our history.

[onesettleronebullet]

You look at any page on israel-palestine and the sources are literally just Israeli propaganda. I was looking at the page for the Nakba and the source for the Palestinian narrative of the Nakba is an article written by an Israeli author called "Deconstructing the Three Stages of the Nakba Myth".

The Palestinian narrative is represented through an Israeli source denying the Nakba. Least biased wikipedia article!

[screamingfromuz]

Living on stolen land is violence inherent. If you’re so sad about the state you’re protected by inflicting violence on the Palestinians, then maybe you should think about how you get to live there in the first place. If the violence of the Israeli state didn’t exist, then you wouldn’t have peace the way you know it. Move. Leave. If you don’t want to be passively participating in apartheid

sweetheart, I understand you bough to to propaganda, that results from white colonizers projecting their guilt on Jews. I know how I got to live here, some my relative immigrated here back in the 18's century or fled here due to genocide through the centuries. funny enough, one of my ancestors fled to region after he was told to "go back to were you came from you dirty Jew".

I am aware of the violence from both sides, and never justified it, this is a shit show and telling people to before refugees (again) or die a "justified" death is a horrible horrible mindset darling. I will keep doing as I do, and if you don't see that here, it is because I mostly act in the real world, where stuff happen.

I know the history of this conflict, probably better then you due to the facts that 1) I live here and experience this conflict in all it's complexities daily 2) this is stuff I literally learned about during my BA in political science. I have a degree.

I understand if you made your mind and you will refuse to deconstruct your believes and examine them, it is not my job to do that thing for you, only you can make yourself go through that process. I will ask that you will take this passion and donate to Magen David Adom and the Palestinian Red Crescent who are working to rescue and treat civilians.

https://afmda.org/donate/

https://www.palestinercs.org/en/Donation

[hero-israel]

Here's the thing about this narrative that Palestinian resistance no matter what form is acceptable. Jewkilling cannot exist in a bubble. It cannot be politically neutral. 1000 years of European (and Arab) antisemitism culminating in genocide have ruined that. Sorry to Palestinian activists but that's just how it works. You can't murder a Jew without it being a tragedy, without it contributing to the continued global oppression of Jewish people.

And all that said, that's just if Hamas and others only targeted soldiers and police (or at least tried as best they could). The IRA didn't go out of its way to purposefully target noncombatants. Why? Probably because there isn't thousands of years of history of English people being seen as subhuman, there isn't thousands of years of anglophobic propaganda showing English people as twisted monsters preying on children and secretly undermining Irish society. The Irish national movement was not born because English refugees returned to their historical homeland and challenged the notion of Irish Supremacy. It was a pragmatic liberation movement. Resist military occupation, undermine military infrastructure designed to oppress the people. The descendants of English and Scottish settlers would even be allowed to stay if they had won. Imagine that.

These things are all tied up in each other. I'm against police brutality, I'm against the escalation and the militarization and the mistreatment of Arabs in Israel and in Judea & Samaria and Gaza and Golan and everywhere. But killing Jews can never be righteous. Sorry to anyone who feels that way but it can't. Antizionists NEED to understand that. Jews will always feel defensive and ready themselves for retaliation because of history, because of that context. Jews keep saying "prove to us a post zionist society where we all share the land won't be antisemitic" and their concerns are completely brushed off.

There's no empathy at all. A little girl can be stabbed to death and antizionists celebrate because she was a "settler," and that brave Palestinian man was defending his indigenous homeland, by targeting the weakest of his enemies. And since Israel has mandatory military service the antizionist can surmise that no Jews are Innocent. An Israeli Jew cannot be a noncombatant. They have to, otherwise the only other explanation for why Jewkilling is acceptable to them, or even feels good to them, is that they hate Jews. And as of right now, the optics are still against that. I have a sinking feeling the optics won't be against them much longer. I inherently don't trust a "liberation" movement that's all too eager to make murdering Jewish civilians praxis. I'm sick of the internet falling for this bullshit.

One of the best asks I have ever received. Thank you for sharing it and I agree with every word.

The entire progressive intersectional social-justice frame has failed Jews (or, alternately, has succeeded in excluding them), due to being intellectually colonized by a clearly fascist ideology of incessantly hating the Jew as a poisonous alien. Try to get an online activist to critically deconstruct the social assumptions they were raised with about Jews in their Muslim, Christian, or very slightly post-Christian society... it won't go well. Funny how Jews have lived in India and China for thousands of years yet you will look in vain for examples of bitter bloodthirsty kill-your-nextdoor-neighbor antisemitism in those societies. That's because the origin, the core, of Chinese and Indian societies was not "We're the people who are better than Jews."

From a review of Richard Landes' new book "Can the Whole World Be Wrong?":

[During the Second Intifada] Israelis were described at the time as the new Nazis. But the malice that was unleashed was even worse. As Landes writes, “It was mostly about being freed from a sense of obligation to the Jews, a chance to take up again the Jew-baiting so long denied Europeans by a politically correct post-Holocaust sobriety.” Landes quotes a poisonous comment made by a member of the House of Lords and reported in the Spectator, “Well, the Jews have been asking for it, and now, thank God, we can say what we think at last.” During that time, I was told something horrifyingly similar to my [=the reviewer's] face.

Your example of Irish nationalists not going out of their way to murder British children is a good one. The oft-reached comparisons between Palestine and South Africa are frivolous for many reasons as I have explained here before, and the ANC advocating and normalizing a vision of enduring racial diversity and equality is high on the list of reasons (made possible because black African identity is not predicated on a thousand-year history of hating and oppressing whites). The case of Rhodesia is even more instructive. Robert Mugabe - ROBERT MUGABE! - pleaded with the whites to stay, to live as equals, as brothers, and work together in building a better society in Zimbabwe. Ian Smith, last white PM of Rhodesia, agreed with him and stayed in Zimbabwe. If a so-called "liberation" movement is more openly dedicated to straight-up exterminating their enemies than Robert Mugabe ever was, maybe, just maybe, it shouldn't be described as "liberation" at all.

[dailyanarchistposts]

The Path Forward

The human rights discourse that has hijacked the political left in recent decades has drawn us away from a framework of liberation and effective action. It is now clear that we must track back from liberal thinking in order to reestablish strategies that disarm and deconstruct power. The moral complicity with Israel’s crimes that is represented by the ICJ’s refusal to order an immediate cease fire forces us to do this. It offers a convincing argument that we all need to break with the current failed system.

On the other hand, reality will not wait for us to figure things out. We cannot simply take our time and wait to take action until we have developed and popularized new narratives and conceptual frameworks. We have to use whatever means are available to us to act right now.

Does the ICJ offer us any tools we can use? the ICJ is considered the highest instance of international law. Although it has no independent enforcement mechanisms aside from the United Nations Security Council, its rulings and case law are considered the bedrock of international law jurisprudence, and they are often incorporated into the rulings of national courts on these matters. Despite having ordered very few measures against Israel or the ongoing genocide being carried out, the court did determine that there is considerable cause to believe that genocide is taking place.

Because the court did not take any real measures against Israel, it should be evident that the responsibility to act falls upon us and our movements. Fortunately, the ruling might also give us some tools to use in the here and now while we are developing new frameworks of liberation. One such example is a recent lawsuit at a California federal court aimed at ordering the US administration to halt military support to Israel. The case was dismissed on the grounds that US foreign policy is outside the court’s jurisdiction, but it did determine that Israel is plausibly committing genocide in Gaza on the basis of the ICJ ruling.

The legal case that governments must refrain from complicity in genocide is not unsubstantiated in US law, as well as in many other countries. A Dutch court recently ordered the government of the Netherlands to halt the delivery of parts for F-35 fighter jets that Israel is using to bombard the Gaza Strip. It might be plausible now to force more governments to impose arms embargos, sanctions, or other measures through national courts.

However, such strategies still reduce us to relying on so-called experts; they will not help us build movements. The genocide will not be stopped from within Israeli society. Pressure to do so must come from outside. It is now time for direct action and bottom-up efforts, like community-driven boycotts on Israeli goods, vendors who trade in them, Israeli cultural and propaganda exports, and anything else that feeds into the global boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement. The blockading of the port of Tacoma or the actions of dock workers around the world who refuse to load Israeli ships and cargo and transport arms to Israel are examples of how we might be able to move forward, building towards a proactive grassroots movement.

We must do everything within our power to stop the genocide that is taking place now, but it is important that we approach doing so as a step towards promoting Palestinian liberation and the dismantling of Israeli settler-colonialism. The portrayal of Palestinians as little more than victims at the mercy of Israeli repression is sometimes well intentioned, but it erases their personhood and agency. While we strive to bring Israel’s war machine to a halt, we must articulate that this is part of the struggle to end Israeli colonialism, and center Palestinians as the protagonists of that story.

[party-gilmore]

[not even through first page of dash on allotted brief lunch time tumblr break]

[absolutely fantastic post about Palestine and Palestinians persevering and living and don’t let your western media propaganda bias dehumanise them to you based on stereotypes about their people during this ongoing genocide perpetuated by the state of israel]

awesome awesome hell yeah cool yes reblo-

“so anyway yeah Death To Israel”

…it would’ve been so fucking easy.

to not immediately miss the entire subtext of your own damn post.

“Dissolve.” “Dismantle.” “Deconstruct.” “Topple.” “Overthrow.” or i don’t know, just fucking…

one of so many other words that explicitly and specifically describe a process of removing the authority and sovereign status of a nation/state and its radical, war criminal government and occupying military forces.

but no instead let’s go with Death just fucking kill them all wipe them out the same way they’re doing to Palestine because as we all know of course there’s no “citizens” in israel actively fighting and protesting and campaigning and being targeted by their own radical government for it. they’re all just exactly the same as the stereotype all the media making it out of israel shows - toxic, racist, inhuman, bullshit viral video/tiktok stars, who are all cheering and making jokes about it, and if you try to humanize israelis right now what are you a fucking zionist how DARE you not support Palestine?

and then these same folks will turn around and say “okay y’all STOP freaking out about retaliatory violence, NO ONE is saying freeing Palestine means theyre are gonna turn around and try to wipe israeli’s* out the same way, that’s making a LOT of incredibly harmful assumptions about them based on barbaric and fearmongering stereotypes ”

…in the same fucking breath they just said “death to israel.”

8 whole minutes in and that’s ALREADY enough social media for the day 🫥

[chaiaurchaandni]

These past two months have filled me with nothing but tears. I was looking for a post I reblogged from you two years ago about the “warnings” Israel sends Palestinians before bombing their homes and cried reading it aloud again. May Palestinians one day be free and may their oppressor’s grey heads go down to the grave in blood.

ohmygod i know exactly the post youre talking about anon! i went back and looked at it also in the first week of israeli bombing this october bec zionists online kept bringing up those 'warnings,' as they always do, to justify bombing civilians. it's insane that this is seen as a mercy.

honestly, i've never felt so deeply heartbroken. i dont feel like watching a new show or reading my silly little poems or listening to taylor swift anymore. every waking moment of mine is consumed with the desperate need to do something - anything at all - for palestine. to spread awareness, and encourage people to donate, and deconstruct israeli propaganda bec this is all i can do now. i dont want to fall into despair and im doing my best to cultivate revolutionary optimism and hope!! i've cried and had nightmares and messed up my quizzes bec i cannot stop thinking about everything that's happening in palestine but!!! every single time, i have picked myself up and reminded myself that this is also a battle of perseverance, and we cannot afford to exhaust ourselves to the point that we cannot look after ourselves and therefore, cannot contribute to the cause.

my heart goes out to you anon and i hope you know that we are all united in our solidarity, in our collective pain and also in our collective struggle!! and youre aways welcome to reach out if it gets overwhelming and if you just need someone to talk to <3

(just a side note: i have personally been able to cope better with the despair ever since i started following more palestinian resistance-centric sources, e.g. the telegram channel, resistance news network + accounts like mellow.falahi on IG or revolutionaryem on X/TWT just to mention a few. these sources report on the activities of resistance forces + translate messages from different resistance factions + share news ab israeli aggressions all over occupied palestine, while also speaking about the long history of palestinian resistance/sharing speeches from iconic palestinian revolutionaries/sharing revolutionary artwork, etc. i think it's rlly imp to remember that palestinian resistance has existed ever since zionism landed in palestine (even before 1948) and that this is just one of many battles fought by the resistance. every single time, the palestinian people have survived and the palestinian resistance has survived. this time will be no different inshallah.)

[nyctictea]

Hey the post about Spotify is misinformation. They always release it on the Wednesday after US-American thanksgiving, which is why the date itself varies by a few days. There are a lot of brands colluding with the Israeli govt, and investigating BDS is a great way to find out who to boycott. Spotify has plenty of other issues that would justify not wanting to support them, like fair pay for artists. Unfortunately this particular instance is “Jews control the media” style propaganda and not substantiated by anything. It’s a good time to be vigilant because hidden among the real and horrific news I’m seeing, I’m also seeing people uncritically spread blood libel and dual loyalty propaganda, which doesn’t help Palestinians and gets innocent people hurt.

Thank you for informing and catching me on that! I think I saw some similar deconstruction after the fact and honestly forgot about the post, but as of now I've un-reblogged it. Even if it doesn't undo any of the spread that may have come from it, the least I can do is cut off its avenue. It's a good reminder to not get lax with our judgement and keep an eye out for these things, so it's important to remain critical of the things we intend to share.

[tikkunolamresistance]

“From the River to the Sea” is a revolutionary phrase used by Palestinians and the Palestinian Liberation movement around the world to call for the liberation of the historic Land of Palestine— from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. The phrase itself directly refers to those very geographical boundaries of Palestine, occupied by the colonial settler State of Israel since 1948, that have presented in maps in all of recorded history. Unfortunately, these revolutionary words are often conflated by Zionists as being an “anti-Semitic” slogan in attempt to further destabilise and discredit the Palestinian Liberation movement— but the phrase itself is purely an act of recognising the physically stolen land, and calling for the expulsion of apartheid, occupying government. It is not a call for the “removal” of Jews, it is a call for the removal of Facist regime.

[ID: Three people on a boat at sea, hoisting the Palestinian flag. Text overlaid reads, "from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free". End ID]

[gender-isafuck]

about your propal post: you’ve got the wrong idea. we’re not saying all of you should be exiled. what we’re calling for is a land back movement. that land belongs to the palestinians. sure it’s israelis’ home too now, but that’s because israelis forcefully stole it from palestinians. palestinians were welcoming of israelis when they first began moving there. but then israelis took control of the entire country and began oppressing them. imagine someone burst into your house, and you welcomed them. only for them to then take control over the whole house, confine you into one room, and bully you relentlessly. *that’s* what the israelis did (not talking about you specifically, talking ab the government).

and ever since then palestinians have been murdered and tortured and violently oppressed by the idf. sure hamas did bad things, but first of all the israelis government propped up hamas to begin with. look it up, there used to be a democratic palestinian resistance movement, but the idf gave money and resources to hamas. *that’s* how they gained the power they have now. and another thing, you don’t criticize the table manners of a starving person. the palestinians are fighting for liberation. they have been oppressed in unimaginable ways. not saying it’s right for them to kill people, but they’ve been peacefully protesting for 75 years, and the only response they’ve gotten from that is to be shot at and oppressed even more intensely. i encourage you to research the history of palestine, because i cannot fully emphasize how horrific it is. while i appreciate that you feel like you’re living in fear because hamas is trying to resist in any way they can, you just must imagine what palestinians feel. *they’re* the ones who’re having record-breaking amounts of bombs dropped on them daily. the idf has cut off their food, water, and electricity. the idf has committed literally uncountable war crimes against the palestinians. white phosphorous bombs, cutting off resources, purposefully seeking out media reporters to kill, etc etc etc. i could go on forever. it’s not difficult to see which side is in the wrong here.

and us propals are not calling for israelis to be exiled or extinguished, we just want the authority over the land to be given back to palestinians. in the beginning of all this, they were welcoming of israelis. they just wanted to coexist. not everyone has a colonial view about things. the fact that you’re scared that if palestinians got authority over their land again that they’d do to you what *you’ve been doing to them* is very telling. (again not talking ab you specifically, but your government). just bc palestinians would be in control of their land, that doesn’t mean that their immediate reaction would be to oppress israelis in retaliation. palestinians just want their homes back. that *your government* barged into and stole, btw. palestinians have always wanted to coexist, but your government never gave them that option. instead— after palestinians *welcomed them* into their homes— the israeli government put them through a truly incomprehensible amount of oppression and apartheid in return.

anyway. i encourage you to think about this and begin researching the history of the stolen land you live on. i’m an american, so i’m in the same position as you. that’s why i also support american land back movements for the indigenous peoples of america. i’ve deconstructed my colonial views that were forced on to me from childhood by propaganda. i’ve researched the history of the stolen land *i* live on. what i’m trying to say here is, i’m in the same position as you. i’m not someone who couldn’t understand your feelings about this. i get it, but you simply must appreciate how palestinians must feel. i really hope you’re also able to deconstruct your colonial beliefs and come around to supporting the liberation of the palestinian people.

this ask is not meant to be derogatory or anything like that, i just simply want you to think about all this. i want this discussion to be productive. i really hope this makes you reconsider things.

i would also like to have further discussion with you about this, because i want to understand your position more. and i want to try and show you how you may be mistaken in your beliefs. you may not know the real history (which would make sense considering your opinions) but if not and you *do* know the real history, that’s just completely baffling to me.

anyway i hope that this helped to put things into perspective and that you’ll reconsider your beliefs

hey im only answering this cuz you seem genuinely nice and just like. super misinformed. there was never widespread peace between palestinian jews and palestinian arabs pre 1948. there is a massively long list of massacres committed by arabs aganst jews for literally the last 100 or so years before 48. the only open arms we were accepted with were guns.

i know the history of the country i grew up in. it is not a direct mirror of the usa and im quite frankly tired of americans using us to assuage their own white guilt. the colonizers in this part of the world are arabs, not the "white people" (who aren't actually white)

i have no interest in educating people, so please find an account that actually will. rootsmetals on instagram has very in depth, well worded, and well researched posts with primary sources easy to find

[palipunk]

I’ve been getting a lot of asks and tags about how to support Palestine and Palestinians during this so here's ways allies can support us (other Palestinians are welcome to add on): 

Spread Awareness: 

Taking a moment out of your day to spread awareness of the oppression Palestinians face is crucial to supporting our cause. You don’t need to be an expert on Israeli settler colonialism to speak out. Israel relies on media ignorance to enact most of it’s bombings and settler violence against Palestinians, silence equals Israeli violence - reblogging, retweeting and posting in Palestine hashtags (#freePalestine, #savesilwan, #savenaqab, #savesheikhjarrah etc) helps, please do not underestimate how much just interacting with our posts and sharing information helps us. 

Support BDS: 

BDS is a Palestinian-led movement to apply global pressure to Israel to comply with international law, part of the reason Israel maintains a regime of settler colonialism, apartheid, and military occupation over Palestinians is because of international support - so BDS calls for non violent boycotts, divestment, and sanctions on corporations and brands that are complicit with Israel’s oppression - this includes brands such as AXA, HP, Puma, Sodastream, Ahava cosmetics, Sabra, and Pillsbury. If you want to know more about BDS and other ways to support please check out their website here: x

Donate (if you can): 

Al-Shabaka 

Electronic Intifada 

Adalah Justice Project

IMEU 

Medical Aid for Palestinians 

Palestine Children’s Relief Fund

Addameer 

Muslim Aid 

Palestine Red Crescent 

Decolonize Palestine: 

Decolonize Palestine is an excellent resource for anyone wishing to know more about Palestine, Palestinians, myths and deconstructing over 70 years of Israeli propaganda. It goes into detail of Israeli propaganda methods including pinkwashing, bluewashing, greenwashing etc and includes reading sources and frequently asked questions about Palestine from Palestinian voices, please check it out if you haven’t: x

[palestinianliberator]

To be Palestinian is exhausting

You will not find a single Palestinian who hasn’t had to endure all of the following and more:

Constantly having to prove our existence

[This is going to be a tremendously long post, but I implore you to read through what you can]

Constantly having to educate everyone around us on our history and people while we continue to be slaughtered

Constantly having to combat Israeli propaganda and dehumanization campaigns against us

Constantly having to combat liberal propaganda from those who simply cannot understand the pain and damage they are doing

Constantly having to defend ourselves from the overwhelming forces that stand in our way, from the Israeli forces to the global institutions that help support it to the structures in the US that mean that any Palestinian who dares speak out risk both their lives and livelihood

Constantly in fear of whether or not you’ll end up on another “list” as a result of daring to speak out

Constantly having to do it all again as soon as we’re back on the news

Constantly having to answer for all other Palestinians in a way that nobody else is expected to

Constantly being seen as the “crazy one” when trying to share your narrative, having to defend against an endless barrage of accusations of antisemitism

Constantly being put into situations by bad-faith actors who attempt to engage in “debate” or “discussion” or “dialogue” with talking points that demean and duhamanize you, all while being expected to maintain a smile and cool composure while someone literally debates to your face your own existence or how “actually it’s YOUR people’s fault you’re being slaughtered! Israel isn’t the bad guy here!”

Constantly being forced to choose between engaging in bad-faith debates framed in a way to make you look like the unreasonable bad guy while the person implicitly defending your ethnic cleansing is made to look like the “rational good guy” or looking after your own mental health, knowing that even refusing these “invitations” is itself a mark against you and your people

Constantly being told that you’re too “biased”, too “close”, too “emotional” about the literal slaughter of your people to be seen as a valid source, while Israelis and complete outsiders are given all the space they want to speak for us endlessly

Constantly seeing people being actively mislead and wondering if you have the capacity to reach out to them and attempt to share your narrative with them, knowing that if you don’t, they’re going to go on to propagate the same lies justifying your ethnic cleansing

Constantly having to combat GENUINE censorship throughout the media, social media, and society itself. It’s a fact proven by former Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Youtube employees that Palestinian voices have their reach censored in a way no one else does, which is why it’s so important to amplify and actively share Palestinian voices rather than just liking or indicating support

Constantly being told you don’t know your own history by people who’ve educated themselves on Youtube and Wikipedia despite having lived the reality yourself and dedicating your entire life to studying every single aspect of it

Constantly seeing those who have the courage to stand alongside you being shut down with accusations of antisemitism and seeing them lose their courage to stand by you out of fear of their own image and livelihood and having to rush to their defense as well

Constantly having to see photos of your people, sometimes even people you know, maimed, injured, murdered, or burned to ash by Israeli aggression but knowing you have a duty to share what’s happening and must stomach the images to show the world the true extent of the suffering we endure

Constantly having to worry not just for your own safety, but the safety of your family and loved ones who can be punished or targeted because of things you yourself say

Constantly wondering who you can actually trust, from new friends and acquaintances to professors to even other Palestinians because we’ve been so heavily infiltrated by Israeli intelligence looking to blackmail Palestinians using anything from their sexual orientation or even made up “evidence” meant to ruin their lives

Constantly having your heart sink every notification you get wondering if it’s news that a loved one has been killed

Constantly seeing the corpses of loved ones shared on social media and reliving the trauma all over again, yet again knowing that you WANT the world to see what’s happening

Constantly seeing the effects this has on your own family and feeling helpless to do anything

Constantly on alert for the FBI at your door as they often “visit” Palestinians who dare speak out, myself included on numerous occasions 

Constantly wondering if your advocacy for your people is going to result in the loss of your job, scholarship, license

Constantly being asked to “humanize” and “feel for” those who live their lives day in day out completely unfazed by your suffering despite living in a society that couldn’t even FUNCTION without our subjugation

Constantly being told “don’t blame regular Israelis, blame the government!!” as if the state itself wasn’t founded on our ethnic cleansing, as if it isn’t “normal Israelis” who make up the entirety of the Israeli Military and have actively brutalized you and your people

Seeing allies you fought for suddenly SILENT when it’s their time to speak up

Studying on a US campus where those SAME SOLDIERS WHO ENGAGED IN YOUR PERSECUTION AND ACTIVELY SERVED AS THE ENFORCERS OF YOUR OCCUPATION then re-enact the trauma against you and you’re meant to simply ignore the fact that THEY ARE THE SAME PEOPLE WHO MURDERED YOUR FRIENDS AND FAMILY, and not being allowed to even be ANGRY at that

Trying to navigate this half-life in the diaspora where it’s a struggle to connect with other Palestinians given the distance between us and yet not being able to connect with anyone around because, again, they simply can’t understand

Constantly being expected to simply give up your time to those who demand you answer them and debate your existence and narrative with them, who them take you blocking them for your own mental health as a “victory” to be lorded over you when you simply can’t take it anymore

Constantly having to EXPLAIN all of this because nobody but other Palestinians can truly understand just how pervasive, overwhelming, and incapacitating this unique form of exhaustion is

Constantly seeing your erasure and ethnic cleansing defended all over the media, all over social media, throughout your academic career, while those ENGAGED in your ethnic cleansing have the audacity to claim that the media is biased against THEM

Constantly on guard with everything you say and write, knowing that unlike those promoting our ethnic cleansing, we don’t have the luxury of making mistakes or getting lazy in our writing and advocacy. One mistaken source, mistaken information, being imperfect is enough to discredit your voice entirely

The crippling obligation you have to share the narrative of your people, knowing that so many people will view you as the spokesperson of your entire people, knowing how unfair it is, but also knowing that if you DON’T speak out, nobody will on your behalf, and even the most well-intentioned, involved allies can simply never understand how it all truly feels

Seeing the entire world stand by and do absolutely nothing while your people are slaughtered time and time again

Seeing your history misconstrued by people implicitly defending your ethnic cleansing and settler-colonialism

Knowing that our parents have been through this and more, seeing them have to go through this yet again while still being forced to go about their daily lives and given no time to mourn or recover

Not being able to even share our culture without being attacked for it

Knowing that so many of your friends and family won’t ever be able to return to their homeland while foreigners from around the globe are flown into Israel free because it’s their “birthright”

A “birthright” denied to even my own parents, born in Jerusalem yet unable to enter it

Having even self-proclaimed “allies” question Palestinian resistance, policing our tone, never /really/ understanding our pain and anger and how they themselves contribute to it

Screaming from the moment you can about what’s happening to us, desperately trying to get people to CARE, and having it often fall on deaf ears

Knowing that if you’re not the source of information for those genuinely seeking to learn, they may find themselves mislead by sources that claim to be fair and balanced while imprinting subtle lies about Palestine and Palestinians on those they engage with

Not even being able to find the energy and ability to respond to genuine messages of love and support, which are greatly appreciated, and feeling bad about it because you don’t want to seem like you’re not genuinely happy to hear it

Feeling a sense of overwhelming exhaustion in times like this while at the same time being unable to sleep

Seeing the effect all of this has had on your people, knowing your people have among the highest rates of depression on the planet and yet we’re all suffering together with no way to ease the pain

Being constantly exposed to the ways in which your people are erased and questioning if you have the energy or sanity left to deconstruct such aggression to help outsiders understand the severity of it all

Seeing allies suddenly call for “peace” when Palestinians are finally fed up enough to rise up and fight back against an overwhelming military force

I could go on, but in case you it’s not already clear, I’m tired and exhausted

Always wondering if any of this is even worth it when the world has ignored your slaughter and ethnic cleansing for nearly 8 decades, knowing that nobody is about to step in to help now.

Constantly wondering if any of this is even worth it, and then feeling inspired by fellow Palestinians, our resilience, the fact that despite ALL of this and more, we continue to fight.

Despite all of this, I would never even consider or entertain the thought of being born as anything other than Palestinian

[zamancollective]

Nationalist Mythologies and the False Friendship of Nostalgia

By Mirushe Zylali

Additional Writing by Sophie Levy

What is a mythology?

Through mythology, one locates oneself within history and creates a sense of continuity between the past, present, and future.

The impulse to place oneself in a historical continuum is understandable, especially within postcolonial contexts. For Europeans, myths provide a basis of identity for the nation-state. For Euro-colonized peoples, a desire to return to a pre-colonial body politic often becomes integral to liberation movements, and later, becomes a method of garnering mass popular support for a burgeoning post-imperialist nation-state. Postcolonial mythologies are often manifestations of an emotionally-tinged hunger for a life that does not ache of colonialism.

Mythology has a vital role in legitimizing the construction of modern ethnonationalist states and their respective languages, cultures, and propaganda systems.  When “British India” was cleaved in two, Pakistan adopted an alphabetic script based on Arabic, while India adopted a script based on Sanskrit, though similarities abound between spoken dialects in the subcontinent’s northern regions. To this day, India’s far-right Hindu nationalists are working to incorporate more words derived from Vedic Sanskrit into modern Hindi, while nationalist Pakistanis do the same with Islamic terminology derived from Arabic.

In his construction of the Albanian nation-state, Enver Hoxha outlawed religion and claimed that modern Albanians descended from ancient Illyrian tribes. Modern Turks assert that they are heirs to the Ottoman Empire established by Byzantine tribes over 700 years ago. During WWII, German Nazis even claimed to be descended from Aryans, somehow also insisting upon their origins in the lost city of Atlantis, and repurposed the swastika, a Hindu symbol, to this aim. Later in the twentieth century, Iranian nationalist groups would adopt a link to this “superior” Aryan race in order to incite violence against ethnic minorities within Iran, such as Jews and Kurds. Saddam Hussein insisted upon modern Iraqis’ link to the people and culture of ancient Babylonia in building his autocratic government - just as the Pahlavi Shahs of Iran belabored their connection to Darius’ pre-Islamic empire.

Evidently, it has been a nation-building tactic of autocratic regimes across Europe and Asia to emphasize links between a current population and an ancient culture or mythology. Here, I take time to deconstruct why this method is somewhat futile.

Iraqis, for instance, cannot claim direct historical continuity with Babylonia because its religion-and the way of life it spurred- has not been maintained since the fall of Babylon in 539. Since then, cultural diffusion, conquest, and the shifting borders of empires have made Iraq a thoroughly Arab nation-state, notwithstanding the presence of non-Arab ethnic minorities.

Victors often write what history survives. What records exist of the processes of the Persian and Arab conquerors who altered the culture of ancient Mesopotamia? One could infer that those attempting to keep up the ‘old ways’ would have been brutalized or disenfranchised by their new conquerors. Neither the ethnic composition nor the historical legacy of ancient life in present-day Iraq is continuous with those who live there today, and the recovery of such a culture would be nearly impossible. But why would anyone want to undertake such a task in the first place?

the Eagle of Saladin - often used as a symbol of Ba’athist ideology.

Let us follow the logic of this desire for belonging. A branch of my mother’s family hails from Al-Andalus. What would an ‘un-exiling’ of ourselves look like? With very few Spanish Jews left in Spain, and others having fled to places such as Turkey, Greece, the Americas, the Balkans, and Morocco, which of them can lay a true claim to the “authentic” ancestry that would provide a basis for such a social movement? Do I learn from the Jews of Tangier, Fez, and southern Spain, who would have fallen within the borders of the Umayyad Empire? No. Their cultures, changed by hundreds of years of innovation, diffusion, and empire, may barely resemble our ancestors’ shared Andalusian moment. I can enjoy camaraderie with them for what we share, but to claim a singular flashpoint of origin for all of us, thus suggesting that we share a contemporary ‘sameness’ and deny such unique facets of our respective cultures would do a deep disservice to all of us.

Often intentionally, mythos functions to create ‘out’ groups and ‘Others’, consolidating power for the in-group as they build a new state. The Other can even be transformed into an inhuman creature. The Kurd, at times racialized as white for the purposes of the Iraqi, Syrian, or Turkish imagination, becomes a foreign interloper, even as Muslim Kurds may discriminate against Ezidis, Kurdish Jews, and Kurdish Christians for similar reasons. Within the imagination of the previously-colonized subject, the Jew can stand in as a figure of corrupting European influence, or the Jew can stand in as the backward Other not yet converted to the dominant religion or way of life of whichever empire. The same goes for Christians in southwestern Asia who maintain knowledge of spoken and written Coptic or Syriac. Often, by the logic of Muslim Arab in-groups, Arab Jews aren’t not Arabs. Rather, they just aren’t the right type of Arab. It is difficult to build a pluralistic nationalist movement; just look at the Ba’athist party.

European Zionists explored the idea of land-bound, Jewish nationalism as early as the 1800s. The Haskalah, or “Jewish Enlightenment” that began in the eighteenth century, had already kick-started the initiative to revitalize Hebrew as the lingua franca of the Jewish world. Zionists then harnessed Hebrew’s potential for Jewish unification in their development of a formalized national consciousness.

It is not a coincidence that Zionism’s genesis resembles that of other European nationalisms. Today, its proponents often overlook the fact that Zionists thinkers and leaders formed pragmatic alliances with European colonialists in an effort to solve the Jewish Question or gain a reputation as a “modernized” people. Though a historical and religious Jewish connection to Israel/Palestine cannot be denied, Theodore Herzl, the founder of modern Zionism, was just as willing to establish a “Jewish Nation-State” in what is modern-day Ghana or Argentina. He was desperate to secure any place to use as a safe haven for Jews.  Even as he cast Jews as Oriental Others in the eyes of gentile Europeans, he was playing by the rules of Western colonialists as if he were one of them.

Zionism, then, is a complicated nationalism in that it has to reconcile an orientalized, ancient Jewish mythology with a “modernized” European character. This cognitive dissonance within the Zionist national consciousness has visibly influenced the vocabulary of mainstream modern Hebrew, as developed by Eliezer Ben-Yehuda. On one hand, Hebrew’s newfound role in early Zionist settlements as a more broadly and colloquially-spoken language represents the revival of an ancient language, culture, and peoplehood. It centralized a scattered nation in the name of a mythologized history, repurposing the words of a holy language for use in secular contexts - paralleling the incorporation of Qur’anic vocabulary into Modern Standard Arabic.

Yet, if modern Hebrew is meant to be “authentic,” why is the word for tea ‘teh’ and not ‘shai’ as it is in other Semitic languages like Arabic and Aramaic? Why is the word for banana ‘banana’ and not ‘muuza’ as it would be in Arabic? In the same vein, why does the mode of Hebrew pronunciation taught in Israeli schools sideline the guttural sounds of quf, ayin, and het originally spoken by Jews in ancient Tiberias, opting instead for a more European flair?

Most of the loanwords that exist in Modern Hebrew come from Germanic languages. Of course, it is understandable that the introduction of vocabulary not previously existent in biblical or rabbinic Hebrew could be pulled from English, which was already a lingua franca during Hebrew’s revival in a nationalist context. However, such influence does call for further inquiry where existing, foundational verbiage with Semitic origins was discarded and replaced with European terminology.

These small details in the modern Hebraic lexicon reveal much about the sentiments and convictions of European Zionist nation-builders. Firstly, the disposal of selected nouns with Semitic roots arguably reflects a latent desire to separate this artificially monolithic conception of the “Jewish people” from southwestern Asian languages-  languages perceived to not be Jewish. The same goes for the systematic labeling of Mizrahi accents as “incorrect” in professional contexts in Israel. Yemeni immigrants, for instance, have faced and continue to face ridicule and discrimination because of their accents. Ironically, however, Yemenite Jews are generally thought to pronounce liturgical Hebrew most similarly to the ancient Tiberian inflection. Does this mean that all Jews who are not Yemenite have “inauthentic” pronunciations? Of course not. What it does mean is that Arabic, for example, is not an un-Jewish language. The accent that many Mizrahim are discriminated against for having is not a “corruption” of anything.

Secondly, modern Hebrew’s European loanwords and inflection indicate that Zionist leaders seeking to revitalize Hebrew as a “universal” language for Jews heavily prioritized the comfort of Ashkenazi Jews in their adjustment to life in the Holy Land. Of course, learning Hebrew was still very difficult for Yiddish-speaking Ashkenazim (read: women) who hadn’t been exposed to the study of rabbinic or biblical Hebrew in the heder, but leaders like Ben Yehuda clearly geared this ancient Semitic language to be as accessible to Europeans as possible in its revival. Had there been a genuine effort to make Hebrew a language for Jewish ‘olim hailing from across the globe, Judeo-Arabic and Judeo-Persian-speaking Mizrahim would have been consulted much more.

Lastly, Hebrew’s Germanic loanwords and smoothed-out modern pronunciation made it a more palatable language in the eyes of European colonialists, with whom Israel’s founding parties sought to form pragmatic alliances. The more similar Hebrew could be to European languages while still retaining its own mythologized, ancient character, the more British proponents of settler-colonialism could perhaps be willing to lend a hand to Jewish settlers. And so goes the balancing act between the orientalized nostalgia and modern European appeal of Hebrew.

"Vote for the Zionist list (No. 6), all who believe in the rebirth of our land through Hebrew labor." From the Zionist List in Russia, 1917

Zionists are quick to point out that since a majority of Israelis are Mizrahim, the growth of the Yishuv and Israel’s eventual establishment could not have been functionally settler-colonialist in character, to which I say: What is the Turkish, Iraqi, Persian, and Syrian treatment of Kurds? What is the North African Arab treatment of Imazighen? These, too, are essentially colonial projects which seek to supplant indigenous peoples by relying on idealized ancient mythologies and constructions of “authenticity”. A common source of discomfort for progressive critics of Zionism is the prevalence of conservative viewpoints held by Mizrahi Jews inside and outside of Israel, but the idea of colonized peoples colonizing other peoples should not be a revolutionary or difficult one to reconcile and accept.

Israel may not have taken on the character of a settler-colonial project had the Zionists of old integrated with Palestinian and Samaritan society. Palestinians’ apprehensive or negative reactions to early European Zionist settlers were understandable, considering Zionist collaboration with British Imperial forces. The reactionary right-wing politics of the majority of Mizrahim in Israel is, too, understandable considering their alternatives. The State of Israel has always propped itself up on the rejection and effective demonization of Arabness, so racism against Mizrahim based on accent, physical features, or culture resembling that of gentile Arabs comes as no surprise. Rather than facing social immobility and expendability as a source of cheap labor, conservative Israeli Mizrahim align themselves with Israel’s hybrid mythologized / Europeanized national consciousness, rejecting Arabness because doing so simply benefits their survival in a state established by European Zionists.

Mizrahim live in a time of nesting doll diasporas. In their 2019 song “Hana Mash Hu Al Yaman,” the Yemeni-Israeli sisters of the band A-WA lament a common traumatic thread connecting Mizrahi families in Israel:

“I came to you fleeing

You saw me as primitive.

I came to you as a last resort.”

What does decolonization look like, in a literal sense? Mizrahim living in Israel cannot go back to the countries which initially tried to stamp them out. Why would the current generation want to learn their grandparents’ forgotten Arabic, Darija, Turkish, or Farsi - or dig up their grandparents’ buried memories? To do so is like pressing one’s tongue against a tooth stripped of enamel. Many Israelis are also of mixed heritage. An Israeli friend’s family hosts Tunisian, Arab Iraqi, and Syrian-Turkish Jews. Which nation-state should she return to? For which mythology should she feel nostalgia? People have always migrated. Issues arise when territorial and cultural dominance- not pluralism- becomes the collective goal of populations.

Discarding nationalist mythologies altogether can help afford modern populations some clarity. Mizrahi liberation is inextricably linked with Palestinian liberation, Kurdish liberation, Yazidi liberation, and all other liberations of oppressed indigenous peoples and ethnoreligious minorities. Even within the construct of ‘Mizrahi’ as a label for MENA Jews, Arab Iraqi Jews may hold harmful attitudes towards Kurdish Jews hailing from within Iraqi borders. My close friend, who is a Kurdish Jew, recounts to me the almost Ba’athist undertones of a conversation she had with an Arab Iraqi Jew, whose nostalgia for Iraq was based on a desire for inclusion within Arab supremacist power structures. Nostalgia is a reactionary, false friend. Seeking acceptance within the monolithic ideologies of Pan-Arabism, Pan-Turkism, Pan-Iranism or Zionism is not a solution in the long term, nor is clinging to conservatism under nationalist governments.

Ceding space or resources to other colonized peoples does not mean that there will be insufficient space or resources for you. It is the overlap of these spaces that becomes a vital standpoint for reconciliation. Solidarity begins with truthfully baring the histories witnessed by multiple populations, and remaining able to acknowledge them simultaneously. The nation-state’s mythology does not allow for admission to the atrocities of the Farhud; the Algerian War of Independence; Deir Yassin; the Aleppo Riots. It is up to the people to shift their collective consciousness toward empathy and mutual recognition.

Mirushe Zylali is a junior at Mount Holyoke College double majoring in Studio Art and Religion. Through poetry, nonfiction work, and printmaking, they are interested in examining who remains within cultural memory, and how the Other is constructed in service of the nationalism of post-colonial states. 

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

Perhaps this is yet another double standard and antisemitic trope applied to the Jewish state, in which the Israeli government exploits the flourishing gay community as a distraction to manipulate the world into supporting Israel. Suffice it to say, this idea that the Jewish nation manipulates gay rights is incredibly offensive and shows nothing but disrespect for all the Israeli LGBTQ folk who fought hard for their inclusion within everyday life.

What can those who value gay rights do to act against the falsehoods presented by pinkwashing? Speak up and put things into perspective for those who promote the pinkwashing propaganda.

Nobody should accept that while Israel integrates gay Palestinian refugees, homosexuality is punishable by death in the Gaza Strip, and that 93 percent of Palestinians do not believe homosexuality should be accepted by society, according to Pew Research.

As for the rest of the Arab world, the only recent glimpse of hope for the LGBTQ community was witnessed when Lebanon planned its own pride celebration, only to have it shut down after the organizer was arrested by authorities.

It’s clear which country is the best for gay rights in the region, and accusing it of pinkwashing while its neighbors detain and kill gay individuals is abhorrent. Given all of this, it’s ironic that BDS activists accuse Israel of pinkwashing while they throw LGBTQ rights under the bus by ignoring the suffering of those people to advance their ignorant agenda.

[megadarkbouquettidalwavethings]

Fauda: The drama lifting the lid on Israeli snatch squads

Image caption The drama, co-created by Avi Issacharoff (above), has become a global hit

A jeep roars up to the farmhouse in the Negev desert in southern Israel and Doron – a tough-looking man with a shaved head – jumps out, his gun blazing. The camera pans back as the director shouts “Cut!”

I am on the set of Fauda, the Israeli television thriller that portrays the murky world of Israeli undercover army units and Palestinian militants during the Second Intifada (Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation).

It shows not just the violence but the moral dilemmas too and has been a hit not only in Israel but surprisingly in Arab countries as well, and globally on Netflix.

Lior Raz, the actor who plays Doron, and journalist Avi Issacharoff, an Arab affairs specialist, created Fauda, or “chaos” in Arabic.

Image caption Lior Raz tells Jane Corbin: “We want people to see how the other side live”

The two friends served together in an undercover unit whose soldiers, disguised as Arabs, infiltrate Palestinian areas to capture wanted men.

“We wanted to show how they [militants and their families] live, their experiences, the price they’re paying for their actions,” says Lior. “For the Israeli audience we open a window for them to see how people live over there.”

From the heart

Avi drove me through the streets of Hebron in the occupied West Bank, where he still reports from. His own experiences and contacts shaped the Palestinian characters in Fauda.

“We wanted to bring the complexity of this conflict to audiences, not only the undercover units and what they do, but also what it looks like on the other side, the Palestinian side,” says Avi.

Image copyright EPA

Image caption Israelis and Palestinians live in adjoining neighbourhoods in the city of Hebron

Hamas, the Islamist group which is Israel’s sworn enemy, claims Fauda is “Zionist propaganda”, but according to Avi the group still puts a link to the show on its website.

The main Palestinian character in the first series of Fauda was Abu Ahmed, a Hamas militant played by Arab Israeli actor Hisham Suliman.

“Fauda tells people the truth and because of that it speaks to people from the heart, not just from the head,” says Hisham.

Hisham gets mobbed by Israelis on the street begging for selfies and receives fan mail from all over the Arab world. He believes both sides can relate to Abu Ahmed’s story.

“The Palestinian issue is very complicated – it’s not black and white,” Hisham explains, “but Fauda managed to deconstruct some of the symbols of the conflict and produced a new viewpoint and explanation.”

Good and bad

Lior and Avi deliberately set out to portray the brutal conflict in a new way, depicting common characteristics between both sides.

“[In Fauda] they are all-rounded characters – even if he’s an evil terrorist he’s got to love his wife and you have to show it and he has kids and you have to show it,” says Lior, “and also the good guys are doing bad things sometimes,” he adds, alluding to his compatriots.

Image caption French Lebanese actress Laetitia Edo on the set of Fauda

On the set in a real Israeli hospital made to look like a Palestinian one, I talk to Laetitia Edo, the French Lebanese actress who plays Dr Shirin.

This strong Arab woman is an unusual lead character in a television drama in this region. The character faced a moral crisis when militants in her own family used her to surgically implant a bomb inside a wounded Israeli undercover soldier.

“Both sides are bad – and good,” says Laetitia, “and that’s why people are saying for the first time, ‘I have compassion for the other side’.

“So this for me is a small, but still a, victory.”

“Shirin, for us, is representative of the innocent people in the conflict, who are not into killing other people,” says Avi. “She just wants to live her life, and this is what’s so sad about this character.”

‘Fighting and resisting’

We wanted to find out how close Fauda was to the world it claims to mirror – what do the real-life counterparts on both sides make of the television show?

Image caption Militants and snatch-squads try to outwit one another

After our own game of cat and mouse to find Palestinian militants willing to talk, we met two heavily armed masked men in a house in Shuafat refugee camp, on the outskirts of occupied East Jerusalem. They carry out attacks on Israelis and try to outwit the undercover units hunting them down.

“We’re covered up not because we’re afraid but because we’re fighting and resisting for our cause – for our homeland to be liberated from the occupation,” the first man says, fingering his gun.

His companion was scornful about Fauda, but admitted watching it: “In this trivial series, Israel showed a lot of the Palestinian side – not because they love the Palestinians but to weaken and terrorise them,” he says.

‘In and out’

The Israeli border police have an undercover unit called Yamas which has been operating for 25 years but had never been filmed before we gained exclusive access to them.

“The best arrests – like Muhammad Ali said ‘float like a butterfly, sting like a bee’ – are in and out as quickly as possible, leaving no trace,” the Yamas commander tells me.

“Fauda is very close to the real thing – the standard of the fighting is very, very high,” he adds.

Image caption Jane Corbin was given exclusive access to the Yamas unit

On a training exercise, late at night, two men from Yamas, looking like Palestinians and speaking fluent Arabic, seize their target from a store.

But they’ve been rumbled and shots ring out. A back-up team jumps out of a parked van and a battle erupts on the street before the Israelis manage to escape with their target.

“You have to train for years, study them well until you have the experience to blend into their society,” one of the unit tells me. “You need a sixth sense – even the smallest mistake can cost you your life.

“Our ability to surprise them by making war through trickery – this is the element that strikes fear into the other side,” says the Yamas commander. “It puts them on edge all the time.”

On the shooting range I ask the Yamas snipers about Fauda. “It’s an excellent series,” one tells me, “but the reality exceeds the imagination of anything you see there.”

The real Fauda will be broadcast on BBC World at the following times (GMT):

Saturday 6 January 09:10, repeated 2010

Sunday 7 January 02:10, repeated 15:10

The post Fauda: The drama lifting the lid on Israeli snatch squads appeared first on dailygate.