Dear Transmitters,

<diversation #21>

May 24, 2021

Lisbon, 23 May 2021

Dear Transmitters,

I have to confess that I have spent an awful amount of time online in the past couple weeks. A defining gesture of these days would be me updating my Twitter feed every five minutes. As someone who used to be concerned about privacy and using open source etc. as a teenager, I almost completely abandoned those good practices for a number of years now and have all kinds of social media linked to my true identity. After closely following the violent events in occupied Palestine in the last weeks mostly through those accounts, worried thoughts about our dependency on the big corporations that dominate the Internet came back to me.

On the bright side, Palestinian activists are noticing a shift in the reach they now have. It seems that Palestinian and pro-Palestine voices were able to drill a hole into the censorship wall that exists in mainstream media, which is easily silenced by Israeli lobbies, and carve an influential space for themselves on social media. International solidarity has responded to the call, as shows for instance yesterday’s demonstration in London with over 180,000 marching to demand justice for Palestine, or the solidarity shown by the Black Lives Matter and abolitionist movements in the US. And importantly, this connection has managed to bring together Palestinians from Gaza, the West Bank, and Jerusalem, who are rising up simultaneously. That these spaces are a true threat to Israel’s propaganda machine is clear from its attempts to silence social media activists and citizens who are reporting Israeli atrocities.

Western media completely fails to cover Israeli occupation, as Sana Saeed demonstrates in this video for Al Jazeera Plus. The alternative to reach the masses is independent journalism using social media, but this has also faced numerous and dangerous obstacles. This analysis by Rayhan Uddin is a good overview of how social media and instant messaging apps were used in this context. From straight-out censorship to hashtags having less reach, to extremist group chats planning and executing violent pogroms against Palestinians, these tools have also put journalists at risk of being targeted. One response/solution has been using an old Arabic font to pass unnoticed. This is all part of a larger conversation about private platforms, one that is extremely important to keep having.

After the horrific bombardments that wiped out entire families in Gaza, a cease-fire has been in effect since Friday. The aggression continues on other fronts, as colonialism and apartheid come with blockades, segregation, home demolitions, displacement, and arrests on a daily basis. Gaza has only a few hours of electricity per day, its tap water is as salty as ocean water, tens of thousands of residents just became homeless, businesses and livelihoods are gone, medical infrastructure is destroyed, schools were bombed. Having already arrested 1400 Palestinians since 9 May, the Israeli police announced today that they will arrest over 500 Palestinian citizens of Israel over the next 48 hours. They are targeting Palestinians who mobilized in the last few weeks. And Al-Aqsa Mosque is still under attack.

This violence will never stop if it’s continued to be met with impunity. It is necessary to keep pushing for an end of the occupation, for Israel to be held accountable for its crimes against humanity, for justice to be made for Palestinians. The many decades of struggle of the Palestinian people have created this unique possibility today of powerfully countering Israel and the West’s narrative and tell the truth about human rights abuses and Israel’s apartheid regime. May all this destruction and extinguishing of precious life not have been in vain. Push your governments to implement BDS against Israel to end apartheid and decolonize Palestine.

In solidarity,

Ana

<recommendations>

<visit>

Breaking the Silence

https://www.breakingthesilence.org.il/testimonies/database

“Breaking the Silence is an organization of veteran soldiers who have served in the Israeli military since the start of the Second Intifada and have taken it upon themselves to expose the Israeli public to the reality of everyday life in the Occupied Territories. We endeavor to stimulate public debate about the price paid for a reality in which young soldiers face a civilian population on a daily basis, and are engaged in the control of that population’s everyday life. Our work aims to bring an end to the occupation.”

<listen>

Podcast: The Dig Radio

From the River to the Sea w/ Noura Erakat and Tareq Baconi

https://www.thedigradio.com/podcast/from-the-river-to-the-sea-w-noura-erakat-and-tareq-baconi/

“Dan speaks with Noura Erakat and Tareq Baconi: an in-depth interview on Israeli apartheid and dispossession, the history and future of the Palestinian struggle, Israeli politics, media false equivalences, and shifting US public opinion toward Palestine.”

<read>

<> Hamas breaks out of its Gaza cage

by Amjad Iraqi

https://www.972mag.com/hamas-gaza-jerusalem-protests/

<> DecolonizePalestine’s reading list:

https://decolonizepalestine.com/reading-list/

<watch>

For a Free Palestine: Films by Palestinian Women

https://www.another-screen.com/films-free-palestine-women

<donate>

Please consider donating to this fundraiser by the Museum for the Displaced

mfdisplaced