athenacyikes

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One of the formative experiences of my life was visiting Al-Khalil (aka Hebron) circa 2013 with a group of other diaspora Palestinians and seeing the “situation” there. What used to be a very active market in the heart of the old city was pretty much dead because settlers lived in the upper levels of the buildings; there was a metal net over the remaining shops to catch the trash that settlers and non-Palestinian (and I mean this as a legal status) visitors would dump out of their windows at the Palestinian population, but this couldn’t catch things like chemicals, rotten eggs, dirty water, etc. As a card-carrying (and I mean this literally) Palestinian, I was not allowed to enter the Jewish quarter, but a settler was allowed to come and scream at the Druzi soldier guarding the checkpoint at the time for letting us—I was with a group of people who mostly did not have Palestinian ID, but were ethnically Palestinian—into the city at all. I swear someone tried to hit us with a car. The Palestinian shopkeeper we talked to quickly got scared and told us we had to disperse. I have passed through clouds of pepper spray less tense than that.

Like, if you’re reading this as, say, a US American with no Palestinian heritage, you have more access to places under Israeli occupation as a visitor than I ever will, and my family heritage is traceable to Palestine only, nowhere else. I believe anyone should be able to live wherever they want, but I have family members living in the West Bank who haven’t been able to travel much past the cities they live in, e.g. to visit the Dead Sea or Jerusalem, despite living relatively close. Meanwhile, most people I know in the US, Jewish or not, could go visit any time they want without begging for permissions that might be denied to them arbitrarily. *most* of the USAmericans I know could visit the post-1948 borders easier than me.

My partner and my best friend are both Jewish, so they could immigrate to the land of my parents’/grandparents’/great-great grandparents’/etc’s birth with relative ease, despite not feeling any connection to the land; I could not. If I lived in the land of my parents’ birth, my partner would have to legally declare interest in me and we’d have to have a “cooling off” period in which we separate. This is very obviously wrong to us. The fact that I even have to argue its wrongness to anyone else is fucking ridiculous. If you’re even capable of excusing that injustice, then nothing you have to say is of any value to me and I’m not sorry about it. A different set of laws applies to me than the person who is reading this (unless you’re also Palestinian). That is the definition of apartheid and I have nothing to prove to anyone who refuses to believe it. Because it’s clear. You either choose to deny the truth or you don’t. I just hope my presence can elucidate that truth to others. I cannot emphasize enough that being Palestinian is not just an ethnic or national status for me, it is a LEGAL status. I am legally Palestinian. Are you legally ethnic in any way? If so, can you see how our circumstances align? Ask yourself that.

[athenacyikes]

i m;iss when u could touch a tv and feel its fur

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It drives me insane how many people dont realise how often they break the law and that if the full force of it was ever applied life would basically be unliveable. Like between traffic violations, petty workplace theft, account sharing and piracy alongside how common it is to have been in posession of some illegal drug at some point in your life. People still manage to get away with thinking "criminals" are people who commit crimes not just populations that are surveilled enough to be routinely prosecuted

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does anyone have a clip of this conversation, I need it desperately

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lovely story from a friend today.

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verified ways to send aid to gaza directly

Help a Palestinian family directly:

gazafunds.com - Donate directly to a Palestinian family in urgent need of evacuation, medical attention, food, rebuilding homes/businesses etc. (Spotlights 1 verified gfm at a time so if you don't know who/where to donate to just go here and donate to the one they show you!)

Help provide tents (urgent):

The Sameer Project: Currently providing tents for displaced families in Gaza (emergency bc tents in Rafah are being burned as we speak) (paypal) (gfm)

Food, cash & essentials:

Care for Gaza: Working on the ground in Gaza to distribute food, cash, medicine & other essentials to displaced families. (paypal) (gfm)

Direct Aid for Gaza: also working on the ground in Gaza to distribute food, cash & other daily essential suppliess to displaced families. (paypal) (gfm)

Water:

Gaza Municipality's water project: The official Municipality of Gaza needs help rebuilding the water infrastructure in Gaza City to restore access to clean water and waste management services for the people of Gaza. (This campaign only has a couple of weeks left but it's still only at 15%!)

eSIMs (urgent):

guide to buy & send esims for gaza

crips for esims for gaza: If you don't know how to buy esims or don't have the capacity to manage them (e.g. topping up regularly), this team of volunteers are collecting funds to buy & manage gaza esims regularly

Medical Aid

Palestine Red Crescent Society: Provides emergency medical and ambulance services and humanitarian relief on the ground in Gaza e.g. rescuing and treating the wounded.

[athenacyikes]

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Kinda in love with the idea that different places on other sides of the world can look so similar. Something something universal human experiences

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nurse feratu and dr. acula are ready to see you for your blood tests

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Submitter comment: I'd like to submit this '[s]tudy of defensive behavior of a venomous snake as a new approach to understand snakebite' not for it's topic (worth studying!) but for it's insane methodology, which... well, I'll just let the researcher speak for himself:

[Q: Why did you decide to do this experiment?

A: Snake behavior has been generally neglected as a field of research, especially in Brazil. And most studies don’t examine what factors make them want to bite. If you study malaria, you can research the parasite that causes the disease—but if you don’t study the mosquito that carries it, you will never solve the problem. Up until now, the popular wisdom was that the jararaca would only attack if you touched it or stepped on it. But that was not what we found.

Q: Why did you need to be the victim?

A: The best way to do this research is to put snakes and a human together. In this case, the human was me. We put the snakes inside a ring on the floor of our lab until they got used to it, then I stepped in wearing special protective boots. I stepped close to the snake and also lightly on top of it. I didn’t put my whole weight on my foot, so I did not hurt the snakes. I tested 116 animals and stepped 30 times on every animal, totaling 40,480 steps.]

From the recent (aptly named) interview: Researcher steps on deadly vipers 40,000 times to better predict snakebites

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whenever you see a post on this website don't forget to ask yourself: why is op the worst human being that has ever walked upon the earth, how does this post target me specifically, and what are the hateful implications hidden between the lines ???

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more from Indika 🕯️

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The things I devoured so I could devour you

#Dungeon meshi #Dungeon meshi spoilers #Falin #Marcille #Art #Farcille #This rocks severely

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I’m a AAA game dev and sooooo bored of it. Do you want additional dev support in the future?

anonymously slipping a note into someone's locker that says "i have one billion dollars do you want one"

[athenacyikes]

#Terry pratchetts Tiffany aching/wee free men series #I read a lot as a kid but these books I reread and reread #Maybe it's time again.......