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#palestine #boycott israel #free gaza #ceasefire now #gaza

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🇵🇸 From BDS:

The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI), a founding member of the BDS movement, calls for the boycott of Eurovision 2024. We urge all participating broadcasters, national competitors, finalists, production crews, and viewers to boycott the contest following the refusal of the organisers, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), to ban genocidal Israel. Palestinians call on supporters to launch creative, strategic initiatives that can pressure broadcasters to withdraw, and appeal to all participants to refuse to be complicit in the EBU’s whitewash of apartheid Israel’s genocide against 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza. Venues and events organisers planning Eurovision screening parties should refuse to do so, and instead hold Apartheid-Free or Genocide-Free alternative Eurovision events, including teach-ins/workshops/panels about Israel’s cynical pinkwashing and artwashing.

BDS has now, as of today (2 Mar), officially called for a boycott of Eurovision 2024, and for organizers to launch initiatives to pressure broadcasters and participating artists to withdraw from the competition.

For more info, see the BDS alert.

It's also worth noting that the song Israel will be competing with this year is called 'October Rain' (yes, seriously).

#free palestine #free gaza #boycott israel #freepalastine🇵🇸 #gaza #politics/current events #current events #palestine

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#free gaza #palestine #boycott israel #ceasefire now #boycott eurovision

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Pro-Israeli protestors throwing a firework at the UCLA encampment— credits to FilmThePoliceLA. Link to original tweet. This is extremely dangerous and could have started an uncontrollable blaze and killed people. It’s commin sense. This was an act of intentional violence.

Jews for Palestine had major presence at this encampment, many being physically assaulted by the Zionist protestors.

#current events #palestine

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On April 30th while reporting on the Students Revolution at Columbia University, CNN anchor Kasie Hunt made reference to Hind Rajab as 'A Woman Who Was Killed in Gaza." Hind Rajab was six years old.

#free palestine #palestine #free gaza #gaza #current events #politics/current events #ceasefire now #boycott israel

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As protests start ramping up and violence escalates please remember:

DO NOT PUT MILK IN YOUR EYES FOR PEPPER SPRAY OR TEAR GAS.

It can and will cause infection due to bacteria. Flush with water, distilled if possible, and never EVER wear contact lenses to protests where there may be police retaliation.

Please reblog. It may save someone's sight.

#free gaza #palestine #free palestine #gaza #current events #ceasefire now #politics/current events

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I was punched and pepper sprayed by cops that my university administration set on student protesters yesterday. Including once where a cop ripped my mask off my face, grabbed my jaw, and sprayed pepper sprayed straight into my mouth. The university sent out an alert in the middle of our protest canceling classes for the rest of the day, only citing “adverse conditions”. After protesters dispersed under threat of even more violence and three buses of riot police from all over the state with rubber bullets and bully sticks parked in front of one our school’s famous landmarks. I staggered over to a couple of friends who were watching on the sidelines. They gave me water and an apple and held a bag of ice on my very pepper spray irritated face. As they were walking me back to my dorm we ran into one of their roommates. She had taken cancelled classes as an opportunity to get crumbl cookie with her friends. Standing in front of her, happy in a floral blouse with her box of cookies, in my pepper spray and water soaked tshirt, keffiyeh sadly hanging off my shoulder, holding an ice pack to my mouth, felt like a slap in the face.

After putting my pepper spray soaked clothes, shoes, and keffiyeh in a plastic bag and taking an extraordinarily painful shower, a friend and I went for dinner just off campus. There we had a pot of green tea and ramen to soothe pepper sprayed throats. We got ice cream after (shared a cup with chocolate and raspberry pomegranate with strawberry pieces on top, it was very good). From our spot outside the ice cream place we watched a steady stream of groups of sorority girls in matching jeans shorts and blue bikini tops walking back to their apartments after some apparently raucous parties. The cognitive dissonance was insane. I really felt a little like I was going crazy.

Even this morning, waking up to the smeared sharpie of the National Lawyer’s Guild’s phone number on my arm, a black and blue chest from where a grown man straight up clocked me while I was held up by two other protesters in a wall, and a still sore throat and eyes from the pepper spray, life goes on like normal. I still have final papers to write and a math exam to review for.

I’m not sure I really have a point. But, this feeling only makes me want to fight harder for a free Palestine. So, fuck Israel for being an apartheid state and all of their crimes over the last 76 years. Fuck university administration for not disclosing their level of investment in Israel. Fuck university administration for not divesting from this genocide. Fuck Joe Biden for actively supporting this genocide. And fuck the police.

#palestine #free palestine #free gaza #boycott israel #current events #ceasefire now #freepalastine🇵🇸 #politics/current events

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"Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor disclosed on Tuesday that it had received testimonies indicating that bodies of Palestinians killed by the Israeli occupation in Gaza seemed to have 'evaporated or melted,' suggesting the use of prohibited thermal weapons in residential areas.

The Geneva-based rights group called for an international investigation into the matter, urging that an 'international committee of experts must be established to look into the weapons Israel has been using as part of its genocide in the Gaza Strip ... including the potential use of bombs that produce such high heat that victims’ bodies evaporate.'

According to the report, the genocidal war on Gaza, which has resulted in the martyrdom of over 34,000 Palestinians at the least, raises concerns about the potential use of 'thermal weapons', or what are known as 'vacuum bombs' - well-known in military circles for their efficacy in demolishing caves and underground tunnel complexes.

'A number of the victims killed in these horrifying Israeli raids on residential buildings have vanished and may have turned to ashes, raising questions about the type of bombs used in the attacks,' Euro-Med said, also adding that thousands of martyrs 'remain missing, either because it was impossible to recover them from under the debris in light of insufficient equipment and technical know-how, or because their bodies were either hidden by the Israeli army or no longer exist.'"

1 May 24

#free palestine #palestine #free gaza #boycott israel #current events #ceasefire now #freepalastine🇵🇸 #politics/current events

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#free palestine #palestine #free gaza #boycott israel #current events #ceasefire now #freepalastine🇵🇸

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Israeli forces burn 94-year-old Palestinian grandmother alive

94-year-old Naifa Rizq al-Sawada, who suffered from Alzheimer's and was unable to walk or speak, was in her home in the vicinity of the al-Shifa Medical Complex in the west of Gaza City on 21 March when the Israeli military invaded stormed her home post-midnight and forcibly evicted her family at gunpoint, forcing them to leave her behind.

Yesterday, her sons who were able to return home after Israeli forces' withdrawal, discovered her home engulfed in flames by the Israeli army. Inside, they found her charred remains on her bed.

[via RNN]

#this is horrible #free palestine #palestine #free gaza #ceasefire now #freepalastine🇵🇸 #politics/current events #current events #boycott israel

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What a shame it is to see peaceful protests where students are asking for an end to the genocide being met with force. We need an end to the occupation and an end to the genocide.

X: ShaukhSulaiman

#palestine #free palestine #boycott israel #free gaza #current events #politics/current events #freepalastine🇵🇸 #ceasefire now

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#palestine #free gaza #gaza #freepalastine🇵🇸 #ceasefire now #boycott israel

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Death to settler colonialism, free Palestine!

#fuck zionazis #fuck israel #free palestine 🇵🇸

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it is so incredibly sad to constantly see kids on instagram and tiktok who are younger than my brother have to literally beg for shelter, food, water, medicine, and their right to exist as human beings

i mean, this young girl is only ten years old, yet she is essentially responsible for convincing random people scrolling through instagram that her and her family’s life are worth fighting for

on top of that, their gofundme is not even 10% funded and time is running out, please if you can’t donate, just share

please don’t let this little girl die begging

#free gaza #free palestine #free west bank #rafah

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Please help Kenan and his family flee Gaza

#free palestine #palestine #free gaza #boycott israel #ceasefire now #freepalastine🇵🇸 #current events

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How to spot Liberal Zionist Propaganda 101

This post is by no means exhaustive at all. There are many Liberal Zionist talking points but these are just some of the most common ones. While on the surface they seem a little naive and hopeful at best, they are very much harmful. If you claim to be an ally to Palestinians, this post is primarily for you!

For starters, liberal Zionists will often try to both-sides the issue of Palestine, talk about how it's complicated, they'll claim that the conflict hurts both Israelis and Palestinians, how the only way forward is one where Jews and Arabs "just need to get along," amongst other things. They also often like to centre themselves, even when acknowledging Palestinians as the victims of Israel or this "conflict." From time to time, they also like to engage in tokenising certain Palestinians whose views tend to more or less align with theirs. Here are some common arguments you may hear from them:

1. Any form of justifying Israel's existence or claiming that the only solution is two states

It does not really need to be said why justifying Israel's existence is harmful but justifying its continued existence also means legitimising Israel's land theft, its expulsions of Palestinians, and its ongoing harm to Palestinians and other populations. Reducing any sorts of “solutions” into a binary is unhelpful. Needless to say, a 2ss would not even address any legitimate concerns Palestinian have, such as the right of return, and would only legitimise Israel’s colonialism. Talking about a two-state solution also implies that the root of the conflict lies in Palestinians not having their own state rather than being an occupied people. It is very much also possible to construct a paradigm where Jews and Palestinians both live together on the same land as equal citizens that doesn't involve two separate states, much less an ethnostate.

2. Security for Israel could only come through peace

This is a similar talking point to the one above. Not only does it centre Israeli safety and security above Palestinian liberation but it mistakenly assumes that once Israel makes peace with Palestinians, it'll achieve security. The reality, however, is that Israel's imagined security has quite often come at the expense of peace. In fact, "peace" has just acted as nothing more than a smoke-screen for Israel to carry out its expansionist policies, particularly in the West Bank. When liberal Zionists talk about peace juxtaposed with Israeli security, they're talking about attaining a negative peace rather than a positive one.

3. Israelis are not their government.

This point does nothing to actually help Palestinians. It is also an incredibly tone-deaf thing to say when Israel has targeted many Palestinian civilians by having alleged proximity to Hamas, such as being family members of militants or leaders (inc. children!), civil servants in a Hamas-led government, or even any male above the age of 15 they consider to be a potential combatant! It also deliberately erases Israeli civilians' support of and culpability in Israel's actions towards Palestinians.

4. Netanyahu and/or the Israeli right are the source of conflict.

While it is true that things have gotten inadvertently worse under Israel's various right-wing governments, they are not the source of conflict, but rather a product of extremist nationalism and Jewish supremacy perpetuated by the system. Both the 1967 occupations and settlements were undertaken under centre-left governments in Israel, and Israeli policy under non-right wing governments has been just as harmful towards Palestinians and has paved the way for where we are today. Blaming Netanyahu just also obscures the violent nature of Israel's military occupation over Palestinians which long precede him coming into power.

5. Netanyahu and Hamas are two sides of the same coin

I don't think I've seen any allies give validity to this claim but it's an extremely reductionist claim and is sort of similar to the one above. Groups like Hamas are merely a response to the Israeli occupation while Netanyahu is a byproduct of it. While some Israelis may see Hamas or their actions as an "obstacle to peace," Israel's actions and policies long pre-date Hamas and how Israel is currently responding to Hamas is no different to how Israel has engaged with Palestinian militant groups in the past, regardless of political affiliations or political goals. It is also important to note that Hamas has agreed to the establishment of a state along 1967 borders while Netanyahu aims to prolong the occupation and empower the settler movement (some of whom are part of his coalition government) as much as possible.

6. Israel is not a settler-colonial state.

While it is indisputable that Jews have historical connections to Palestine, that doesn’t automatically make you Indigenous or negate Israeli settler-colonialism. Colonialism in particular describes a relationship of exploitation. There are many cases of this, but we most clearly see this in the West Bank where Israel exploits natural resources on occupied Palestinian territory for its own political and economic gains. In terms of settler-colonialism, it is widely known that Israel expelled hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to make way for Jewish refugees and migrants to the new state of Israel, and is still actively facilitating Jewish migration to Israel today while denying Palestinians their right of return.

7. (X) doesn't help Palestinians.

It is not up to anyone to determine whether certain tactics or strategies are helpful or not. This point only seeks to discredit pro-Palestine organising. Only Palestinians get to decide what is actually helpful for the cause or not.

8. Any sort of Hamas-blaming.

On the surface it may seem like there’s nothing wrong with this, but this point is often harmful and usually lends itself to right-wing talking points because its objective is to deflect blame away from Israel. Certain arguments blaming Hamas also aim to minimise Palestinian suffering perpetuated by Israel. It also paints Israeli violence as retaliatory to Palestinian violence which only obfuscates Israel’s (and by extension, the US’) role in its state military apparatus and the differing power dynamics between Israelis and Palestinians. In other contexts, this point seeks to also legitimise certain opposition, such as the Palestinian Authority. Hamas-blaming also tends to sometimes lead to racist diatribes about Palestinians and their culture.

9. Al-Jazeera is not a credible news source.

Al Jazeera is a news source like any other. It has varying editorial policies and therefore will have equally good reporting on certain issues while having terrible reporting on others. The difference is that Al-Jazeera's news on Palestine is credible because it comes directly from their Palestinian reporters on the ground and first-hand eyewitness accounts. Western news sources are no more or less credible than al-Jazeera. Compare this to CNN, NYT, and any other Western news sources where Palestinian voices are often entirely missing from the narrative.

10. Overemphasis of antisemitism on the left

Antisemitism is a real issue and has the potential to fester in left circles if not directly addressed head on. Combatting antisemitism is extremely important, however, it is not an issue exclusive to the left. There is also a double standard in that no one expects Zionists to call out Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian racism. Certain accusations of "antisemitism" also seek to distract from what's going on in Palestine by making it about Jewish comfort and feelings. Combatting antisemitism, Islamophobia, anti-Arab racism etc is always important as the basis of good politics.

Last but not least, be wary of native collaborators or any sort of normalisers! They are Palestinians or Arabs who try very hard to appeal to Western liberal consensus and can end up perpetuating a lot of harm to the cause and/or other activists. You will know them when you see them.

#palestine #israel #fuck israel #zionism

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If you're having trouble keeping up with what's going on in Palestine because of US news coverage of university protests, here are some articles you can read and a video you can watch:

While CNN & all the other mainstream media try to paint the university protests as "pro terrorism" (which they're not, they're literally anti-war protests.) Palestinians are being slaughtered by the minute.

Please don't stop speaking about Palestine.

#palestine #free palestine #boycott israel #free gaza #current events #politics/current events