#it's really hard to watch so many 'activists' talk over Palestinians and speak for them without representing them #this is what elevating voices looks like
It's agonizing!!
The screenshots above are his pinned tweet. Here's the link for anyone who needs alt text or wants to read more of what he has to say:
He left Gaza when he was 10, and has lived in the U.S. for more than a decade iirc. So his politics tend to be a little more conservative, in a way, than activists who have lived under Hamas's rule. Like Hamza Howidy, who just left Gaza last August and is an amazing superstar.
I'm so proud of him and his fellow activists for posting these pictures.
He's published essays about his experiences, but it's seemed like he was avoiding giving any names of other people involved - except for the one Hamas killed. And he's talked about still getting anonymous threats for speaking out against Hamas online, even months after he'd left the country.
(Before he left, it would only take 3-4 hours after a post for Hamas members to show up at his door.)
"That’s me in the green striped top, with the naughty smile, sitting next to my father and all my brothers. Those were happier, simpler times – both for me, a sweet, mischievous five-year-old without a care in the world, but also for Gaza.
"Though Israel was occupying the territory, with all the hardship and restrictions that entailed, Hamas had not yet come to power, which is when the real misery started – all the grief and agony and destruction they brought with them.
"Today, I’m 27. It’s my second birthday as an asylum seeker in Germany, my second birthday without my family and the friends I grew up with. I’m grateful for my new home and for all the new people I’ve met, but I long for my old home and my loved ones – especially on days like today.
"I recognize though that I’m one of the lucky ones. I have childhood friends who didn’t live to see their 27th birthday, whose lives were tragically cut short by this horrific war.
"I was never one of those kids who made a wish on their birthday. But today I’m going to change that. I wish that this war ends soon. That the hostages are freed. That Hamas’s brutal rule is ended. That the blockade is lifted. That Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank get their freedom; our own democratic state in which to determine the path of our lives.
"It’s a wish, but I don’t believe it’s wishful. It’s definitely not too much to ask."
Well, my birthday was the week before that, and I wish that people actually supported Palestinians enough to center and platform them.
For the Western "pro-Palestinian" movement to shape itself around boosting the work of peace and human rights activists in and from Palestine.
I wish that people cared as much about Palestinians killed by Hamas, and those who have risked their lives to fight Hamas, as about Palestinians killed by Israel.
