"nobody in the world, nobody in history, has ever gotten their freedom by appealing to the moral sense of the people who were oppressing them" Assata Shakur
“Noona, you’re so pretty
(Looking at that girl, I go) Crazy
(But now I’m tired)
Replay, replay, replay
Memories scratch at my heart
(My heart hurts, so now I’ll) Mend it
(With the approaching farewell, I)
Replay, replay, replay.”
"do you see how there's no sound of any planes? there's a truce! wallah when I heard about the truce I got so happy. but it's temporary, 4 days only. oh god, I wish things get settled in these 4 days and it becomes an eternal truce. wallah life is beautiful like this without the planes. I got so happy, wallah guys I'm so happy "
i know the nyt regularly edits and rewrites headlines post-publication but it's kind of wild that the basically one (1) good op-ed i've seen them publish in ages that was getting really widely shared was renamed from "Why Must Palestinians Audition For Your Empathy?" to much more vague and defanged "The Palestine Double Standard." like. come on.
anyways.
The task of the Palestinian is to audition for empathy and compassion. To prove that we deserve it.
(link to the archived page with the original headline)
The task of the Palestinian is to be palatable or to be condemned. The task of the Palestinian, we’ve seen in the past two weeks, is to audition for empathy and compassion. To prove that we deserve it. To earn it.
In the past couple of weeks, I’ve watched Palestinian activists, lawyers, professors get baited and interrupted on air, if not silenced altogether. They are being made to sing for the supper of airtime and fair coverage. They are begging reporters to do the most basic tasks of their job. At the same time, Palestinians fleeing from bombs have been misidentified. Even when under attack, they must be costumed as another people to elicit humanity. Even in death, they cannot rest — Palestinians are being buried in mass graves or in old graves dug up to make room, and still there is not enough space.
If that weren’t enough, Palestinian slaughter is too often presented ahistorically, untethered to reality: It is not attributed to real steel and missiles, to occupation, to policy. To earn compassion for their dead, Palestinians must first prove their innocence. The real problem with condemnation is the quiet, sly tenor of the questions that accompany it: Palestinians are presumed violent — and deserving of violence — until proved otherwise. Their deaths are presumed defensible until proved otherwise. What is the word of a Palestinian against a machinery that investigates itself, that absolves itself of accused crimes? What is it against a government whose representatives have referred to Palestinians as “human animals” and “wild beasts”? When a well-suited man can say brazenly and unflinchingly that there is no such thing as a Palestinian people?
It is, of course, a remarkably effective strategy. A slaughter isn’t a slaughter if those being slaughtered are at fault, if they’ve been quietly and effectively dehumanized — in the media, through policy — for years. If nobody is a civilian, nobody can be a victim.
…
Take it from a writer: There is nothing like the tedium of trying to come up with analogies. There is something humiliating in trying to earn solidarity. I keep seeing infographics desperately trying to appeal to American audiences. Imagine most of the population of Manhattan being told to evacuate in 24 hours. Imagine the president of [ ] going on NBC and saying all [ ] people are [ ].Look! Here’s a strip on the edge of the Mediterranean Sea. That’s Gaza. It is about the same size as Philadelphia. Or multiply the entire population of Las Vegas by three.
This is demoralizing work, to have to speak constantly in the vernacular of tragedies and atrocities, to say: Look, look. Remember?That other suffering that was eventually deemed unacceptable? Let me hold it up to this one. Let me show you proportion. Let me earn your outrage. Absent that, let me earn your memory. Please.
…
Here’s another thing I know as a writer and psychologist: It matters where you start a narrative. In addiction work, you call this playing the tape. Diasporically or not, being Palestinian is the quintessential disrupter: It messes with a curated, modified tape. We exist, and our existence presents an existential affront. As long as we exist, we challenge several falsehoods, not the least of which is that, for some, we never existed at all. That decades ago, a country was born in the delicious, glittering expanse of nothingness — a birthright, something due. Our very existence challenges a formidable, militarized narrative.
But the days of the Palestine exception are numbered. Palestine is increasingly becoming the litmus test for true liberatory practice.
In the meantime, Palestinians continue to be cast paradoxically — both terror and invisible, both people who never existed and people who cannot return.
Imagine being such a pest, such an obstacle. Or: Imagine being so powerful.
and let the history books name joe biden, rishi sunak, justin trudeau, emmanuel macron, ursula von der leyen and every other world leader who did not step in to prevent the genocide of palestine as cold-blooded murderers. may they face a shred of the immeasurable pain and suffering they allowed to be committed against 2.2. million innocent lives.
This is the last known video taken in the courtyard of the Al-Ahli/Mamadani Hospital in Gaza, posted just hours before the bombing. @mohammedsami99 (Artist, Palestine / Texas) shares a children’s play therapy / psychological first aid session. The facilitator @mohammedsami99 is confirmed dead. This video has been reposted by Mohammed’s friends with a plea to share widely. Mohammed’s original caption reads:
‘Peace for Gaza peace peace, peace to all the sad eyes, her tears overflow with grace and glory, peace peace peace to Gaza peace (lines from the Gaza children’s choir song in the video)
Today during my presence in Al Ahly Arab Hospital.
Families and their children have been seen in fear and stress due to the ongoing bombardment of Gaza Strip. I tried to alleviate their fear and panic by asking for help from a team of civil volunteers inside the hospital to change this situation to a state of playing, laughing, screaming loudly and emptying themselves, which is as a first aid attempt for children and the family by preparing a safe dedicated place for play and entertainment.
I will never forget the look and sound of their laughs at this moment.
I’ve never seen anything like the press conference from the Palestinian workers at Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza. They’re literally addressing the world surrounded by bodies on the ground. One is holding the corpse of a baby. I hope these images haunt every Zionist till the day they die.
israel could literally nuke gaza off the face of the earth and blame it on iran and every single western news outlet would act as stenographers for the lie, the IDF's singular go-to-move every single time they perpetrate an unforgivable crime is to blame it on their enemies, a famous american palestinian journalist is assassinated by IDF snipers? Blame it on stray gunfire from hamas. Bomb 5 palestinian children playing soccer on a beach? Blame it on Hamas. Bomb 20 ambulances? Blame them all on Hamas. Bomb a convoy of 70 Gazans fleeing south because you told them to? Blame it on Hamas. There is zero pushback in the western press because America does not find it convenient to view Palestinians as human, it is a cold calculated dehumanization of an entire ethnic group in service of maintaining a relationship with a military partner.
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