Colonialism is not a machine capable of thinking, a body endowed with reason. It is naked violence and only gives in when confronted with greater violence.
"A Child’s View from Gaza" was an art exhibition showcasing drawings created by the children of Gaza.
"The captioned illustrations were created by Palestinian children who lived through the Israeli bombardment of Gaza in 2008-09. The pictures were drawn as part of an effort to help children deal with the horrors they had experienced. A Bay Area nonprofit, Middle East Children’s Alliance (MECA), arranged to display a collection of these pictures at the Museum of Children’s Art in Oakland, California. However, under pressure from the Jewish Federation of the East Bay and other organizations, the museum backed out of the agreement at the last minute."
[Text ID: “This is why I am writing now; it might be my last message that makes it out to the free world, flying with the doves of peace to tell them that we love life, or at least what life we have managed to live; in Gaza all paths before us are blocked, and instead we’re just one tweet or breaking news story away from death.
One of my dreams is for my books and my writings to travel the world, for my pen to have wings so that no unstamped passport or visa rejection can hold it back.
Another dream of mine is to have a small family, to have a little son who looks like me and to tell him a bedtime story as I rock him in my arms.”]
“It is being done in the name of my religion of 3,000 years by a movement of 100 years, a political nationalist movement of non-religious Jews - Zionists. My religion is not to kill or steal, not to occupy.”
Armenians have lived in Jerusalem for 1,600 years and Armenian Palestinians are the oldest group in the Armenian diaspora. From their indigenous land in Artsakh to the Armenian Quarter in Jerusalem, Armenians have been facing ethnic cleansing and persecution on multiple fronts. With the escalating genocidal violence in Gaza and the West Bank, armed settler encroachment into Armenian holdings in Jerusalem has fallen under the radar of some pro-Palestine activism and it is critical we do not allow this to happen.
Some context:
( In 1948, Armenians in Jerusalem numbered about 16,000. Today, that number has shrunk; estimates range from 700-1000, with a smaller community in Bethlehem. )
“We are not the objectives of the Israelis, but we occupy a huge chunk of Jerusalem. The fact that we’re here is an obstacle for them, but we’ve been here for 1,600 years and we’re not going anywhere.”
"These are only the most visible of the challenges facing the community....Israeli discrimination, economic decline, and political insecurity have taken a toll on Armenians, encouraging emigration.
A century after the community was nearly annihilated, Armenian Palestinians today say they feel deeply at home in the Holy Land, but fear how much longer they will be able to hold on."
“Don’t ask me about the massacres that happened 100 years ago [1915],” Annie Guluzian said when asked about her experiences as an Armenian Palestinian. “I won’t open [up about] those topics. Because if I do, I will start talking about my brother who was martyred by the Israelis in the [second] Intifada.”
The toll of the Israeli occupation in Palestine is what defines her life today, Guluzian added. Source
Since October 26th, 2023, when the leader of the Armenian Patriarchate of Jerusalem announced it would cancel a once-secret 2021 land lease deal with a real estate company that has alleged links to settler interests, the company, Xana Gardens, has sent in armed settlers and bulldozers to steal the land (including Armenian Chruch property and several Armenian families). Armenians have been resisting the occupational forces day in and day out.
From November 5th:
Link to tweet and video
November 5th:
Link to tweet and video
November 22nd:
Link to tweet and thread
November 25th:
Link to tweet and thread
In response, Armenians have created an account on Twitter called SaveTheArq which has been documenting and updating on social media the recent land demolitions by Israeli settlers in the Armenian quarter, they have also launched a fundraiser for legal actions to protect the Armenian quarter and I highly recommend donating, if you can't, please share it around:
Support the historic effort to help the Armenian Community of the Old City of Jerusalem in the defense of its very survival and security.
Look; if you don’t support LandBack, you probably don’t understand what is actually being proposed. Everything I have read and heard has been very reasonable and fair. The only folks talking about revenge campaigns are White Supremacists trying to drum up fears. The movement is co-axial with a lot of the ideas in the Ecological and Green movements. It’s a decolonizing measure. It has the potential to benefit lots of people, including non-Natives, given that many of the proposals would dramatically improve air and water quality and increase access to food across economic class lines. These folks have good ideas. I am asking you, politely, to just, take a look
When the death toll for Gaza goes up from disease, Israel will claim deniability, that those deaths were not deliberate and calculated. You see it with how settlers will talk about the genocide of Natives, that most of us "just died from disease then colonizers 'accidentally spread'". It is NEVER an accident. Famines and Diseases and always used as tool for genocide by colonizers
kaledo-art
romaincrisis
vaporwave
jacobvanloon
turnnoffyourmind
germansingergirl
