We’ve seen a tremendous surge in college activism and organizing for Palestine in the last few years. Divestment campaigns against companies exploiting the occupied West Bank are growing in size and number (Go California!). Actions and demonstrations for Palestinian rights happen almost daily. MEChA and SJP continue to build together on local, regional, and national levels. Deep-pocketed pro-occupation groups fruitlessly pour hundreds of thousands of dollars into elaborate programs designed to intimidate student organizers. Things are looking up, and the seemingly infinite amount of energy and creativity pouring out of campus groups gives us great hope for a future without occupation, racism, apartheid, and impunity.
But don’t take this progress as any indication that these hardworking organizers live stable lives. Oh no. Here’s a glimpse of an average day.
Wake up, 10:07 AM
Class is in twenty-three minutes and your apartment is ten to twenty minutes away from class depending on how nice the weather is. You probably shouldn’t have spent all night philosophizing on Twitter about the socioeconomic barriers to population migration dynamics in the 19th century nation-state. You tell yourself the same thing every day but never learn. You throw on the first shirt you see — a faded black “Palestine Awareness Week 2010″ shirt — and wrap a kuffiyeh around your neck, taking extra time to cover the “2010″. You zip up your coat and wonder why kuffiyehs are so big. You unzip, give the kuffiyeh another wrap, and zip up. Now you’re out the door. [Read more...]
‘Suicidal Syrians under Gaddafi’s orders and on Hezbollah’s payroll attempt to occupy Israel’ and other ridiculous concoctions
Ynet’s latest editorial does what bigotry does best: distort the facts, paint the victim as the uncivilized savage, and liken him to terrorist thugs. You’d think we’ve moved on from the colonialist mindset that ‘those there dark people are always up to no good’.
Less than a day after more than a dozen Syrian nationals and Palestinian refugees were gunned down by Israeli soldiers during a Naksa commemoration protest in the Golan Heights, I stumbled upon a number of internet comments that attempted to wipe the soldiers clear of any wrongdoing. Some notable quotes include:
“[T]hey [are] armed and assembling in masses outnumbering border patrol agents and hurling incendiaries at explosives and purposely trying to harm border patrol agents.”
“A patrol of IDF troops, with limited riot gear on hand spot hundreds of people coming from an enemy state trying to break down the border. They had to respond. Get real here.”
“I mean it’s not really the IDF’s fault that the ‘peaceful demonstrators’ didn’t know how to properly blow things up and ended up blowing themselves up, but mines were basically blowing up right on the border.”
To summarize the conversation, readers are meant to blame the Syrian protesters for the IDF shooting. Apparently, they came bearing gifts of Molotov cocktails and played cat-and-mouse with Israeli soldiers in a field of landmines. Then the protesters proceeded in forcing the soldiers to shoot upwards of twenty Arabs in order to make headline news in Syria. When the fun finished, each protester traveled to a Hezbollah hideout to collect $1,000 each for participating in a concerted effort to take over Israel.
But it gets worse: this ridiculous concoction is reproduced in a feature editorial. [Read more...]