🎉 Thank You So Much To Everyone Who Donated And Shared Our GoFundMe! We’ve Hit $6700, And We Couldn’t

I realised i never shared these kitrs

so full of joy and happiness

blood version under the cut

A pro-Palestine Jew on tiktok asked those of us who were raised pro-Israel, what got us to change our minds on Palestine. I made a video to answer (with my voice, not my face), and a few people watched it and found some value in it. I'm putting this here too. I communicate through text better than voice.

So I feel repetitive for saying this at this point, but I grew up in the West Bank settlements. I wrote this post to give an example of the extent to which Palestinians are dehumanized there.

Where I live now, I meet Palestinians in day to day life. Israeli Arab citizens living their lives. In the West Bank, it was nothing like that. Over there, I only saw them through the electric fence, and the hostility between us and Palestinians was tangible.

When you're a child being brought into the situation, you don't experience the context, you don't experience the history, you don't know why they're hostile to you. You just feel "these people hate me, they don't want me to exist." And that bubble was my reality. So when I was taught in school that everything we did was in self defense, that our military is special and uniquely ethical because it's the only defensive military in the world - that made sense to me. It slotted neatly into the reality I knew.

One of the first things to burst the bubble for me was when I spoke to an old Israeli man and he was talking about his trauma from battle. I don't remember what he said, but it hit me wrong. It conflicted with the history as I understood it. So I was a bit desperate to make it make sense again, and I said, "But everything we did was in self defense, right?"

He kinda looked at me, couldn't understand at all why I was upset, and he went, "We destroyed whole villages. Of course we did. It was war, that's what you do."

And that casual "of course" stuck with me. I had to look into it more.

I couldn't look at more accurate history, and not at accounts by Palestinians, I was too primed against these sources to trust them. The community I grew up in had an anti-intellectual element to it where scholars weren't trusted about things like this.

So what really solidified this for me, was seeing Palestinian culture.

Because part of the story that Israel tells us to justify everything, is that Palestinians are not a distinct group of people, they're just Arabs. They belong to the nations around us. They insist on being here because they want to deny us a homeland. The Palestinian identity exists to hurt us. This, because the idea of displacing them and taking over their lands doesn't sound like stealing, if this was never theirs and they're only pretending because they want to deprive us.

But then foods, dances, clothing, embroidery, the Palestinian dialect. These things are history. They don't pop into existence just because you hate Jews and they're trying to move here. How gorgeous is the Palestinian thobe? How stunning is tatreez in general? And when I saw specific patterns belonging to different regions of Palestine?

All of these painted for me a rich shared life of a group of people, and countered the narrative that the Palestininian identity was fabricated to hurt us. It taught me that, whatever we call them, whatever they call themselves, they have a history in this land, they have a right to it, they have a connection to it that we can't override with our own.

I started having conversations with leftist friends. Confronting the fact that the borders of the occupied territories are arbitrary and every Israeli city was taken from them. In one of those conversations, I was encouraged to rethink how I imagine peace.

This also goes back to schooling. Because they drilled into us, we're the ones who want peace, they're the ones who keep fighting, they're just so dedicated to death and killing and they won't leave us alone.

In high school, we had a stadium event with a speaker who was telling us about a person who defected from Hamas, converted to Christianity and became a Shin Bet agent. Pretty sure you can read this in the book "Son of Hamas." A lot of my friends read the book, I didn't read it, I only know what I was told in that lecture. I guess they couldn't risk us missing out on the indoctrination if we chose not to read it.

One of the things they told us was how he thought, we've been fighting with them for so long, Israelis must have a culture around the glorification of violence. And he looked for that in music. He looked for songs about war. And for a while he just couldn't find any, but when he did, he translated it more fully, and he found out the song was about an end to wars. And this, according to the story as I was told it, was one of the things that convinced him. If you know know the current trending Israeli "war anthem," you know this flimsy reasoning doesn't work.

Back then, my friend encouraged me to think more critically about how we as Israelis envision peace, as the absence of resistance. And how self-centered it is. They can be suffering under our occupation, but as long as it doesn't reach us, that's called peace. So of course we want it and they don't.

Unless we're willing to work to change the situation entirely, our calls for peace are just "please stop fighting back against the harm we cause you."

In this video, Shlomo Yitzchak shares how he changed his mind. His story is much more interesting than mine, and he's much more eloquent telling it. He mentions how he was taught to fear Palestinians. An automatic thought, "If I go with you, you'll kill me." I was taught this too. I was taught that, if I'm in a taxi, I should be looking at the driver's name. And if that name is Arab, I should watch the road and the route he's taking, to be prepared in case he wants to take me somewhere to kill me. Just a random person trying to work. For years it stayed a habit, I'd automatically look at the driver's name. Even after knowing that I want to align myself with liberation, justice, and equality. It was a process of unlearning.

On October, not long after the current escalation of violence, I had to take a taxi again. A Jewish driver stopped and told me he'll take me, "so an Arab doesn't get you." Israeli Jews are so comfortable saying things like this to each other. My neighbors discussed a Palestinian employee, with one saying "We should tell him not to come anymore, that we want to hire a Jew." The second answered, "No, he'll say it's discrimination," like it would be so ridiculous of him. And the first just shrugged, "So we don't have to tell him why." They didn't go through with it, but they were so casual about this conversation.

In the Torah, we're told to treat those who are foreign to us well, because we know what it's like to be the foreigner. Fighting back against oppression is the natural human thing to do. We know it because we lived it. And as soon as I looked at things from this angle, it wasn't really a choice of what to support.

my estimation is that the reason the calls for global strike tomorrow (dec 11th) seem uncoordinated is because they're coming from inside palestine and were shared by palestinians inside palestine instead of being organized independently by each country. they seem most focused within the west bank and jordan.

however, we've seen a lot of people worldwide take up this call and several organizers within the US and other countries do it in their own way. one of the primary asks is to just disrupt the global market. if you can't call in sick and must go to work, then don't use your credit card tomorrow. some have said don't log into facebook and instagram—sure. that too. if you can participate in protests after work instead, do that. if you are not an essential worker, if you can shut down a store, and bookstore, if you have a small business, make sure to let people know you are not working because you are striking for palestine. if you're a student and you can, don't go to class. if you're a teacher and you can, call in sick. if you have exams (as many do) you can just refrain from buying anything, join a protest after, or share the boycott news. one student not showing up may not do much—three students not showing up reminds people that there's a strike. talking about it, even if you won't participate in it, helps. talking about it, even just to say "oh there's supposed to be a strike today" helps.

it is a flexible form of disruption. the priority is disrupting businesses and the flow of commerce, so more than not going to work, not using your credit card is far more important.

consider this a trial run in disruption on behalf of those inside palestine. yes bigger and more organized global strikes that can coordinate with local groups are needed. but small chain reactions like this also create disruption, increase pressure, and remind people that the genocide is on-going. they also build up to bigger and more sustained strikes.

Hey everyone, please consider buying the 2024 itch.io Palestinian Relief Bundle- it's 373 games, game-making assets, tabletop roleplaying games, zines, and comics for a minimum of just 8 USD! They have a goal of 100,000 USD, and as of the time I'm writing this post, they have 8 more days to reach it.

Link will be in the reblog!

‼️‼️

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.

Here is the fabled beetlesona (well... technically just an oc)(or is it?), this is just concept art because I'm still messing around with the vest and colours. Hope you enjoy them

more background colours + bonus doodle under the cut

Some stuff when I accidentally added a colour mask

A title card for them

today marks day 111 of the genocide in gaza.

and i need you all to keep in mind just how dire the situation in gaza is right now. and to keep talking about it. now is not the time to turn away.

today i want to talk about khalil again. yesterday, khalil posted about how his aunt passed away and they went to the graveyard to bury her, only to find thousands of tents in the cemetery. the people living as refugees in rafah have been so jam packed that they’ve started sheltering at the cemetery.

in a heartbreaking sentence, khalil says “they are living in the cemetery, waiting for their time to be buried”. can you imagine the situation one has to be in to say something like that?

not only do the gazans not have a safe place to live, they are also starving and suffering from diseases and lack of medication. in fact, that’s the cause of khalil’s aunt’s death—bad food and no medicine.

the people of gaza barely have food to eat. the children have to clean dirt and insects off animal feed before milling it to make food. medicine isn’t coming into the gaza strip. there are pharmacies all around but none can help because they do not have the means to. why?

because israel consistently denies shipments of vital aid. in fact, according to the UN, israel recently added insulin pens for children to the list of prohibited items that are not allowed into gaza. this list also includes other medicines for chronic illnesses are also not allowed [here is the full press conference for anyone who’s interested].

this claim is also backed by the report journalist motaz azaiza was making as he was evacuating gaza of a plethora of aid trucks waiting at the border to enter gaza. and for the little bit of aid that is available to gazans? yesterday the israeli military opened fire at starving citizens who were queueing to get aid in northern gaza.

there are too many heartbreaking stories coming out of gaza; there is at least one per person, in a population of 2.2M people. i urge you to not turn away from hearing their stories and facing the reality of the crimes being committed against them by israeli occupation forces.

whatever anyone else might say, whatever the verdict of tomorrow’s hearing may be… i want you to remember that what’s happening in gaza is nothing short of a genocide—a collective total of 33,360 deaths, and 64,150 injured. don’t let them just be numbers. these are people.

people who are not just being killed in cold blood, but are also being starved. they are being tortured physically and psychologically. they are being subjected to illnesses with no treatment given. they are being subjected to eating things like grass, immature food, expired food. read the euro med monitor report for the full picture of the destruction happening in gaza at the hands of the israeli occupation forces.

this is a genocide. this is one of, if not the deadliest war crimes we’ve seen in the 21st century.

i am so heartbroken i barely have the energy to type today. please call for an end to all of this, for a permanent ceasefire. and subsequently an end to the israeli occupation.

we cannot leave the palestinians to fend for themselves and continue being oppressed directly or indirectly by their oppressors and colonisers. this occupation must end. palestine must be freed in its entirety.

من المية للمية

ACTIONS YOU CAN TAKE

please especially send donations to help supply aid and food to gazans. especially to the organisations working within gaza. it’s not like there isn’t any food at all. gaza is not a barren land. the food is just inaccessible and very expensive and unaffordable for most gazans (if you follow journalist muhammad smiry, you’ll see he posts a lot about the atrocious prices of food in gaza). so your donations help people purchase food in bulk within gaza and supply to the civilians.

answering a couple questions i got on this post since i realized ppl genuinely wanna know:

tl;dr:

israel lets very, very little aid get into gaza. even the UN can't get in as much as they want to. funding individual families, gazan led initiatives, and mutual aid collectives operating out of gaza ensures gazans can provide for themselves and pay for the extremely expensive aid that is available.

with all the civil infrastructure destroyed by israel, the situation on the ground has devolved into unrestricted capitalism, driving up the price of aid (that should be free!). this makes it more urgent for people to have funding for daily survival.

the post linked above has examples of how donating to individual families can help a lot. if you want to help more than one family at a time, there are many gazan-led initiatives focusing on rebuilding their infrastructure and distributing aid fairly that are worth donating to instead of large charities that already get the majority of donations.

as i mentioned in the last post: @/careforgaza on twitter is a nonprofit started by gazans, it's been endorsed by multiple palestinian journalists.

the sameer project is a collective organized by diaspora palestinians offering emergency shelter to gazans.

ele elna elak is a project aiming to bring water, food, shelter, etc. to gazans and has been promoted by bisan owda.

and the municipality of gaza itself is fundraising to rebuild water infrastructure.

all of these organizations are active inside gaza right now and are being run by gazans. if anyone knows of other gazan-led mutual aid projects, nonprofits or charities feel free to link them in the notes! hope this helped!

long answers under the cut!

if you wanna donate to a charity that's absolutely fine, but the thing is most charities (and even the UN!) are unable to make it into gaza in the first place, leaving aid rotting at the egyptian side of the border or subject to israeli settler attacks

not to mention, charities and nonprofits also maintain a paternalistic colonial relationship with the indigenous people they are trying to help, determining what aid they need for them instead of returning power to them and letting them make their own choices

i'm not here to say that one option is better than the other, just that they achieve different things and are equally legitimate. there's an attitude among people who question the legitimacy of these gofundme campaigns that somehow the people promoting them are telling them not to donate to charities. nobody is stopping you from donating to charities. we are just asking that you do not dehumanize the very real gazans in your inbox just because their method of asking for aid is more direct and risky.

unfortunately that's exactly what has happened. because israel destroyed all of gaza's more formalized infrastructure, it seems that organized crime and rampant inflation has taken its place. aid is supposed to be free, but in order to save for evacuation or the cost of living, people have started selling them at an inflated price. and aid that is truly free attracts intense, large crowds that are dangerous to navigate.

this was posted on abc a few days ago

it's pure, unrestrained capitalism. i've had multiple palestinians describe this situation to me confidence. that's why everything's so expensive now. why people have to rent out tiny plots of land for their tents to sit on, why my friend @siraj2024 still has to buy tarps to cover the broken windows of the overpriced bombed out apartment he rented, and why a bag of flour can cost a thousand bucks in the north.

even before israel closed and then bombed the rafah crossing, the egyptian hala travel agency was only allowing people to cross the border if they paid a hefty $5000 USD per adult / $2500 USD per child bribe. it denies doing this, but the hundreds of stories from palestinians say otherwise.

with regard to the economy, here in america we saw something similar happen in the wake of hurricane helene and milton. the podcaster margaret killjoy describes how she saw dual economies rise after asheville was fully cut off from the rest of the country - some people offered each other supplies for free in a sort of mutual aid honor system, and some people required payment when they lent supplies because they themselves needed to buy stuff for their families. these dual economies exist in gaza too. and this means they all still need money to survive.

🚨⏰ Attention Please 🙏🚨

Dear friends and compassionate supporters,

This is Eman Zaqout, from Occupied Gaza, Palestine. I am a Biotechnologist ,🩸💉 and scientific researcher contacting you at a really desperate moment.

I am seeking your assistance to raise funds for saving our lives, facing the starvation in Gaza and help me achieve my doctoral degree dream after being awarded OWSD PhD Fellowship for inspirational women.🍉👩‍🎓

Just like any motivated and loving life woman, and for years, I poured my heart and soul into my work at Al-Shifa Hospital and Turkish Palestinian Friendship Hospital, as Biotechnology Specialist serving cancer patients with compassion and skill.💪🤍

[ photos of Turkish Palestinian Friendship Hospital before and after the IDF destruction ]

[ photos of Al-Shifa Hospital before and after the IDF destruction]

I also gave medical lectures to students at different universities and training centers in Gaza👇☑

As a result of my outstanding grades in my study and the excellent performance in my job, I have been a holder of different scholarship and I am active participant in many research visits and scientific missions. 👩‍🔬The last scholarship as at McGill University in Canada three months ago before the starting of the genocide in Gaza.😥

However,😥

My life changed dramatically when Israeli military launched a sweeping war against Gaza. My home and our neighborhood in the North have been destroyed along with our belongings and precious memories early in this crisis.😭💔

My job and my husband's job are gone. Israeli military forced us to evacuate from the north Gaza to the south where they claimed it would be the safe zone but it is not at all. Our sweet home and neighborhood have been destroyed.

Forced to flee with nothing but the clothes on our backs, today, we find ourselves sheltering in a displacement camp lacking access to sanitation, medical supplies, food and drinkable water. I will not talk a lot about the dire and unbearable life we have to go through, as no word can express it fairly😔

The good news in the midst of this tragedy, that I am one of the 22 women from the developing world who have been awarded OWSD- PhD fellowship to pursue my PhD study in Malaysia🍉💪. But now I am stuck in Gaza unable to achieve my dream because Israeli army has occupied and closed all the border crossings 😭💔

Meet 22 fellows awarded OWSD PhD fellowship

This genocide has been more than a year of hell and horror. We have reached a point where there is no hope left for us here in Gaza, where we are unfortunately just waiting for our turn to die.

Nevertheless,

I refuse to succumb to despair, holding on to the belief that brighter days lie ahead.

With your kindness and generosity🥺, I hope to survive the genocide and reclaim the path to achieving my doctorate 💉🩸

Your compassionate aid would mean the world to me and my family.🥺🙏❤🇵🇸✌

Please note that our campaign is vetted

Thanks @90-ghost.. link here

Thanks @dlxxv-vetted-donations.. link here

Thanks @northgazaupdates2.. link here

Thanks @aces-and-angels.. link here

gofundme.com

Donate to Help my family survive famine and have secure life, organized by Mazin Fakak

Dear friends, family, and compassionate supporters, My name is Eman Za… Mazin Fakak needs your support for Help my family survive famine an

Dont skip 🔴

I am Falestine, Jad Al-Haq, I am 36 years old, married, and I have a three-month-old child named Youssef. I gave birth to him during the war during very harsh conditions that no human being can bear. I moved from the hospital immediately after giving birth to the tent in which we were staying after we were displaced to it after the Israeli bulldozers completely bulldozed my house.  Kamel has become featureless, and my suffering did not start from here. Rather, it began since the beginning of the war, and I am still suffering. I cannot provide enough milk for my baby or diapers. Even medicines and vitamins are not available.

I ask you for your urgent help in disseminating the link to my family and communicating it to people interested and able to help us.  I didn't want to do it, but the tragic situation we are living in is what pushed me to do it.  I feel sad and helpless, after we had everything, we are now homeless on the streets, living in a tent next to a dilapidated public toilet and there is sewage, dirt and waste everywhere, we sleep on it!  We suffer from terrible heat, insects, scorpions, the danger of death, bombs and missiles, in addition to hunger of course, the danger of pollution and terrible diseases, especially the digestive, respiratory and reproductive systems!

.  My father and mother could not bear it any longer. My father had a stroke after losing his home and his place of work, and my mother suffers from chronic diseases and needs treatment.

  Do you have the right to imagine that when you spend your life building for yourself and your children to live a decent life, all of this disappears in the blink of an eye, and now when you reach the age where you should rest, you are forced to start again!!?  But the most important thing now is to try to survive and protect your children from all the factors of death that surround us!  I ask everyone who has humanity or conscience to feel our situation and put themselves in our place.  How can someone who has lived with dignity all his life accept this?  We are slowly dying every day.

Your donation, no matter how small, can have a big impact.  It can provide a meal for my little one, a clean bottle of water, or a moment of safety under these difficult circumstances.  Every donation brings with it a ray of hope, alleviating our suffering and giving us the strength to face a new day.

I ask you to donate and support the steadfastness of the Gazan people, and share this campaign with your friends and families.  Together, we can make a difference and help my family get through this ordeal.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart for your generosity and support.

Warm greetings,

Falestine

gofundme.com

Donate to Help Palestine and Family Survive the Gaza Crisis, organized by Jacob Thompson

Hello all, I am Palestine, Jad Al-Haq, I am 36 years old, married, a… Jacob Thompson needs your support for Help Palestine and Family Survi