AHEAD OF THE United Nations Security Council action to consider the Palestinian Authority’s application to become a full member of the international body, the United States is lobbying nations to reject such membership, hoping to avoid an overt “veto” by Washington. The lobbying effort, revealed in copies of unclassified State Department cables obtained by The Intercept, is at odds with the Biden administration’s pledge to fully support a two-state solution. In 2012, the U.N. General Assembly passed a resolution granting Palestine the status of a non-member observer state. The diplomatic cables detail pressure being applied to members of the Security Council, including Malta, the rotating president of the council this month. Ecuador in particular is being asked to lobby Malta and other nations, including France, to oppose U.N. recognition. The State Department’s justification is that normalizing relations between Israel and Arab states is the fastest and most effective way to achieve an enduring and productive statehood. While clarifying that President Joe Biden has worked vigorously to support “Palestinian aspirations for statehood” within the context “of a comprehensive peace that would resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” a diplomatic cable dated April 12 details U.S. talking points against a U.N. vote for Palestinian statehood. The cable says that Security Council members must be persuaded to reject any proposal for Palestinian statehood — and thereby its recognition as a sovereign nation — before the council’s open debate on the Middle East, scheduled for April 18. “It remains the U.S. view that the most expeditious path toward a political horizon for the Palestinian people is in the context of a normalization agreement between Israel and its neighbors,” the cable reads. “We believe this approach can tangibly advance Palestinian goals in a meaningful and enduring way.” “We therefore urge you not to support any potential Security Council resolution recommending the admission of ‘Palestine’ as a U.N. member state, should such a resolution be presented to the Security Council for a decision in the coming days and weeks.”

🚨 Students at Harvard University launched an encampment in support of Gaza in Harvard Yard moments ago, calling for an end to Harvard's moral and material complicity in the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people.

Harvard has invested over $200 million of its over $51 billion endowment in companies with ties to zionist settlements in the West Bank, while most of its investments to the zionist entity are kept secret.

The students are demanding financial transparency regarding investments related to the zionist entity, as well as genocide and occupation in Palestine; divestment from these investments and reinvestment in Palestine; and dropping all charges against student activists.

The University has suppressed student voices in support of Palestine time and time again, suspending the Palestine Solidarity Committee just this week on baseless grounds. They have also enabled attacks on pro-Palestinian students from the media and politicians. Today, the students say enough is enough, and that they will no longer tolerate their institution's support for genocide.

This brings the number of ongoing encampments to 19, with more to come.

A word from Bisan to the students of the U.S. in their campus solidarity encampments.

Please take the time to read and share this🙏

Together we will make a difference

For every ‘Free Congo’ item purchased, we donate directly to a globalgiving.org project dedicated to rescuing and rehabilitating these children, offering them a path towards a brighter, hope-filled future.

platforming palestinian joy is just as important as sharing the suffering they're enduring during this genocide. despite continued displacement and bombardment, you cannot steal their joy and spirit. happy birthday to this sweet baby 🖤🇵🇸 may they grow up to see a free palestine

edit: @saffronlesbian made a video description for this post!!

[vd: a screen recording of a tweet from the 20th of April 2024 with 2.5 million views, from Ruhi @/ruhi_hi. the caption reads, "This video of this little Palestinian angel celebrating his bday in a refugee camp" followed by three emoji of a smiling face with teary eyes. the video clip is 11 seconds long and shows a one-year-old baby seated on the sandy ground, smiling hugely and clapping his hands while people sing to him from offscreen and a large cake is placed in front of him. stuck into the top of the cake is a decoration that reads "happy birthday" in english. the video has the tiktok handle @/ibrahim.jamal99 visible in it. /end vd.]

HAPPENING NOW: texas state troopers are menacing a pro palestine protest on ut austin's campus. AN ENCAMPMENT HASNT EVEN BEEN ESTABLISHED YET

edit: last i heard at least 15 protesters, and a member of the press, have been arrested. although i wouldn't be surprised if that number is much higher now. you can donate to the bail support at: venmo @psc_atx you can also call 512-854-9889 to demand all arrested comrades are released, ut austin's palestine solidarity committee posted a call script on instagram that you can follow.

I know this is a personal/fan blog but this man reached out to me despite being a stranger.

His family are trapped in Gaza. As things are becoming rapidly worse, I wanted to share his campaign here so they may have a better chance.

Please donate if you can!!

If you can’t than please share this post so it can reach more people

I know this strays away from my usual content, but I feel it's important to post about this.

Ehab Rida, founder of the GazaDirectAid account on Twitter, along with his team of volunteers, have put together a toy distribution project for the Gazan children who has been displaced in Rafah.

It goes without saying that play is an extremely important part of healthy development for children, and when Palestinian children are having to live through a genocide that is stripping their childhoods and innocence away from them, it's only become even more important for these kids to not only have methods of distracting themselves from the horrors happening to them, but to also have ways to continue experiencing joy and happiness despite what's happening to them.

Please, donate what you can to the GazaDirectAid relief program- Ehab is doing amazing stuff through his work and I highly encourage lending as much support as you can.

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!

Gaza's municipality is trying to raise money to fix and restore Gaza's water system. Please support them by boosting and/or donating

Two ongoing digital games bundles are offering more than 200 tabletop RPGs (among video games, soundtracks, books and other goodies) in order to raise money in support of the Palestine Children’s Relief Funds. The Palestinian Relief Bundle is being hosted on Itch.io, while the separate TTRPGs for Palestine Charity Bundle is taking place on Tiltify. For $8, the Palestinian Relief Bundle is offering nearly 400 total items, 103 of which are tabletop RPG systems, supplements and adventures. Mapmaking game Ex Novo is joined by the paranormal gunslinging satire FIST: Ultra Edition, along with Takuma Okada’s celebrated solo journaling game Alone on a Journey. Weird and dirty iconoclast game about money, the mind and everything else, Greed by Gormenghast is also on this list and is well worth a look. And if you’d rather keep it cosy and introspective, Cassi Mothwin’s Clean Spirit will get the whole group taking care of their domestic homes. The TTRPGs for Palestine Charity Bundle focuses solely on analogue games, providing nearly 200 tabletop games for $15. A full spreadsheet of the included titles can be viewed here and includes Nevyn Holme’s Gun&Slinger, where one player embodies an occult cowboy while the second plays their sentient, magical gun. Wendi Yu’s Here, There, Be Monsters! approaches monster hunting media from the other side of the camera with a decidedly queer lens and unapologetic politics. Makapatag’s Gubat Banwa is a lush and dynamic collision of wuxia media, fiercely romantic and tragic melodrama all set against the backdrop and folklore of The Philippines.

nobuddy feels like they have a sharp attention span these days, right? and we all just click “agree on terms of service” because its hard to love yourself sometimes, well

enter Terms of Service, Didn’t Read: a website and a browser addon that streamlines the terms of service of many popular web services to be read by the tech sunday drivers.

It’s graded from A (great) to E (awful) and if you have the addon you have access to the info about the website on your bar

On that note, I want to spotlight the fundraiser for an Afro-Palestinian journalist, and Lama Jamous' uncle. He has less of a following amongst allies because he posts almost entirely in Arabic, so I'm going to spotlight him on my blog and put him on the fundraiser list as well.

And please follow him on IG as well, even if you only speak English he has small captions on the videos he posts that translate his Arabic.

it is so incredibly sad to constantly see kids on instagram and tiktok who are younger than my brother have to literally beg for shelter, food, water, medicine, and their right to exist as human beings

i mean, this young girl is only ten years old, yet she is essentially responsible for convincing random people scrolling through instagram that her and her family’s life are worth fighting for

on top of that, their gofundme is not even 10% funded and time is running out, please if you can’t donate, just share

please don’t let this little girl die begging

government is trying to ban tiktok meanwhile millions of poor and disabled americans are about to completely lose their internet access at the end of april because congress wont renew funding for the affordable connectivity program

hell fucking world