‘Against the racism and violence of the police.

A french mural in the honor of George Floyd and Adama Traore (who was killed by police via asphyxia during an arrest) against racism and police brutality.

Hamas was democratically elected — in elections foisted upon Gaza by the Bush administration in 2006 with the blithe assumption that the mainstream secular party Fatah would win, led by the United States’ proxy hard man there, Mohammed Dahlan. Years of corruption — not to mention torture and human rights abuses — meant that many Gazans had lost faith in Fatah by then and weren’t prepared to vote the way Washington wanted them to. Hamas had been a militant Islamic resistance movement, born in the late 1980s, partly from Israel’s occupation of Gaza, and since it was a highly religious party, many of us assumed that at least it would be less corrupt.

Unfortunately, we don’t get elections every four years in Gaza, and Hamas’s victory was something that Gazans soon learned to regret. Critics of the government regularly are beaten, sometimes half to death, and freedoms are restricted. But we haven’t had a chance to vote Hamas out of power; 2006 was the last election we had.

Which is perfect for the Israelis. Hamas, with its iron grip and rocket attacks, is the ideal hook on which to hang all blame. Its popularity has declined since 2006, though that has been buoyed lately — but that, too, actually is irrelevant. What Palestinians think of Hamas has nothing to do with what they think of the right to a legitimate resistance. And most of us believe in the latter. Who wouldn’t in our position?

If any party other than Hamas were in power in Gaza right now, it might have tried to lobby for international support for the Palestinians of East Jerusalem a few days or weeks longer before launching rockets on Israel. But seeing its fellow countrymen and women made homeless, time and time again, would ultimately have forced the hand of even a non-Hamas government in Gaza, either drawing it into the fight or making it so unpopular for not getting involved that it’d be forced out of power. That’s why to focus on Hamas is to miss the point, and to reinforce the myth that the conflict is, in some fundamental manner, about the group. The conflict is about the Israeli occupation.

I see many posts about how it's okay to have a bad day or a bad week or a bad month, and I want to add that it is also okay to have a bad year or several bad years. It's okay if it takes you longer than a day or a week to work through your problems - and even if you've been struggling for years, that doesn't mean your entire life is doomed. Sometimes it takes a year, or two years, or five years or more to get better and that is okay. It's okay if your recovery takes time. It doesn't mean you're failing.

I hate to talk about something so extremely severe but I just need to say it. I know the whole “why is nobody talking about this” thing is annoying but I really am starting to feel like I’m going insane over the fact that Tennessee recently passed a law (PASSED IT, not suggested it, not considering it, it’s FINALIZED) stating that businesses have to put up a WARNING SIGN if they are supportive of transgender people. A public warning sign stating that they allow trans people to use their facilities. And I’ve seen basically no mainstream acknowledgment of it at all, anywhere. Just other trans people expressing their fear and anger. Can we maybe acknowledge that for like, how deeply horrifying that actually is.

This is how the Israeli occupation arrests civilians in Palestine!

🇵🇸#Palestine

إعتقال فتاة فلسطينية بعد الاعتداء عليها في باب العامود بالقدس المحتلة.

|| Israeli occupation detained Palestinian girl after assaulting her at Damascus Gate in Jerusalem.

All of this talk of Hamas using “human shields” and hiding their “bases” in civilian bases and no mention of the fact that Israel’s central intelligence headquarters in literally located in a high traffic populated civilian area between a park and a shopping mall?

Don’t fall for their bullshit. Speak to an actual Palestinian in Gaza. You’d think if they were being used as human shields, if not only their lives but the lives of their ENTIRE family, their home, their livelihoods were at risk, that they’d be decrying what Hamas does.

Yet where do we continue to see the accusations of human shields? Exclusively by Israel.

You know what Gazans who HAVE spoken out against being used as human shields have to say? That it was the Israeli forces themselves using Palestinians as human shields. Something we /do/ have documented evidence about.

All this pro-Israel programming you’ve been fed? All of this Israeli propaganda you continue to promote?

ALL of it can be immediately undone by actually speaking to a Palestinian  yourself. We’re all over social media, we’re not hard to reach out to. Speak to us, speak to a Palestinian in Gaza. They’re desperate to actually share their plight.

- هي نهاية التطبيع ، هي نهاية لما تكون حافظ مش فاهم ، هي نهاية لما تحكي زي ال*** بِ اشي ما بتفهم فيه بس مشان شوية مصاري تنحط بتمك ، الله يخسف فيكم الأرض ونشوف حسرتكم على ولادكم زي ما بنتحسر على هالناس يلي بتستشهد ، جاي يوم تتحاسبوا فيه قدام ربنا على كل كلمة طلعت من تمكم ، وعلى كل نقطة دم نزلت ع الأرض من ورا رصاصكم ، من هون لوقتها ربنا يفرجينا فيكم عجايب الأرض يا الله

فلسطين حرّة عربية أبية غصب عن أكبر راس فيكم 🇵🇸✌🏿.

Reblog it ! Let the world see their dirty truth!

#gazaunderattack

#savesheikhjarrah

‼‼‼

📍Gaza-غزّةَ.

Ahmad, a 28-year-old Palestinian man with special needs, holds one of several rescue kitten he cares for, on a side street after evacuating his home earlier to a safer area due to Israeli air raids in Gaza City.

أحمد ، فلسطيني يبلغ من العمر 28 عامًا من ذوي الاحتياجات الخاصة ، يحمل واحدة من عدة قطط قام بإنقاذها من القصف ، ويعتني بها في شارع جانبي بعد إخلاء منزله في وقت سابق بسبب الغارات الجوية الإسرائيلية على مدينة غزة.

Özel ihtiyaçları olan 28 yaşındaki Filistinli Ahmed, İsrail'in Gazze'deki hava saldırıları nedeniyle daha önce evini güvenli bir bölgeye tahliye etmişti. Baktığı birkaç kediden birini kurtararak ara sokakta bakımlarına devam etmeye çabalıyor.

@vivien.sansour

Israel did not exist until 73 years ago when they were a settler colony that took over Palestine and have been violently maintaining their position ever since. If you don’t know this history here is a good primer to get you started: instagram.com/p/CNz9-5tMkso/…

Funny how right wing folk were mad at rioters/looters in the Floyd protests, and depicted property as being more important than Black lives. You kept saying people need the 2nd Amendment to protect themselves from this. Then when Palestinians (which includes Afro Palestinians) tried to defend themselves from having THEIR property/land stolen, that attitude switched up fast. And what both these situations share is that for the few protests that did get violent (93% were peaceful), they were escalated because of the police/IOF. And the people doing the looting were largely not Black people. Not a surprise though because gun ownership was only a problem when it was the Black Panthers who had them, not white people. 🥴

A massage from a Palestinian child in Gaza :