coffeefrenchandhistory

[coffeefrenchandhistory]

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[coffeefrenchandhistory]

friggin faux-Palestinian history, istg

I'm in the middle of writing a post about the difficulties of pinning down details and dates in Palestinian history. This one is just me stopping to vent for a sec.

I came across the Wikipedia page for GUPS, the General Union of Palestinian Students. This is an organization with groups at colleges all over the world. Ish. It's shrunk over the decades.

The page made a bold claim: that GUPS was officially founded in Cairo in 1959, but had really started in the 1920s.

I called bullshit. The only source cited was a dead link to the 2010 version of the SFSU GUPS page, which said the same thing -- no context, no source, and especially, no explanation of how Palestinian student organizing could have started before there were colleges or universities in Palestine.

There were two. They were tiny. And they both taught in Hebrew.

Certainly, there could have been Arab Palestinian students there, who learned Hebrew there, or already knew it.

But were there so many that they started a student group that apparently lasted 35+ years before getting a name??

I could not find one other source for this.

So I deleted it and called bullshit.

Within a day, someone who wasn't even logged in reverted my edit. They told me that I hadn't proven that it was wrong, I'd just said it was illogical.

I started looking up sources and putting together a more detailed edit. In the meantime, I started a topic on the totally empty talk page, politely calling bullshit.

I said that I hadn't been able to find any sources in English OR Arabic that confirmed this claim, and that I thought it was an error made on a dead page.

The same person, now logged in, replied:

"you still haven't refuted the claim. the claim is still on their web page."

BRUH.

IT'S AN ARCHIVE OF A DEAD PAGE. BY DEFINITION, IT DOESN'T CHANGE.

This is exactly how it feels to research any of this stuff.

Every single time, it turns out that people's unsourced online bullshit is absolutely wrong.

Every single time, people just respond by insisting on believing whatever claim some rando made on the internet.

The problem is not that Palestinian history doesn't exist, hasn't been written down, or hasn't been researched. Of fucking course it has!!

(I have literally seen people claiming the contrary in the most wild-ass fucking ways. Supposedly-pro-Palestinian people, acting like Palestinians are wooby powerless fuzzy babbies whose books were all stolen by the cruel Jews 80 years ago, who had no way to replace that historic knowledge, and who have just been standing around ever since. It is the most Western Paternalism shit ever, and it absolutely drives me up the wall.)

The problem is that this is a topic that a lot of people are passionate about. And unfortunately, a whole lot of people are unwilling to back down on literally anything that "feels" pro-Palestinian to them, whether it's true or not.

It's purely going on Vibes, but the Vibes themselves are based on how something compares to the Vibes they get from social media and stuff.

And those vibes are so extreme and vehement that any kind of pushback sounds like You Love Genocide And Kill Babies For Fun.

It's just a fucking vicious spiral.

It's like playing tennis against the tennis-ball-throwing machine. It's not a real game. Nobody is engaging with you. It's just the same shit over and over.

(I was trying to type "shot." But apparently I swear so much that instead of autocorrecting me to "ducking hell," my phone now INSISTS I meant to cuss.)

I ended up getting Google to give me the Arabic for GUPS, and then digging for sources about its actual origin.

It turns out Yasser Arafat formed the Palestinian Students League in Cairo in 1949, and that became GUPS in 1956. This is entirely fucking unsurprising in any way if you know anything at all about actual Palestinian history. Of fucking course he did. This also explains why the first search result I found about GUPS was from the PLO. Of fucking course it was.

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Ashkenazi here. Yeah. My folks had to get tested for Tay-Sachs before they had me and my brother.

Sephardi Jewish culture is only know hearing about the blood tests Ashkis have to take?!

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I know it's been over a week since Simchat Torah, but I have thoughts so I'm writing them now. First of all, this was probably my most meaningful Simchat Torah thus far. It was my first time celebrating with my university's Chabad and it was great to be dancing and singing with everyone.

However, the way the celebration was advertised was with things like "we're going to dance again" and "we'll dance for them". I follow a few different university Chabads, as well as a few Chabads from near where I grew up. All of their Simchat Torah posts had the same message.

Simchat Torah is special for two reasons (well, for many reasons, but I'm bringing up two). Firstly, it's supposed to be the happiest day on the Jewish calendar. Not just a happy day. The happiest. Second, it's not a "despite" holiday. What I mean by that is it isn't one of the "they tried to kill us, we survived, let's eat/celebrate" holidays. Simchat Torah is about the joy of being Jewish, the joy of having the Torah. It's a celebration directly between us and Hashem. There is no "despite". (Of course, I am not a rabbi or a scholar, so if I'm wrong in this feel free to correct me, but this is what I was taught.)

What Hamas did was turn the happiest day on the Jewish calendar into the eternal anniversary of a tragedy. What Hamas did was take this holiday that was about our joy and love of Torah and being Jewish, and turned it into a "despite" holiday.

This is yet another thing they stole from us.

We dance despite what happened. We sing despite our heartbreak.

I found myself thinking, will Simchat Torah ever be untainted again? Will it ever stop being a "despite" holiday again?

Will we ever dance without thinking of those who couldn't, and never will again? Will we ever dance without thinking of those who were taken from us, either killed or not yet returned?

We will dance again, but will we dance the same?

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You've been sent out to defeat a powerful, reality bending god. All have died horrifically trying. And here you are in front of the crying god as they complain about how you just shot them.

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alliedvoicesforisrael

Stood with allies (including our friend @bellerose.ryan) and students at the weekly rally at Bathurst and Sheppard in Toronto today. 🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱 So proud of our community and community incredible leaders who continue to show up not just for Israel - but for Canada, our values, and our way of life. The haters came to spread their propaganda and it only made strengthened our resolve. See you there next week and AM YISRAEL CHAI!!!

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Golems are Jewish, you don't get to take Jewish folklore figures out of the context of Jewish oppression, prosecution and trauma and remove all traces of Jewish history and the pain they came out of because you think they're "cool" or "aesthetic".

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can’t get over when famous gangster lucky luciano was like “hey lansky seems like quite a hassle getting all those nazis offa your terf you want us to help ya out” and meyer “Left Russia Because of Pogroms and Became A Gangster In The US” lansky was like “no. no getting to beat the shit out of nazis is reward enough for us. sorry lucky this one’s personal don’t worry about it”

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LMFAO

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"You were in my dreams last night" yeah our souls have been clawing through our chests to get to each other since we met but I'm glad you noticed

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Reminder that Shani Louk's family set up a website with her tattoo designs so people can get tattoos in honor of her