softnora - Tumblr blog

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Palestine will be free. [context]

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FREE PALESTINE / END THE GENOCIDE ON GAZA

This piece was made to show support for Palestinians. This mountain gazelle was created with the colors of the flag and the meaningful patterning of the keffiyeh. 

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feminist_collages_nyc: Rest in Power Refaat Alareer

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really bold at this point to call what Israel is doing “self defense.” i didn’t realize schools, hospitals, refugee camps, journalists and children were all so dangerous.

personally i think if Israel is constantly having to “defend” itself, then maybe it was never safe to begin with. probably because they are occupying the land illegally, and putting Israeli settlers in dangerous situations in order to both shield themselves and to provoke Palestinians (who, unlike Israel, do have a right to resist.)

i just had this conversation recently with a few friends and im going to repeat it here: Israel is not safe for Jewish people, it is actively making it more dangerous for all Jewish people everywhere. it conflates Judaism with Zionism and anti-zionism with antisemitism, which many Jewish people have pointed out is actively harmful and dangerous [1] [2] [3]

Israel has made it so that the president of the US is now comfortable enough to publicly and proudly make thinly veiled antisemitic threats and abdicate responsibility of his Jewish citizens.

Israel is not safe for anyone who is critical of the government or sympathetic towards Palestinians, and they openly threaten and arrest any Israelis that are, especially Palestinian Israelis.

Israel even kills their own people (though it should be noted they did this because they assumed these people were Palestinian civilians instead), though they have previously shown no real care for the hostages that were taken, bombing them and shooting them along with everyone else, and with witnesses stating that the IOF opened fire indiscriminately on october 7th.

Israel does not care about you, or the Jewish people it claims to be defending. it is doing what it's doing now not out of a desire to protect Jewish people (if this were the case they never would have put Jewish settlers there to begin with) but because Zionists want Palestinians out of the way so they can expand without resistance.

to come at this in good faith, i want to say that i understand that it must be an incredible feeling as a minority, to go to a place where you can actually see yourself everywhere, to know that your neighbors and coworkers and even the cashier at the corner store is like you. i understand the desire to live somewhere where you feel like you can be unapologetically yourself, and i understand why it may feel safe. but that is not the reality. the reality is that a place like this, not just for Jewish people but for any group of people, can only exist through the displacement and dispossession of others. in Israel’s case, this is the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. do Palestinian people not also deserve to feel safe, do they not also deserve to befriend their neighbors and form communities and live freely?

the response to antisemitism should not be to send all Jewish people to Israel for “safety,” (what real safety comes at the expense of over 20,000 deaths?) it should be to push back and make them safe where they are now. part of this is calling out real antisemitism when you see it within our movement and holding people like Joe Biden accountable, but it also absolutely includes the end of the genocide, the end of the occupation, and the dismantling of the apartheid state of Israel. the hypothetical genocide that is being leveraged by Israel to fearmonger and scare you is exactly that, hypothetical, and expressly against the wishes of the Palestinian people - who are experiencing a real genocide right now, perpetrated by Israel and the United States.

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my family and i became refugees overnight.

im a young black woman trying to restart my life in the UAE with my family and we can use all the help we can get.

please consider helping a sudanese family that lost everything in the war.

thank you <3

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@nickikattoura

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In the words of Hala Alyan "we witness so that we may tell the truth"

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free palestine protest signs.

ceasefiretoday.com decolonizepalestine.com

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Gaza is currently in another communications blackout and getting heavy air strikes from Israel.

This is the third time Israel has cut Gaza off from communications before intensifying attacks.

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I had not heard about how well the Hamas prisoners were treated until i saw your post. That's not something mentioned in the news.

Yocheved Lifshitz, the hostage released by Hamas had made a statement that she “went through hell” referring to during the initial October 7th attack. The media took that statement and ran with it and made every headline that she went through hell while in Hamas captivity which once again twisted the narrative of how Hamas treats Israelis. What she actually said about her captivity is that she was treated well, given the same food as Hamas soldiers, received medical care and said she was treated gentley and all of her needs were provided, even things as small as shampoo. A member of Hamas told her that “they are people who believe in the Quran and wouldn’t hurt her.” When she was released, she shook one of her captor’s hands, because she knew she was treated as fairly as possible.

The recent stories of the released of Gazan labourers held captive in Israeli detention facilities is the complete opposite- they were tortured, abused, killed, and deprived of all necessities. They were “branded” with wristbands with a number on them for identification. When some were released, they were forced to walk all the way back to Gaza amidst bombings and attacks. All of their accounts detail days of physical and psychological torture.

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the men and boys are innocent too.

we cry "the innocent women and children" to appeal to the masses, to try and force their sympathy, but the men and boys are innocent too.

I have seen sons crying out for their mothers, their fathers, their siblings. I have seen them break down at the loss of their families. I have seen them cling to their dead and grieve.

I have seen fathers cradle their dead children, seen them kiss their faces and hold their little hands. I have seen them faint with grief when asked to identify the dead. I have seen them carry their sons and daughters. I have seen them fasting to provide what little they can for their families.

I have seen men and boys digging through the rubble with just their bare hands, I have seen them comforting strangers, playing with children, rocking them, hushing them, even if the face of such imminent danger. I have seen them cry, seen them grieve, seen them break down into each other's arms, seen them be selfless, beyond selfless, becoming something I don't have a word for.

I have seen the men who are doctors refuse to leave their patients, even when they have no medicine or supplies to give them, even when they're threatened with bombings. I have seen fathers who have lost all their children pick orphans up into their arms and proclaim them their child so they are not alone. I have seen men and boys digging pets out of the rubble.

the men are innocent too. the men and boys are being hurt and killed too. the men and boys are grieving too. the men and boys are scared too. the men and boys are fighting to save their people too. the men and boys deserve to be fought for too.

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you have the privilege to say that you find the genocide in gaza 'diffcult to watch', they are living it. you get defensive on how you can't "bear the news", they are living it. you "stay neutral" because you're ignorant as fuck and choose to support the oppressors

you scroll past it while they are living it

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thousands of new yorkers flood the brooklyn bridge for palestine. oct 28 2023 🇵🇸

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Palestine is NOT a trend. boycotting Israel-supporting companies is NOT a trend. your compassion for the innocent is NOT a trend. isreal was, is and WILL continue killing Palestinians and bombing Gaza for as long as the world is silent. do not stop talking about it. do not stop boycotting. never. stop.

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Murals and graffiti on the streets of Ireland in solidarity with the Palestinian people agaisnt settler-colonialism

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If you have 5 minutes, go watch this video. It might teach you something about how vile Israel is.