#so many people in the west don't even know the difference between gaza and the west bank and yet decide that they need to be in the center

[iamnmbr3]

"They didn’t just go after Jewish targets...Amazingly, they also attacked the Jordanian and Palestinian Authority UN missions, probably the two most important official venues in New York City for promoting the Palestinian cause, but both opposed by...Hamas and PFLP."

Hate and violence are not activism. All this does is undermine and smear the efforts of REAL activists working towards peaceful and equitable solutions and focusing their efforts on helping vulnerable people rather than spreading bigotry and fear.

Some people in the West seem focused on using this conflict as an excuse to form violent mobs and don't seem to know the first thing about true activism and, just like Hamas, apparently don't actually care about Palestine and are just using the suffering of the Palestinian people to further their own hateful goals. Hamas has brutally oppressed the people of Gaza since seizing control following Israel's withdrawal in 2005.

People who care about supporting Hamas or who just want to use allegedly "supporting Palestine" as an excuse to attack and harass Jews are despicable and are an insult to all Palestinian people and to the work of the true activists working to help Palestinian people in Gaza and the West Bank. Supporting Hamas is not the same as supporting Palestine and anyone who claims otherwise is just supporting oppression and making things worse.

[kilibaggins]

WAYS TO HELP PALESTINE. FREE PALESTINE. DO WHAT YOU CAN.

I apologize for not being active to speak up this week during the strike like I've tried to be in the past. I'm not as active on Tumblr as I am on Twitter so it slipped my mind to be posting here about things since I usually don't post here in general.

I decided I'd make a post sharing different ways that you can help the people of Gaza, including ways to do so without donating to the families in need directly. This list includes options that are possible without money along with things that you can give money to to help. Even if you can't give money, you CAN spread the word for all of these things for free and while helping. Your voice matters.

ARAB.ORG

The first way that you (yes. you!) can help is by following the link below to be able to do a daily click that is able to help the people of Palestine. There will also be a link to their information on how it works if you're interested in that. Not only can you click to help Palestine, you can also click to help other causes which helps in general as well.

CLICK TO HELP

HOW IT WORKS

HIND'S HALL BY MACKLEMORE

"If the west was pretending that you didn't exist, you'd want the word to stand up, and the Students finally did."

You may have heard of Macklemore's new song HIND'S HALL, written about the current atrocities happening to the people in Gaza and in support of the students protesting, but did you know that the money that comes from streaming the song is going to UNRWA? You can stream this song for free and all the proceeds will be going to UNRWA (which, by the way, you can donate to directly: HERE).

I've heard from many comments and posts that the streams only count on Spotify if 1.) It is not completely muted, and 2.) There's a song (or two) played in between. This way Spotify will count each stream as a stream towards the song and allow for Macklemore to donate the proceeds.

HIND'S HALL - MACKLEMORE [Spotify] (Also on Youtube, Amazon Music, Apple Music, and Others)

CREATORS FOR PALESTINE!

There's also the Creators for Palestine Fundraiser! A ton of different creators, including some of my favorites, are getting together to raise money for the PCRF (and more!).

"Creators for Palestine is raising money for Palestine Children's Relief Fund, a registered 501 non-governmental organization established in 1992."

"With the current state Gaza is in, we are looking to urgently raise $1M to address humanitarian needs and immediate relief, including providing essential medical treatment/supplies, food, clean water, and other necessities for families affected by the genocide."

While you may not be able to donate to them, amplifying their voices, amplifying posts about this fundraiser, etc. Can help spread the word enough that more people CAN donate.

CHADCHAD'S TWEET

JARVIS JOHNSON'S TWEET

FUNDRAISER LINK

WATCH VIDEOS

Speaking of creators, creators on TikTok have made it their goal to donate funds made by you watching their videos, listening to their sounds, etc. Search on TikTok to find these videos, these creators, these sounds, and interact as much as possible. You can do this by especially going through the Pass The Hat Hashtag and helping those who are speaking up about specific families in need.

#PASSTHEHAT on TikTok

Now, onto places, organizations, and people you can donate to.

PASS THE HAT

Speaking of Pass The Hat, I will link to a video by a creator on TikTok named Erin who has started this wonderful initiative. Basically, this initiative is being used to have TikTok and Instagram creators 'adopt a family' in Gaza so that they can speak up for that family and get as many donations as possible. While you may not be able to donate, going through the videos made by people that are a part of this initiative and watching them, interacting with them, and focusing on them, will allow their videos to be pushed to people who may be able to help more than you can. And that alone is life changing.

ERIN HATTAMER on TikTok

PROJECT PASS THE HAT VIDEO

OPERATION OLIVE BRANCH

While Erin is amazing for doing what she's done here, she has also made sure to amplify the voices of Operation Olive Branch and made sure to tell everyone that Operation Olive Branch, a Grassroots movement to organize & promote the safety and wellbeing of families in Palestine, was the operation to truly kickstart all of this. Operation Olive Branch has a TikTok account, which I will be linking, along with a cohesive google spreadsheet of families that are in need.

The spreadsheet has hundreds of families that are in need and includes links to their fundraisers, their goals, the names and ages of the family, and social media links. Each family is put into their own category such as Medical/Disabled, Mutual Aid, Gazan Heroes, etc. Along with a Master list of all of them. The main navigation page has many different recourses and links as well.

OPERATION OLIVE BRANCH on TikTok

FAQ VIDEO on TikTok

LINKTREE

THE SPREADSHEET

Here are some more specific sources and then I'll add different threads of GoFundMe's.

CARE FOR GAZA

Care for Gaza is, in their own words, a Non-Governmental, Non-Profit charity in aid of helping the needy families of Palestine. You can find all of the links I can find for them below including their GoFundMe, PayPal, and their Twitter account. Care For Gaza is a non-profit helping the people in Gaza survive day by day by supplying food, hygiene products, etc. to the people in Gaza with little to nothing. All over their Twitter they continue to post pictures of the products they have and videos of the people they are able to help continuously due to the donations they receive.

CARE FOR GAZA on Twitter

GOFUNDME [€849,343 of €1,000,000]

PAYPAL

ESIMS FOR GAZA

ESims For Gaza is another effort, which is being run by Mirna El Helbawi. She has been accepting eSims donations and distributing them to journalists and other people in need of them and there have been over 1 thousand eSims distributed. Even the smallest amount helps those in need and you can help people in Gaza continue to get in contact with their families.

MIRNA EL HELBAWI on Twitter

ESIMS FOR GAZA WEBSITE

NOMAD

HOLAFLY

SIMLY

AIRALO

Now, onto the GoFundMe's.

GOFUNDME'S

There are many Twitter Threads going through and listing so many different GoFundMe's for the people in need of escaping Rafah. Some of them may repeat some GoFundMe's but I still believe these threads will be helpful to allow you to find some families in desperate need. Here are a few threads (let it be known I do not know the people who I'm sharing threads from!):

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

There is also this GOOGLE DOCUMENT that has a list of different GoFundMe's and other donation sites.

Listen, I know this was a lot. But that's why I felt it important for it all to be in one place. There are hundreds of posts on Twitter, Tumblr, everywhere, that collects information for you like this. You just have to take the time to share it, to read it, to understand that you are not powerless in all of this. This post does not have everything, but I thought it could be a good start.

These people need our help. They need anything that we can give them and the least you can do is share around information and resources so those that can help know where to go. So that people know what is going on right now in the world.

Free Palestine.

[matan4il]

Daily update post:

It's funny how the biggest news in Israel can change so fast. Throughout the day, everyone was talking about one thing. Then in the evening, all everyone could talk about was the news that Saleh al-Arouri was killed in Lebanon. He was the Hamas commander in the West Bank (meaning, every terrorist attack that happened there, fell under his responsibility. In 2014, for example, he took credit for being in charge of the kidnapping and murder of 3 Israeli teenagers, a terrorist attack which led to Operation Protective Edge, during which 76 people in Israel and roughly 2,000 Palestinians were killed). Al-Arouri was also responsible for the concept of "connecting the scenes" (meaning, the idea that it's legitimate for Hamas to fire rockets from Gaza at Israel, for whatever Hamas claims is happening in Jerusalem, rather than for what it claims is happening between Israel and Gaza), which led to Hamas firing rockets at Jerusalem on May 10, 2021 and thus leading to Operation Guardian of the Walls, lasting 11 days, and during which 13 people in Israel and roughly 280 Palestinians were killed.

The parents of one of the 3 teenagers murdered according to the orders of al-Arouri in 2014 said that they do feel relief, knowing that this murderer is no longer in this world. Security seniors said that his operational abilities in carrying out terrorist attacks were so extraordinary, that this is a real blow to Hamas' terrorist activities.

I saw an interview with al-Arouri's sister, who said she's not surprised, because "The Jews are capable of anything." Not Zionists. Not Israelis. Jews.

Despite the fact that this is a clear achievement for the fight against terrorism, the immediate reaction will likely be a painful one, so heads of councils from different Israeli communities along our northern border have said that they are getting ready to be targeted.

There was a terrorist attack today in Iran, on the anniversary of the American assassination of the IRGC commander Soleimani, next to his grave, at least 70 people were killed. I have no doubt some people will think this is Israel's doing, but the MO doesn't fit. The number of civilian casualties is huge, and there was no military target present to the best of our knowledge. We've also seen the US trying to lower the flames in the Middle East, so I don't think it's a CIA operation, either. IDK which one of the Islamist regime of Iran's enemies did this, but the fact that there are so many candidates says something.

It's been reported that 3 people of Syrian and Lebanese origin have been arrested in Argentina for planning a terrorist attack at the America Maccabiah games.

The Maccabiah is the "Jewish Olympic games," founded following the many Jewish athletes who participated in the 1912 Olympic games in Sweden, but were not recognized as Jews. The Maccabiah takes place in Israel every 3-4 years since 1932, when the first games commemorated 1,800 years since the Jewish revolt of Bar-Kokhva against the Romans. The idea was a continuation of a call from 1898, to renew Jewish sports education, which had been neglected in the diaspora, since it was seen as a threat by the non-Jewish environment. In addition to Jewish athletes from all over the world, there are also Israeli non-Jews who participate in the Maccabiah. In parallel, we were also supposed to have the Maccabiah winter games, which were meant to take place in different countries every 3 years since 1933, in Poland, but after the second one, in 1936, the third one only happened in 2023, and symbolically, it was held in Germany. Another thing we have is the Maccabiah continental tournaments, like the current one being held for America, and taking place in Argentina. Lastly, outstanding non-Jewish athletes have been invited along the years as guests, to participate outside the contests for medals, in the Maccabiah games. Here are the posters for the first and second Maccabiahs in Tel Aviv, in 1932 and 1935:

Harvard president Claudine Gay has resigned, after her testimony on the subject of antisemitism on campus included a reluctance to clearly say, that calling for the genocide of Jews is harassment. I wonder, if the new accusations regarding plagiarism hadn't surfaced, whether she would have resigned. The fact that in her resignation letter, she claimed the attacks on her were race-based (as if the pressure on Liz McGill wasn't even greater, causing her to resign a whole month earlier, when the UPenn president is completely white) proves she doesn't see Jewish people or their very real distress. I hope that she would have had to resign even without the plagiarism issue, because allowing antisemitism to thrive on campus is a HUGE problem, and should be treated as such. Firing the people currently responsible for it, or at least making it clear to them that they have to resign is the LEAST that needs to happen. I guess we'll never know whether the antisemitism issue alone would have been enough to have Claudine Gay resign her post. But don't be mistaken, the fight to make sure that antisemitism on college campuses is treated like the serious problem that it is, that's far from over. The resignation of these presidents is just the bare minimum of showing that people care about the safety and well being of Jewish students, there's still a lot that needs to happen for them to be actually safe.

In continuation of this, 7 Israeli Nobel prize winners have addressed a letter to US universities of Harvard, UPenn and MIT, in which they wrote (my loose translation, as I haven't been able to find this in English anywhere): "Tolerance for violent protests on your campuses, which support the most horrific crimes against humanity, hurts your basic mission, and contradicts an essential component for a climate that encourages study and research: emotional security."

Speaking of the fight against antisemitism, here's a shoutout to the French court that sentenced Youcef Atal to a suspended 8 months in prison sentence and a fine of 45,000 Euros (49,000 dollars). Atal is an Algerian soccer player, who has been playing in France, for the team of Nice, and has shared a post calling for "a black day for the Jews." Not Zionists. Not Israelis. Jews. As if Oct 7 wasn't a black day for the Jewish people already. As expected, anti-Israeli websites are claiming that he's being punished for "Gaza solidarity" or "Gaza post."

Compare that article, versus these headlines:

This is 31 years old Ben Shimoni:

On Oct 7, he was at the Nova music festival. He made it to his car, and drove himself and others he took with him away from the massacre, while he was being fired at by terrorists, and while overhead, Hamas rockets are targeting Israel's south. Then he drove back, and did that a second time. On his third drive, he was murdered by Hamas terrorists. He's believed to have saved at least 9 people. Now there's a song dedicated to his memory and the love between him, and his gf Jessica, by singer Ma'ayan Zar. It's one of many songs born out of the pain, grief, trauma of Oct 7, and the hope that exists even after it.

May his memory be a blessing.

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)

[beardedmrbean]

Have you seen that post going around showing pictures of dead Palestinian kids and directly comparing it to Auschwitz? My blood is boiling, dude. I know it's lame to get offended, but holy shit. People have no idea how war works and they clearly forgot how INSANE Auschwitz was.

If it's the one I think it is between two of the ones I've seen one is totally fake and the other is Syrian children that assad gassed.

Did the same thing with the starving child and several other photos of victims of various atrocities not committed by Israel in gaza.

Putin is near universally reviled by people in the west and the pain and death in Ukraine isn't getting anywhere near the coverage as this is and while I understand that as a species we do love a come from behind underdog story, why the movie Dodgeball did so well....... in all seriousness though it's wild and I could understand the visceral hate if Israel had been the one that started this, but since 1948 they've only initiated one war and that was supposed to be a preemptive strike, day 1 they started out under attack and have been in defense mode ever since.

Somehow that involves winning every war they've been in but honestly the folks coming after them have never been professionals, even still as outnumbered as they are they hold and push back and I guess all the people that are tired of losing on the ground decided that the PR machine would be better.

So we get lines of either fake dead children or dead children from a totally different conflict because for all their talk about Jews being white they can't tell the difference between a Syrian, a Saudi, an Egyptian, or a palestenian and if they can't tell nobody should be able to I guess.

They've been attempting to appropriate the Shoah for decades now, sinwar and crew finally thin they're going to manage it.

and if not, they'll try again.

Everyone believes their claims about mistreatment at the hands of Israel why do they not believe them when they say they're happy to send innocent people into the meat grinder.

The fact that they keep having to pull out pictures and video from other conflicts should say something about how many people aren't dying in gaza.

But we're not supposed to think about that.

Or they don't expect people to at least.

An army letting humanitarian aid through that they know for a fact is being hijacked by the people they're fighting against, but doing it anyways because some of it will get where it's needed isn't going to be in the market to slaughter children on purpose.

We had isis surrounded in their last stronghold, they had no food, people were eating grass, there were innocent men, women, and children in there, they didn't get truckloads of UN aid and nobody was screaming that they should, not much at least if they were.

This is just a weird thing going on, and sickening in places as well, like the Holocaust thing that started the essay that for some reason I just kept typing.

sorry bout that, lol

[menalez]

Don't be a pendant and a hypocrite. On the one hand you always accuse Israelis of being Europeans (European Jews who lost two thirds of their population) and now you are pretending Israelis (almost 75% Jewish) were affected by holocaust is a lie. And if you are going to deflect by pointing out that Israel has unequal wealth distribution (like literally every other country in the world) to criticize Israel, meanwhile Hamas has a revenue of hundreds of millions of dollars and their leaders are billionaires yet Gazans rot in poverty. And there's a difference between Israel attacking Hamas targets hiding among civilians too take them out vs Hamas attacking Israeli civilians because they want to genocide the Jewish population. You don't understand the difference between war and genocide and everytime someone points out the double standards you tokenize a few Jews to keep doing the hypocrisy.

i wrote a whole thing but tumblr glitched out and honestly someone as dishonest as u doesnt deserve my time so let me summarise

true: israel was formed by european jewish people, and zionism is a european ideology.

false: israel was formed by holocaust survivours

also false: zionism was formed by holocaust survivours

also false: zionism was an ideology that came as a result of the holocaust

true: there are holocaust survivours & their descendants who live in israel today

false: the holocaust was an attack on israelis, a group of people who didnt even exist when the holocaust was ongoing

true: a huge percentage of the european jewish community was killed in a genocide (the holocaust)

false: a huge percentage of the israeli population, who again didnt exist as an entity during the holocaust, were killed in a genocide.

to anyone with two brain cells to rub together, theres an obvious distinction between claiming israel lost 2/3rds of its population to the holocaust and claiming european jewish people, many of whom are not israeli, lost 2/3rds of their population to the holocaust. the former is intentionally misrepresenting history to justify an ongoing genocide, the latter is the reality of the situation.

when you can only justify israel by pointing at hamas, then you’ve already lost. i already oppose hamas, so your counterargument doesnt work. if the bar is so low that you can only justify yourself by pointing to an extremist islamist group then perhaps you already know how morally decrepit you & your genocidal movement are. dismissing the same holocaust survivours you pretend to care for by saying its mere “income inequality” that 1/3rd of holocaust survivours in israel are impoverished shows exactly how much you care about holocaust survivours. its beyond sick using survivours of a genocide to justify another genocide, while proving that you actually dont care for those survivours to begin with.

hamas didnt exist when israel raped and massacred and expelled palestinians in 1948. it doesnt exist in the west bank, where thousands of palestinians were kidnapped & 100s killed & thousands displaced due to settler violence that is backed by the IDF. israel choosing to attack UN buildings, schools, residential buildings, hospitals, and the same “safe routes” they tell palestinians to do to with no attempts to minimise civilian casualties isnt somehow justifiable when you pretend its all done to get hamas. israel killing palestinians and injuring many more in 2018 when palestinians protested peacefully cant be justified by hamas. starving all of gaza and withholding water & fuel & electricity cant be justified by hamas. several israeli politicians outright calling for the genocide of palestinians in gaza isnt somehow justified bc of hamas.

“few jews” please keep pretending like jewish people are all pro-genocide and occupation while pretending like im the unreasonable one here.

people like you who justify genocide in the face of this much evidence are monsters, plain & simple. you are disgusting.

[juana-the-iguana]

I'd just like to thank you for showing how hamas is also horrible and not to be combined with the palastinian people. Yes, what Israel is doing is horrible, genocide is horrible. But we shouldn't let hamas continue raping the palastinian women and killing them as well. #freepalastine #israel's government doesn't represent the jewish people

If any of this is off base please let me know

I've been debating whether or not to respond to this comment. I think you mean well, and I hope you can see that I have good intentions too. I appreciate your comment and want you to know that most Jews and Israelis know the difference between Hamas and the Palestinian people as a whole. There is more support for Palestinians in Israel (specifically among Jewish Israelis) than I think most people realize.

Hamas does not represent the Palestinian people. The Israeli government does not represent the Jewish people, or the Israeli people at this point in time (one-fifth of which are Palestinians).

But we should be honest: while we should not hold the actions of Hamas against the collective Palestinian people, there is mainstream support for Hamas in Gaza and the West Bank. Similarly, while the majority of Israelis want Netanyahu to retire, he was elected at one point in time (even though strong criticism predates Oct. 7).

You can't have peace without acknowledging these facts.

What is happening in Gaza and the West Bank is tragic and devastating, but it is not genocide. Palestinians have been, and continue to be oppressed in Israel, in the Palestinian Territories (including areas occupied by Israel, and Gaza and parts of the West Bank ruled by the Palestinian Authority), and outside of Israel and Palestine, but it is not genocide. Genocide is a specific crime with a specific definition and not all war is genocide.

Countries that commit genocide don't warn civilians where they will drop bombs in the future. They don't take any steps to preserving life or alleviating the impact of their actions in war, because their goal is to kill as many people as possible. And, I say this with the knowledge that this is of no comfort to the people in Gaza and their families, this has one of the "best" civilian to combatant fatality ratios in modern warfare ("best" in quotation marks because any civilian death is tragic).

I know the point of your message was to highlight that Hamas is mistreating the Palestinian people. I don't want to detract from that statement. Hamas has terrorized Israelis for decades, but no one has suffered more under them than Palestinians. A prime example is the Oct. 7 attack. Not only is it obvious that offensive would start a war that would devastate Palestinians, Hamas wants to have its own people to be killed, because martyrs further their cause (that's also why they have been torturing and murdering civilians in Gaza, preventing evacuations and positioned their weapons to cause as many casualties as possible).

The fact that Hamas still has a lot of support amongst the Palestinian people is itself an indication of both ideology, but also how bad conditions were for Palestinians lived under prior to this war (although support in Gaza is dropping).

The reason I feel the need to correct the "genocide" remark is that, presently, Israel is the only country on Earth fighting Hamas. Hamas took control over Gaza through force and will only be removed through force. And Israel is not disappearing, so if Hamas is to be defeated and eradicated, Israel is going to, inevitably, be involved.

The claims of genocide are not only factually inaccurate, but it is used as a justification to stop this war, which would only help Hamas and prolong this horrible conflict.

[idiotic-b-gilson]

Hello everyone. So, in the face of the current genocide being conducted by Israel in the Gaza Strip, out of the many posts expressing support for, and solidarity with Palestine, I saw that some advocate for a one-state solution to the Palestinian question. One where all of the former British Mandate of Palestine ("from the river to the sea" as the slogan goes) would be united under a Palestinian state where everyone, regardless of religion or ethnicity, would be equal before the law. And I understand why people sharing these posts want that, or at least I think I understand. However, there is one specific hangup I have with this solution, that I'm asking in good faith for supporters of this one-state solution to explain how it would be dealt with, because I genuinely don't understand it: how do we deal with the fact, that there are more Jews in the former mandate than Palestinians?

Like, according to my calculations, there are about 7 million Jews in Israel and the occupied territories (excluding Golan Heights, since Palestine doesn't claim them), while prior to the current genocide there were about 6 million Palestinians in Gaza, West Bank, and Israel. That is not a huge difference, and I know that there are way more than a million Palestinian refugees outside these borders. However in all likelihood (given existing trends), Israeli Jewish population will keep growing for at least the next few years, while, given how genocide-happy the current Zionist regime is, the Palestinian population might grow at a slower rate, or even shrink. And we have to keep that in mind because, barring some major unexpected events, it's unlikely we'll see the Palestinian question solved in the next few years.

So I worry that by the time that the apartheid in Palestine is finally dismantled, the population difference between Jews and Palestinians will only grow larger. And we can't know how many Jews will emmigrate, or how many Palestinians will return, when apartheid ends. Therefore I find it a very real possibility that, when all is said and done, Jews will remain the majority ethnicity in the new Palestinian state. Democracy is a fragile thing (I should know, I'm Polish), and it is a real threat that, as long as Jews are a majority in Palestine, that Zionists could subvert this new state, and turn Palestine from the river to the sea, into Israel from the river to the sea, leaving Palestinians worse off in the end.

I dunno, maybe I'm exaggerating how big of a threat this would actually be, but it's the main thing that's keeping me on the side of the two-state solution. Because yes, it does mean giving up on most of Palestine's land and letting Israel have it, but at least what is left, West Bank and Gaza, after the West Bank settlements are dismantled, will be a majority-Palestinian state, where the right of Palestinians to self-determination is secure and indisputable. So, if anyone has an explaination of how the problem I described here would be solved, I'd genuinely love to hear it.

Have a nice day, Palestine will be free.

[40sandfabulousaf]

大家好! The last time I had fastfood was on 4 July 2023 - 8 months have passed in a blink - and there's still no craving for it. Moderately healthy local fare which includes quality protein and vegetables along with noodles, congee or rice is plentiful and readily accessible whenever we dine out. For $5.50, one is able to have fish soup noodles with bittergourd and choy sum (green leafy veggie); I paid $6.20 for an extra egg. Toss in iced local coffee at $1.60 and the total of $7.80 is close to what I would pay for a fastfood meal so why choose less nutrition?

Returning to the Muslim nasi padang stall, they served an excellent Assam patin (a type of fatty fish curry); so glad to have ordered it. Their stirfried celery was also delicious. This stall seems to excel in vegetable dishes - whatever I've tried so far has been yummy. Ever since the conflict in Gaza began, I've had Muslim food more often and enjoy learning about the various delicious dishes that the stalls serve. The price of my meal: $4.50 and hot coffee was $0.70; the total cost was $5.20, less than what I would pay for a fastfood meal!

With prices of almost everything higher than they've ever been since pre-covid, being able to afford adequate nutrition is on many people's minds. I no longer take going to bed with a full belly for granted after watching the news about households struggling to make ends meet and having to rely on food banks to get by. Parents with young children have to cut back in order to balance their family budget. When Grace's niece and nephew from Malaysia visited, she and Douglas took them out to the beach for some inexpensive fun. Standards of living have been reversed to that of the 1980s.

In Gaza, the possibility of a famine looms larger as the conflict continues. An entire civilisation risks being wiped out by starvation and lack of proper sanitation. Children have started dying from malnutrition; 3 meals a day could even be a luxury to thousands of households. Hundreds of thousands of civilians' lives have undergone tremendous upheaval, and for what? So that more of their land can be illegally occupied and seized by Israeli settlers? So that genocide can be committed against them?

Preventing a permanent ceasefire seems very immoral and wrong on so many levels, I don't even know where to start. These are innocent people who had warm loving homes, gathered with families over delicious meals and had so many dreams. Imagine if it happened to you, wherever you are in the world; would this feel right? Would you not plead for mercy and for the conflict to stop so you can live once more, versus merely existing in fear and hunger? 下次见!

[nataliesnews]

We willl survive 23/11/2023

It was a rough day. I went to the clinic in the morning which is in town and the wind was so strong I had trouble walking. I also felt very traumatized and was scared getting on to the light train. I felt very shaky the whole day. Before it was so easy  but now I am scared of the same thing happening. The doctor basically just cleaned it and bandaged it again. He gave me a letter which I will give to Uzie, my lawyer and I also have a letter from Hatzala which bandaged me in the beginning. Luckily I will be able to go to the nurse here to have it cleaned and bandaged each day.  There is   pain, sometimes just discomfort .  But  I feel weird  and did not go out again even though I wanted to go and sit with the families. I hope that a good night's sleep will leave me in a more normal state of mind. One of the caretakers here told me I should also go to the police to make a complaint and I phoned  to find  out  and it is so, though it is on the other side of town. Two buses....I will do it Friday. 

 As far as what is happening here, if only Netanyahu had, in the beginning, just said that we would open the gates  if the Hamas would give back all the captives. I am sure that they 

would not have agreed but  that way we would have looked much better in the sight of the  world. After that he could have gone into Gaza. But this war makes  me think of something Chanan once said. You know how you go into something but you don't know how it will end. I don't see that there is any way that we can make peace with those animals but had they not agreed and then we would have  attacked.  But now, each time, it gets a bit worse. First of all, 50. and now we are told that each day there will be 10......and we....are we going to let out all the prisoners at once. The Hamas has us in its grip because they do not care about their people but they know that we do. And that women soldiers will not be included in the 50. Each time we are given different scenes. I can not imagine what the families are going through. We do not know the names of the first 10 even. 

One of my friends told me that she has a friend in Ramallah and this friend asked her if it was in the interest of Israel that Hamas should not rule in the occupied area. My friend said to her it was definitely not and the woman said that in that case she was very relieved. She is much erudite than I am about and  said I should check out what happened with Hamas in the West Bank in 2007. Then I would understand what the woman meant. 

I also doubt that if Hamas was invading Israel, they would be sending us fuel, etc. What is happening in Gaza is awful but I again say that the Western world should also be aware of what could happen if the radical Moslems got stronger in their countries. 

And I am asking myself how many soldiers will die because of a cease fire.....and then I think of the hostages and the families....and it becomes a vicious circle.  And it is not sure that there will be a cease fire on all fronts. Also that the names of those to be freed will only be announced once the hostages have been identified by us....and against that the fear that Hamas will give out names of captives who WILL NOT then be released. It is all psychological warfare between those who do not care for their people and those of us who do. I don't think that even those who are horrified by what is happening   in  Gaza can think that Hamas gives a damn about what is happening to the ordinary person in Ga\za

 We know nothing about the families. We do not know if they are aware that the country has not been completely taken over by the Hamas. The families are being warned not to overfeed them which is what happened to people after the Holocaust. They do not know who are allive and who are dead. The people whom we will get back were those who actually tried to help the Palestinians . And those whom we freed are murderers or who tried to murder. They will be freed and in good  health. Not one will have been raped. And our people? starved? Beaten? raped? 

We are not shown about what is going on in Gaza. I thought Hot had blocked El Jazeera  and there one can see. They have not blocked it and it is awful watching it, but most Israelis would not . There is an excellent article about how we are having the wool pulled over our eyes. It is in Hebrew and too long for me to send to you but it says everything I feel about what we are NOT being told. You can google it. And after what I wrote  in the above paragraph...world to hell with you. We survived 2000 years. We will survive  you too 

But this is also worth reading ....how many Bedouin and Arab put their lives in danger to save Israelis. Thanks to our cousin, Corinne, in Canada. 

The Rescuers

Chasing some rays of hope in this dark moment for Israelis and Palestinians.

[matan4il]

Do we have a name for the time hundreds of thousands of jews were kicked out of the surrounding middle eastern countries in and after the 1948 war? I know that the Palestinians call theirs the nakba, but, is it just that, even though those particular groups of jews had been living there for hundreds or even thousands of years, we as a whole ethnoreligious group have been kicked out so many times we don't name them any more? Or is there a name I don't know?

Hi, lovely Nonnie!

That's an excellent question.

There is a national memorial day in Israel, to remember the at least 850,000 Jews from Arab countries and Iran who were abused, persecuted, and eventually expelled. This is a process that actually started in the 1930's, before the establishment of the State of Israel, but very much intensified in the 1940's. By the 1960's, the Middle East was basically ethnically cleansed of Jews.

Here's a New York Times headline from May 16, 1948 (days into the invasion of Arab armies during Israel's War of Independence):

There was an ethnic cleansing of Jews in the Land of Israel as it existed under the British Mandate, too. For example, a Jewish community on the east bank of the Jordan River was established in 1928 for Jewish workers, and destroyed by the Jordanians in 1948. There were Jewish communities in east Jerusalem, in Judea and Samaria (re-named by the Jordanians as 'The West Bank' in 1948, after they occupied that land and tried to cement the Jordanian claim to it), in Gaza... all were ethnically cleansed of Jews between 1929 and 1948.

In Israel, there are also monuments to commemorate the fate of the Jews from Arab countries and Iran. Here's one in Jerusalem:

So, since there's a remembrance day and memorials, you'd think there would be one unifying, easily identifiable term for this event, right? But sadly, there hasn't been one. Different people have used different terms, such as 'the expulsion of Jews from Arab countries and Iran' (the official term), 'the crisis of Jewish refugees from Arab countries' or 'the Jewish exodus from Arab countries,' and so on.

I have also seen people referring to it repeatedly (and of course unofficially) as the Jewish Nakba.

'Nakba' is an Arabic word which means catastrophe, so it's a fitting term for how these Jewish communities experienced what was done to them, I also think it's appropriate since most of them were Arabic speakers before the expulsion, and lastly, I think it is right to remind people that the Palestinian Nakba (a disaster of their own leadership's making, which I'm so sorry for them that they lost their homes, because their leaders rejected the 1947 two state solution) wasn't a one sided case of abuse. There was abuse of Jews in the Middle East, and it started before the State of Israel was even established. And ANY narrative that erases that part, that erases the suffering of Middle Eastern and North African Jews, is inherently antisemitic.

To any Jews who may be reading this, who come from Arab countries and from Iran, I love you, my beautiful brothers and sisters. Your story and your pain deserves to be heard and remembered.

Thank you for the ask, Nonnie. I hope I sort of managed to answer it, and that you have a great day! xoxox

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)