An Israeli family films itself "feeding" two Bedouin children as if they were animals in a zoo. The dehumanization of Palestinians by Israeli Jewish society is so much more totalizing than anyone here wants to admit or imagine. This is the face of the Jewish state in 2020.
There's 👏🏼 no 👏🏼 reason 👏🏼 to 👏🏼 treat 👏🏼 Israel 👏🏼 as 👏🏼 the 👏🏼 spokesperson 👏🏼 for 👏🏼 global 👏🏼 Jewry 👏🏼 when 👏🏼 our 👏🏼 prime 👏🏼 minister 👏🏼 parades 👏🏼 around 👏🏼 with 👏🏼 far 👏🏼 right 👏🏼 leaders 👏🏼 whose 👏🏼 ideological 👏🏼 ancestors 👏🏼 sent 👏🏼 us 👏🏼 to 👏🏼 our 👏🏼 deaths.
Let these images burn in your mind. Next time you defend this regime, remember how Israel brutally attacked mourners during Shireen Abu Akleh’s funeral. Remember that this is what life and death looks like for Palestinians living under colonialism. Remember that this is Zionism.
Everyone switch on to Al Jazeera right now. This is one of the most horrifying things I’ve seen.
IOF is attacking mourners carrying Shireen’s body from the hospital right now. They’re using stun grenades and tear gas and charging at them with horses and batons.
Happening now: Dozens of Israelis protest in front of the Tel Aviv police station against the police killing of Iyad Al-Khalak, a 32-year-old Palestinian man with autism in Jerusalem. The officers chased him down and shot Al-Khalak as he was hiding behind a dumpster.
Beautiful: A drone flying a Palestinian flag flies above the tens of thousands of Jewish extremists taking part in the Jerusalem Day ‘flag march.’
Video by the one and only
@OrenZiv_
The Jewish American right decided long ago to ignore Trump's white nationalism, and to look the other way when it came to his anti-Semitic dog-whistles. Why? Because it decided that Trump's pro-Israel, anti-Muslim positions were more important than the very safety of our people.
There are many moments from May 2021 that are etched into my memory, but this morning's attacks on Al Aqsa reminded me of the one I want to forget the most.
Zionism means Palestinians continue, for over seven decades, to pay the price for a crime that they did not commit against the Jewish people. For refusing to remain silent, to leave their land, or to bend to the will of their colonizers. For simply existing.
Incredible. Antifa paraphernalia in Hebrew/Yiddish from Palestine dating back to 1934. Includes a stamp espousing Arab-Jewish solidarity, a May Day flyer calling on workers to join the ranks, and a statement of principles against fascism.
This was a year after Hitler's rise.
Far-right MK Itamar Ben-Gvir pulled out a gun in the Palestinian neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah tonight, telling the settlers with him that “If [Palestinians] throw stones, shoot them.”
Ben-Gvir is one of the most popular politicians in Israel today.
“No democracy with apartheid.” The Israeli anti-Zionist bloc marches as part of a mass demonstration against the new far-right government, tonight in Tel Aviv.
An image that tells the entire story: Workers remove a Palestinian flag that was put up next to an Israeli one from a building in Ramat Gan. Both were put up as part of a coexistence campaign by a liberal Israeli org, but following outrage, ONLY the Palestinian flag was removed.
The IDF portrays itself as a 'moral army' that takes extreme measures to protect Palestinian civilians in Gaza.
@yuval_abraham
spoke to a number of former soldiers from the Intelligence Corps who exposed horrific practices that shook me to my core. Here's a thread:
Israeli settlers will LITERALLY ADMIT they are in it to take over Palestinian homes and land and people will continue to parrot the Israeli government line that Sheikh Jarrah is a "property dispute."
The denial is so deep here it should be considered state ideology.
5 things worse than a poorly-worded tweet:
1. 70 years of dispossessing Palestinians.
2. Five decades of military dictatorship in the occupied territories.
3. 11 years of siege on Gaza.
4. Endless settlement expansion.
5. Racism and discrimination against brown and black Jews.
Holy shit. A mob of Jewish right wingers in the city of Ramla is checking vehicles one by one. Jewish cars are allowed to pass. Arab cars are pelted with rocks. When one of the cars nearly crashes, the mob starts cheering. The police are nowhere in sight.
In Sheikh Jarrah last night, Jerusalem Deputy Mayor Aryeh King was recorded telling Muhammad Abu Hummus, a Palestinian activist from East Jerusalem, that it's a "pity" he didn't get a bullet in his head.
The deputy fucking mayor of Jerusalem, everybody.
Video by
@OrenZiv1985
No, you weird narcissist. It’s rooted in the fact that a state that calls itself “Jewish” has a history of killing Palestinian journalists in the West Bank, an area that has been under Israeli military dictatorship for over half of a century.
This image was taken from a friend's Facebook page. Israeli schoolchildren make toilet paper roll IDF tanks in honor of Memorial Day/Independence Day this week. Please stop telling me Palestinians teach their children violence from a young age. This shit is endemic here.
Anyone wondering what Israel’s endgame is should look at the last few days in which it has killed 14 Palestinians, sown chaos across the West Bank, and wounded dozens of worshipers during Ramadan. This is an apartheid regime by choice, and the goal is to preserve it at all costs.
Hi. I'm an Israeli Jew who believes Israel's policies of settler colonialism and apartheid are not only fundamentally immoral, they do nothing to make my people any safer. Expelling entire Palestinian families during the coldest days of the year ≠ combatting antisemitism.
Pro-Palestine activists are censured and smeared as antisemitism for using free speech to try and promote freedom and equality. Bret Stephens publishes white nationalist eugenics propaganda and has a column in the most reputable newspaper in the country. The mind boggles.
Palestinians are being censored by Instagram and Facebook, so left-wing Jewish Israelis have a responsibility to say it loudly:
The forcible expulsion of Palestinians in Sheikh Jarrah is just the latest front in the settler-colonialism inherent to Zionism. We need to stop it.
When Israelis accuse Hamas of hiding “military assets” among civilians, one must wonder whether they learn their own history. Zionist militias famously used civilian buildings, hospitals, factories, synagogues & schools to disguise their operations. Tel Aviv even commemorates it!
Israel has kept the Gaza Strip under a murderous and oppressive siege for *15 years*. That is the crucially missing context from every single tweet or statement you’ll be reading from Israeli officials and hasbara activists in these moments.
Hello! If you see people blaming Israel for the death of four children as a result of a Palestinian Islamic Jihad fuck-up, you’re obligated to call it blood libel.
TONIGHT: Hundreds of Palestinians and Israelis demonstrate in central Jerusalem against racism and violence just days after Jewish supremacists held a march through the city center while chanting “death to Arabs.”
(Photos by Free Jerusalem)
Remember when
@marclamonthill
got fired from
@cnn
for 'antisemitism' after saying the same thing but about Palestine? Or when the
@ADL
deemed “from the river to the sea” an antisemitic slogan?
BREAKING: Defense Minister Benny Gantz declares 6 Palestinian human rights groups “terrorist organizations.” List includes some of the most vital groups working in the occupied territories, such as
@alhaq_org
,
@Addameer
,
@DCIPalestine
and the Union of Palestinian Women Committees
An Israeli cartoonist was fired from his job at the Jerusalem Report for publishing a cartoon depicting Netanyahu & his coalition as pigs after they passed the nation-state law. Above them is a giant quote from Animal Farm.
Neo-Nazis set fire to a Jewish school in a village outside of Berlin late last night, spray painting the word 'enemies' on the school walls.
Oh wait, no. Those were actually Israeli settlers who set fire to a Palestinian school near Nablus. No one batted an eye
Pic by
@YeshDin
How can anyone look at what is happening in Sheikh Jarrah and not view it as racist colonization? How can anyone continue to believe Israel is some liberal paradise after this? Why were these kind of policies condemnable in South Africa yet totally normalized in Palestine-Israel?
This is what the pro-Israel demonstration looked like outside Ilhan Omar's event in LA on Saturday. This is what so much pro-Israel activism looks like. Can anyone imagine these activists protesting real anti-Semitic Republicans using the same kind of vile imagery? Cause I can't.
Today. Jewish settlers evicted a Palestinian family from their home in Jerusalem. That Palestinian family had been living in their home for 25 years. Dispossession is not an exception or an aberration. It is a feature of the Zionist project. Let's start talking about it that way.
This is a wild one: back in the 1980s, an Israeli anthropologist named Yaakov Havakook published an ethnography on Masafer Yatta. This is the area of the occupied West Bank that the High Court recently ruled can be ethnically cleansed of its Palestinians. 1/
Harrowing photos from today's olive harvest in the West Bank town of Surif. Settlers arrived and brutally attacked Palestinian farmers and Israeli activists with stones and batons. Israeli soldiers stood nearby but — SURPRISE! — did nothing to stop the attack.
📷: Shai Kendler.
Soldiers and settlers always work in tandem under a settler colonial regime. There is no soldier without the settler. There is no settler without the soldier. From 1948 until today. Remember that as you watch the rampage unfolding in Huwara tonight.
Nothing less than horrifying to see settlers deface the home of
@m7mdkurd
&
@kurd_muna
w/ Stars of David. The use of Jewish symbols to intimidate those who are at risk of losing their home is a sad reminder of how Zionism uses our religion to assert supremacy and domination.
This morning, B’Tselem’s field researcher in Jenin documented the exact locations in which the Palestinian gunman depicted in a video distributed by the Israeli army, fired, as well as the exact location in which Journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was killed.
What does colonial violence look like? Israeli police brutally attack Rami Khatib, the photographer for the Waqf, this morning at Al-Aqsa compound. The officers broke his arm for doing nothing more than filming their assault on worshippers.
Watch as settlers are granted full permission and protection to rampage through the Palestinian town of Huwara near Nablus. This is how it has always been, now it’s just out in the open. Loud and proud.
Over 500 Israeli Jews have signed an open letter calling on the int'l community to put pressure on Israel to end the occupation and the siege, allow Palestinian refugees to return to their homeland, and reach a just and democratic solution.
@yuval_abraham
The Israeli army knows ahead of each military operation that it will be killing non-combatants, often children. There is an "allowed" number of children that is permissible to kill. As long as this amount is not exceeded, the killing can be approved in advance.
Journo: Does "may your village burn"/"death to Arabs" represent you?
Protester: Maybe not when put like that—
J: Which way?
P: I speak nicely. I don't say "may your village burn," I say 'you'll leave your village and we'll live in it." Exactly what we do in the Old City.
When it comes to Israel (and, well, many other things), the Democratic Party is in trouble. Nearly 50% of Democrats now sympathize with Palestinians as opposed to 38% who sympathize with Israel. 1/
Sorry to be that guy but Mayor Ron Huldai's decision to put a Lebanese flag on Tel Aviv City Hall won't undo decades of Israel's destruction/war-mongering in Lebanon, nor whitewash the mayor's policies against asylum seekers, Palestinians, and working class Mizrahim in the city.
Next time someone asks you how the American Jewish establishment is complicit in the killing of Palestinians, show them this disturbing tweet by the Jewish establishment's most prominent organization. This is how our community is whitewashing Israeli violence.
Hamas is once again cynically exploiting its civilian population to draw attention away from its own flawed leadership and once again with tragically deadly consequences. Their call for “return” is a call for the end of the State of Israel.
A totally normal country asking totally normal questions: Channel 13 poll asked whether Israel should assassinate Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar. Nearly 60% of Israelis answered in the affirmative.
Maybe they can host a weekly contest on who Israel assassinates next?
Don’t get it twisted: If you want to understand how Israel sees the future of the West Bank, look at present-day Gaza, where the most extreme version of Bantustanization is taking place before our eyes. The policies might look different, but the goal is the same goal.
Prime Minister Bennett on the sad death of veteran journalist Shireen Abu Akleh:
"According to the information we have gathered, it appears likely that armed Palestinians — who were firing indiscriminately at the time — were responsible for the unfortunate death of the journalist
A settler teen who tried to stab Rabbi Arik Ascherman with a knife earlier this year was sentenced to community service. Meanwhile, a Palestinian teen is filmed slapping an IDF soldier in her village and the Education Minister calls to imprison her for the rest of her life.
When they write the 'Unabridged History of Anti-Semitism' one day there will be an entire chapter dedicated to role played by the son of the prime minister of Israel.
Three Jews were brutally attacked overnight by a group of far-right Germans staying in a coronavirus quarantine facility. After beating the Jews, who were on a camping trip, the extremists burned their cars.
Now replace Jews with Palestinians and Germans with Israeli settlers.
If an Israeli ambassador who gets shouted at and prevented from speaking is somehow a victim of the new Kristallnacht, what do we call a 13-year-old Palestinian boy who is shot dead by soldiers?
The IDF knew what kind of response leveling the building in Gaza would bring about.
Let this be yet another reminder that Israel has no military solution in Gaza. It didn't have one in 1967, 2008, 2012, 2014, and it certainly doesn't have one today.
Israel's High Court upholds the Jewish Nation State Law, which constitutionally enshrines Israel as the exclusive nation-state of the Jewish people and demotes the status of Arabic.
Most importantly, it codifies an existing reality of supremacy that has existed here since 1948.
It’s sad that I feel the need to write this disclaimer, but: I am proudly Jewish. I am Israeli. I don’t think calling Israel an apartheid state is remotely close to antisemitic. I think those who *do* think so are gaslighting Palestinians & refusing to stare reality in the face.
When it comes to Palestinian deaths, it’s never about finding out the truth. It’s always, first and foremost, about maintaining Israel’s image and keeping national morale high.
Not an error. Not a big. A central feature of a colonial system.
People living under apartheid are going to resist apartheid.
People living under settler-colonialism are going to resist settler-colonialism.
People under siege are going to resist siege.
No Abraham Accords or endless military aid is going to change that.
You need to be a really sad asshole in order to gloat about cutting off aid to an occupied and besieged people. This is what hasbara has become — delighting in whatever causes suffering to the Palestinians.
Incredible. Over 10,000 people are now demonstrating in south Tel Aviv against the deportation of asylum seekers from Israel. I'm speechless. Video by
@OrenZiv1985
@activestills
The soldiers described how following an Israeli shelling, they are asked to monitor the phone conversations of family members in order to hear the moment in which they tell each other that their loved one has died — that’s how they check who was killed.
Why do so-called precision strikes end with dead Palestinian kids? Because the army literally authorizes these strikes knowing civilians will be killed, and do so as long as the number is deemed low enough. Don’t believe me? Ask former IDF soldiers:
Bezalel Smotrich, Israel’s finance min. and one of the most powerful members of the gov’t, likes a tweet by Samaria Regional Council Deputy Chief Davidi Ben-Zion, in which he calls for the village of Huwara “to be erased.” That’s called support for genocide and ethnic cleansing.
Look, mom! We made the cover of The Nation! What an honor to be part of this incredible collaboration between
@972mag
@mekomit
and
@thenation
to bring readers two rich, analytical long reads on the death of the Green Line of the Green Line and what comes after it.
This is how Israel controls Gaza. It has mastered the art of long-distance killing and blackmailing people into collaboration. It has put the occupation out of sight and mind of Israelis who neither know nor care what it takes to besiege millions of people.
Following the establishment of Israel, Prime Minister David Ben Gurion ordered the army to shoot and kill any Palestinian who dared cross the new borders to return to their land. 70 years later, the IDF is implementing the exact same policy at the Gaza's 'Great Return March.'
Don't get it twisted: Razan al-Najjar didn't "lose her life," and the bloodshed in Gaza is not a "tragedy." Raman al-Najjar was shot dead by a sniper, and unarmed Palestinians are being massacred by one of the most powerful armies in the world.
Israel is constantly amassing collaborators in Gaza. “Today we control everything that goes in and out, whether physically, electronically, or in terms of people. People in Gaza beg to be able to study abroad or visit relatives. This can be used to turn them into collaborators.”
First they cheered on the settlers who committed the pogrom. Then they said wipe out Huwara completely. Then they said wiping out the village is fine only as long as the army does it. Then they said you misunderstood us, we never said any of that. And now, finally, they do this:
New survey shows only 16% of American Jews favor moving the embassy to Jerusalem:
Begs the question: Why are the heads of the Jewish establishment actively going against the interests of their own people?
HAPPENING NOW: Hundreds of Israelis protest the killing of 60 Palestinians in Gaza, across from the Likud headquarters in central Tel Aviv. Video by
@Ha_Matar
Let’s be clear: what we saw in Huwara this week was exceptional in scale, not in essence. Army-backed settler terrorism is *inherent* to a regime that is still in the throes of its colonial project. That is why the pogroms won’t end until someone forces them to end.
Another Pogrom -📍Burin, today.
Jewish settlers & Israeli army attack homes on east side of Burin.
The settlers are numerous & use vehicles. The soldiers aid & protect the settlers. they shoot tear gas at Palestinians homes, suffocating residents.
Watch 👇
BREAKING: The Israeli Supreme Court just barred Michael Ben-Ari, an extreme-right politician belonging to the Kahanist Otzma Yehudit party, from running in the upcoming elections.
What's happening right now between Jericho and Ramallah is ethnic cleansing. There's no other way to put it. Entire Palestinian communities are being chased out by near-constant settler violence to pave the way for a total takeover of thousands of acres.
It takes decades to unlearn everything we were taught about Palestinians. For most of us, the mere act of humanizing Palestinians is a lifelong process. I'm grateful for those who are patiently guiding us through it. What a tragedy that it's even necessary in the first place.