Centering Palestinian Voices

Let us not speak for the Palestinians. Because we can hear them directly via technology.

It's not literally true that the child in the photo hiding from Zionist forces grew up to be the young man in the video linked below. But in their thousands, in their millions, this is life for Palestinians.

Watch the video here: https://x.com/i/status/1803496839112491347

I apologize that I do not have the tech skills to download this iconic video from Twitter (yes, I tried it on my phone, too). If someone knows the source of the video and can put a link in the comments I would be grateful.

Debate is raging in my circles about what is effective support for Palestinian resistance fighters, and how tone policing and condemning Hamas are extremely inappropriate at this time. If we amplify Palestinian messages it is being faithful to their cause, but many times they contain references or assume background knowledge that our audience just won't get.

So, I've been workshopping messages that might resonate with the average Maine summer tourist who is 50-something, female, white, and college educated. Her fealty to the Democratic Party may be blinding her to the genocide unfolding with their funding and support. Her education and media consumption habits are likely blinding her to the inescapable truth that the only thing that will end the genocide is the end of the Zionist regime. 

Here's my current favorite:

The red triangle is being used extensively by freedom fighters to indicate targets, and the colors are those of the Palestinian flag. It's a version of "Death to Israel" that I think my target audience will be less resistant to, because it urges the reader to work toward the downfall of the settler colonial experiment that has killed, maimed, and tortured so many since 1948.

And don't at me with the antisemitic accusations. Zionism is the worst thing that has happened to Jewish people since the Nazi regime fell and its concentration camps were liberated. Jewish people were safe among their neighbors in Palestine before the European Zionists arrived. One truly democratic state rather than the current genocidal ethnocracy is the only workable solution.