While the Germans are still processing their own Guilt and learn this at school, the divide between the political class and the public discourse are growing. Germany is tightening up its laws related to what they call antisemitism and antiterrorism law, in addition to brutally suppressing and banning pro-Palestine demonstration and threatening with deportation to those who shows support to the resistance actions.
As we are in 34 day of Israeli aggression on Gaza city in occupied Palestine, the trending #standwithpalestine hashtag on TikTok has over 1.4 billion views until now and it is expected to rise in the upcoming days globally. The demographics show 49% of the age group falling in the between 25 and 34 years old, 33% of the age group between 18 and 24 years old, and 18% for audience group is above 35 years old. These audiences share a common “interest” related to social causes as per the stats. American and Israeli officials are calling for actions against TikTok and one of them is renewing banning the application with false accusations that TikTok is biased against Israeli content and is promoting the pro-Palestinian content on their platform. Moreover, for these officials, the “alarming” digital solidarity with Palestine on TikTok is attributed somehow to the “Chinese” ownership and where they describe the TikTok as the “digital fentanyl”.
Digital sphere is for sure another front Israel is trying to dominate and exert power over in similar acts to Meta Company specially when it comes to Instagram as it is one of the mediums that is highly invested in eliminating the Palestinian content. This trend of Instagram shadow banning and other measures of deleting certain posts or even whole channels, started during the Israeli aggression in April-May 2021 on event known as the Shaikh Jarrah which can be summed up in the Israeli occupation force efforts to evacuate Palestinians from Jerusalem to make it an Israeli-only city due to the significant importance of Jerusalem culturally and religiously. During Shaikh Jarrah events, “business as usual”, heavy bombardment on Gaza and continuation of the daily aggressions, assaults, and jailing in other Palestinian Israeli-occupied cities – like what the whole world sees in the past two months; October and November 2023 events-.
What is changing, is that the world is also started to notice the Israeli’s aggression through the social media live streams such as Instagram and it is coming from citizens-journalism of those who are living in Palestine, documenting, and uncovering the daily Israeli aggression. Back in 2021, in April and May events, the Israeli aggression that continued for months during which, on the digital media “war” front, immediately, Meta took necessary measures to block and to eliminate what we call the Palestinian content on Instagram.
Elon Musk acquired Twitter in April (initiation) until October (completion) 2022 and transformed the name into X. Perhaps it is a trivial thing to investigate the meaning of X, however, Musk thinks that it is “to embody all of the imperfections in us that make us unique”. Whereas TikTok is owned by ByteDance Ltd. which is a Chinese internet technology company headquartered in Beijing. TikTok adoption accelerated during Covid-19 global lockdown, and it remains to be popular globally despite the ban by several countries due to “cybersecurity” concerns.
The trending hashtag #standwithpalestine reveals the public opinions, sentiment, and even narrative shift and positioning towards humanity and justice. What we are witnessing on the social media of raw and unfiltered “content” coming directly to live streams and social media feeds helped in this narrative and sentiment shift among the western audience. This current harsh reality is being televised and live broadcasted despite the tight control of information flow, censored content, and the vast amount of information that needs channeling.
Yet, relaying on collective human consciousness, rational, and the ability to distinguish justice are what is driven the masses of population worldwide to side with the Palestinians. Many are choosing to show their solidarity and support through various means; protests, demonstration events, alternative media awareness raising in terms of content creation in various languages, people sharing their opinion and believes, to the contribution to the trending hashtags, and wearing attire and icons (Palestine map, Handala icon, and the watermelon slice) that would show solidarity and support. The Palestinian Keffiyeh/Kuffiyeh (black/red and white) is dominating the public scene globally. Thousands are opting to don the Kuffiyeh in a remark to show their position “publicly” siding with Palestinians and defending the Palestinian cause.
In Europe and the west in general, we see them donning white and black Kuffiyeh which is mainly a representation for Fatah and Abu Ammar within the Palestinians. Whereas the red and white Kuffiyeh represents the Qassam Brigades which is the military armed resistance group according to the Palestinians. Abu Obaida, Alqassam Spoke person, the Engineer Yahya Ayyash, and Almushtabek Basel Alaraj are known for donning the red Kuffiyeh.
The Engineer was the chief bombmaker of Hamas and was assassinated by Israel on 5 Jan. 1996 through a cellphone-bomb while he was over the phone with his Father. While Basel Alaraj, he was a thinker, and was assassinated by Israel on 6 March 2017.
Greetings to Arabism, homeland, and liberation, but after…
If you are reading this, it means that I have died, and the soul has ascended to its Creator, and I pray to Allah to meet him with a healthy heart that is coming and not sincerely managed without an atom of hypocrisy.
How difficult it is to write your will, and years ago I have been contemplating all the commandments of the martyrs that they wrote, I have always been puzzled by those commandments, a quick shortened shortening that lacks eloquence and does not cure our anger in searching for questions of martyrdom.
I am now walking to my death satisfied and convinced and found my answers, O Willy what foolish me and is there more eloquent and disclosed than the act of the martyr, and I was supposed to write this many months ago, but what stopped me from this is that this is your question you are alive, so why do I answer you, so you should search, but we the people of the graves are only looking for the mercy of Allah. Basel Alaraj final note.
In early morning today which is Friday, the Israeli’s occupation force targeted Alshifa Hospital again and aggravating the humanitarian situation while leaving the hospitals that are being used as shelter as well, in paralysis that is slowly emerging. The amount of blood we see in these unfiltered and raw footages are a disgrace for the whole of humanity. Dignity and resistance are what is left for the Palestinian people and to those who are enduring injustice worldwide.
Suha Ayyash
