International solidarity with Palestine: personal observations by Mariam Barghouti - Doc Jazz's Musical Intifada: songs of freedom for Palestine. Details Details Created on Friday, 19 April 2013 11:00 Hits: 2468 As regular readers of the Musical Intifada know, this website usually only published original material.
Sometimes, however, a piece is written which is considered to be having such particular value, quality and importance, that an exception is made. By Mariam Barghouti - After a recent discovery of a solidarity page on Facebook with the title of “International Community to save Palestine” which at this moment in time has over 8,000 likes, the problems with international solidarity with the Palestinian struggle must once again be addressed. As a Palestinian comrade once stated before, Palestine is not a charity case. Holding the microphone If you become one of the many internationals in solidarity with Palestine, it is vital to grasp an understanding of the various attempts made to speak for the Palestinians and what should be done in its place, to show appropriate camaraderie.
Proof of humanity Selective support of resistance. Mythbuster: Israel’s attack on Gaza. MYTH: The Palestinians started the conflict From looking at some of the media coverage you would think so – but it’s vital to put today's problems in the right historical context.
The key date is 1948, when the state of Israel was created by Jewish settlers in Palestine. Fleeing persecution in Europe, they were handed the land by Britain, which held it as a colony at the time. Israeli myth has it that the country was mostly empty at this point. In fact, terror gangs murdered large numbers of Palestinians, and forced others from their land and homes, in order to expand Israel’s territory. Israel’s militarised, colonial nature is part of the state’s very foundations, and has continued ever since. Most Palestinians, meanwhile, have been left stateless and landless, some living in refugee camps. MYTH: Whatever the history, the problem now is the violence on both sides This is a common position, and allows the speaker to feel very even-handed in their condemnation.
Israel's dominant media narrative. Here we are again: staring at a series of terrible events in Israel and the Palestinian territories.
A 16-year-old Palestinian, Mohammed Abu Khdeir, was kidnapped, stabbed and then burned alive. We don't know for sure, but Israeli police report a likely "nationalistic" motive - meaning that his killers were Jewish Israelis. This murder comes after the bodies of three kidnapped Israeli teenagers were found in the occupied West Bank last week, after an 18-day search. That military search for Eyal Ifrach, Gilad Shaer and Naftali Frankel, during which six Palestinians were killed and hundreds more detained without charge, was described by Amnesty International as "collective punishment".
Meanwhile, the news that the Israeli teenagers had been shot dead - evidence of which was obscured for weeks while Israelis united in the campaign to "Bring back our Boys" - unleashed a rising clamour for vengeance. Vengeful climate A series of illusions But the violence did not start there.
Hunger Strikes. BDS and Activism. Pinkwashing. Documentaries and Multi-Media. Anti-Semitism. History. Media, Lobby, and Western Support.