Straw-cleaner - Smiling Through It All

Thinking about what journalist Momen Alsharafi said, after having lost 21 members of his family, that he is so worried about what will happen after the war.

"The question that haunts me is what should I do then? After the war, after the work pressure ends, in my free time, what should I do? What should I work on? How do I fill my free time? It's going to be long. No brothers, no sisters, no father or mother, not even the children I used to play with, my nieces and nephews."

This is going to be the reality of tens of thousands of people in Gaza who had lost everyone. Who will they go to for comfort? Who will be there to help them through? Who will they visit on holidays?

Israeli crimes aren't just what's happening at this moment, their impact is for a lifetime. Fuck israel.

The disabled community fucking NEEDS to rally for Palestine. Israel is creating millions more of us. They are permanently disabling people, robbing them of their ability, their agency, and giving no support. Disabled Palestinians are dying not just from violence but from neglect due to lack of resources, which is violence itself. We have to support these people, people who haven't even been able to come to terms with the fact that their limbs are missing, they're severely traumatized, they can't move without pain, they've been so focused on just surviving. There cannot be a single Palestinian left without physical and/or mental trauma. And there are absolutely no resources being given to them, they're being actively withheld.

Please give anything you can offer. Money, coping mechanisms, resources, information, emotional support, e-sims, you could probably even donate any disability aids you don't use anymore to refugees in your home country. I know a lot of us are unable to protest right now. Sharing information is also extremely important. There ARE things we can do. Protesting is only one aspect of activism. Sending emails, making phone calls, directly supporting Palestinians in one of the ways I said above.

Just like covid is a mass disabling event, a genocide is a mass disabling event. Please do not forget this and remember, you CAN make a difference.

(BTW this is not one of those "you should care about them because they're like us!" things, everyone should care about Palestinians because they're human beings. The point of this post is to discuss what we as disabled people can do to support people who are suddenly disabled without help. Becoming disabled is not easy even with support and healthcare.)

Oh wow, the exact place they funneled all the civilians to? That’s craaaazy

Boycott Eurovision

I'm finally reading South Africa's application to the ICJ against Israel and damn they really came with those receipts!! Must read document if you not only want to understand how Israel is committing genocide, but the situation in Gaza more generally also

The IDF uses extensive facial recognition with a growing network of cameras and mobile phones to document every Palestinian in the West Bank. Starting in 2019, Israeli soldiers used the Blue Wolf app to capture Palestinian faces, which were then compared to a massive database of images dubbed the “Facebook for Palestinians.” Soldiers were told to compete by taking the most photos of Palestinians and the most prolific would win prizes. The system is most extreme in the city of Hebron, where facial recognition and numerous cameras are used to monitor Palestinians, including at times in their homes, instead of the extreme Jewish settlers living there, who routinely express genocidal threats against the Palestinians. The IDF claimed that the program was designed to “improve the quality of life for the Palestinian population.”

Antony Loewenstein, The Palestine Laboratory: How Israel Exports the Technology of Occupation Around the World

BDS added this section to their boycott page and I think people really need to read it:

please remember, pushing unorganized boycotts without carefully fact-checking every company in the list can be actively HARMFUL to the boycott movement.

God the prices of tvs have changed so much let me get my graph