Notices by Karen Wyld (karenwyld@aus.social)

Earlier this year, many of you contributed to Ahmed Issa's crowdfund (who'd I met at Palestine Writes festival last year), to help him and his young family escape from the genocide. I forgot to post follow up news: he did escape to safety, with his wife and two sons. And is applying to universities to continue his education.

Ahmed promised to pay it forward if he got out, and he's indeed been doing that. He's set up a scholarship program to mentor tertiary students in Gaza. He needs financial support to continue this work > https://gofund.me/ee7f3f8a

Now, the sad news.

Sha'aban al-Dalo, the young man that Israel murdered with fire yesterday, was a student supported by this Scholarships for Gaza. Shaaban had earlier been injured in a bombing attack when he was sheltering outside of al-Asqa hospital. He was then treated, stitches and an IV, and was once again sheltering in a tent outside of the hospital. Israel then burnt him alive. The world watched Shaaban's last - excruciatingly painful - moments.

On Insta, Ahmed Issa's shared his last communication with Shaaban:

@palestine #StopGenocide #Gaza #Palestine

For those that don't boost long posts, here's the crowdfund page for Scholarships for Gaza to share > https://gofund.me/ee7f3f8a

I have personally met Ahmed Issad, and been in communication with him for over about 18 months, and 100% vouch for his integrity and this program.

@palestine #Gaza #Palestine

[Edit: not interested in any "I've never seen any racism on Mastodon" bullshit. I ❤️ to block annoying reply guys]

Bluesky is a bin fire at the moment. A mass sign up of Palestinian people occurred (yes!!!!). But...
Users are mass reporting Palestinian accounts (all social media platforms haven't dealt with anti-Palestinian and anti-Arab racism). Others are demanding Palestinians "prove" who they are. The Palestinian feed is full of non Palestinians talking about the USA election and centring themselves.
Bluesky mods are suspending Palestinian accounts. Demanding Palestinian people supply ID, and suspending them anyway. So much ant-Palestinian racism, and white people not being mindful of others' safety or humanity.

However, Mastodon is not a beacon of acceptance, anti racism or safety. With a noticeable recent sign up of Palestinian people on Mastodon, similar could soon occur here. As a mod, I know bad faith/racist reporting happens on Mastodon, to silence people - including people who speak up for Palestine or against genocide. And reporting mutual funding is common.

Please, don't be racist, unwelcoming, or cruel. Think hard before reporting Palestinian accounts or crowdfinds. Don't ask for "proof" or start an argument. If you can't donate, boost their posts. Try to understand the trauma, danger, fears, grief, and exhaustion of surviving a genocide. Scroll by or ignore if you have a problem with seeing others in crisis. Better yet, show empathy and solidarity.

Facts

@palestine #FuckIsrael

I love this for him

#Indigenous #FirstNations #AboriginalAndTorresStraitIslanders #Resistance #FuckOffCharlie :aboriginal_australia:

We've all seen the latest horrific images by now, and heard the testimonials. There are no more excuses, no more cover ups, no more reasons not to demand the end of Israel's extreme violence.

Last night (their time), Israel set alight to tents that had been set up outside al-Aqsa hospital in Deir al-Balah. Inside these tents, Palestinian people who'd been displaced by Israel's constant attacks on Gaza were sleeping. Days prior, Israel had cut off the food supply and other essential services in that region of northern Gaza. Israel purposely set fire to tired, injured, hungry homeless children, women and men.

This was undoubtedly a holocaust. And it's not the first holocaust that Israel has committed in the past year. These holocausts aren't The Holocaust. They're a series of never-ending holocausts that Israel is wantonly committing. And Israel won't stop committing holocausts - they need to be stopped.

Holocaust: destruction or slaughter on a mass scale, especially caused by fire or nuclear war. From ancient Greek, meaning ‘burnt offering’.

Edit: The term holocaust was used before WWii to describe massacres by fire, because this has been a common method of committing mass atrocities. Settlers in so-called Australia also used fire to massacre First Peoples, for example. The Holocaust of WWii is sometimes capitalised, while other holocausts are not. Using a word that has existed for eons to appropriately describe what Israel is doing to Palestinian people does not trivialise the horrific inhumanities of the Holocaust. If being forced to think about holocausts occurring, right now in Palestine, makes you uncomfortable - then I suggest you sit with that discomfort and reflect, then raise your voice against those that commit holocausts.

#Holocaust #Palestine #StopGenocide @palestine

Finally, we're seeing more Palestinian and other Arabs join Mastodon, and fucking white moderates are politely being intolerant fucking racists. It's as if you want to chase them out of your nice neighbourhoods. Just like you chased off lots of Indigenous people (I stayed out of spite)

Kris Kristofferson has died. Vale

And only now I'm hearing about all the times he supported people, and stood up for human rights. He was using his platform to voice support for Palestine way before many others started to stand up.

"I found a considerable lack of work after doing concerts for Palestinian children.. if that's the way it has to be, that's the way it has to be. If you support human rights, you gotta support them everywhere."
- Kris Kristofferson

today, there are people in shock/disbelief over an article in The Lancet that conservatively estimates the death toll in Gaza to be 186,000+ Palestinians (8% of Gaza) > https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(24)01169-3/fulltext

For those who've been paying attention, and getting information beyond mainstream/biased sources, this is not a shock. It is a very conservative estimate.

The Electronic Intifada published a piece by Susan Abulhawa on 27 June that presented a credible case for a similar death rate >
https://electronicintifada.net/content/math-proves-israels-stated-goals-are-epic-lie/47371

The Lancet (an independent medical journal with a solid global reputation) has stood up, and spoken up. More organisations and publications need to do the same.

Pressure needs to be put on the state of Israel to cease their brutal campaign in Palestine and the West Bank: which includes massacres, torture, designed starvation, ethnic cleansing, destruction of resources and land, expanded settlements, and genocide in Palestine.

The apartheid regime of Israel continues to break international laws and countless human rights. The world helped to dismantle apartheid South Africa. Now it needs to dismantle apartheid Israel.

Free Palestine, from the river to the sea 🍉 ✊🏾

@palestine #Palestine

If, like many people, you are still trying to process the horrific attack on the Nuseirat refugee camp, on top of the many other massacres that apartheid Israel has committed, I suggest the below video. Palestinians sharing the beauty and their memories of Gaza.

It features Australian-based Palestinian playwright Samah Sabawi reading a poem, and her artist son Nahed Elrayes, and father Abdul Karim Sabawi, a well known poet. Along with Palestinian photographer Suhail Nassar, and Irish surf film-maker Andrew McConnell.

https://www.aljazeera.com/program/the-stream/2024/6/7/the-other-side-of-gaza-palestinians-want-you-to-see

From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free

@palestine #Gaza #Palestine

Today is Sorry Day in so-called Australia. "Sorry" does not refer to apologies. It's based on Indigenous practices of Sorry Business; a collective process in times of grief & loss.

It's a day of remembrance for the 10000s of Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander children forcibly removed from their families: the Stolen Generations. Taken between late 1800s to early 1980s, the children were placed in church-run institutions or (later) put up for adoption without parental consent.

Up until the late 1950s, the children were trained for domestic servitude and unpaid labouring and sent to white businesses and households. The abuse and neglect in the institutions and elsewhere was rampant. Many died in these places; not everyone who survived found their families; and most have passed away without seeing any justice.

Every Indigenous family has one or more members that were part of the Stolen Generations. And the trauma of this particular act of genocide is intergenerational.

Sorry Day was one of the recommendations of a royal commission - the Bringing them home: Report of the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from Their Families. Which was tabled with the Australian
Parliament on 26 May 1997.

Another recommendation was a national apology, and that occurred on 13 February. Otherwise, very few of the 54 recommendations have been actioned.

In more recent years, in addition to commemorating the Stolen Generations and advocating for their rights, this day is also for fighting for the rights of Indigenous children who are being taken away in record numbers.

Today, I think of my family members who were stolen by the government, and forced into servitude as children. Fuck the government, churches and others who participated in this race-based cruelty; who used Aboriginal blood, sweat and tears to build a white nation on stolen Blak land. Yes, Sorry Day is also a day of anger.

For more information, resources and testimonials, visit the Healing Foundation website > https://healingfoundation.org.au/stolen-generations/

This video is good (narrated by the late Uncle Jack Charles) > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlqx8EYvRbQ

And a fact sheet > https://healingfoundation.org.au/sorry-day-factsheet/

#SorryDay #Indigenous #Genocide #StolenGenerations #ChildRemoval #Missions #ChildLabour #Aboriginal

All eyes on Rafah.

Don't look away. The least we can do is act as witnesses to Israel's crimes against humanity.

If you can, support the uni encampments. Attend protests. Donate to Palestinian mutual aid. Get cranky at politicians. Boycott, Divest and Sanction Israeli companies. Shout: not in our names!

From the river to the sea, liberate Palestine!

My friend Susan Abulhawa - Palestinian author and changemaker - recently returned from Gaza. She spent two weeks there; delivering aid for animals and people, running workshops to support Palestinian people under siege to tell their own stories; and checking in on friends and family.

She didn't want to leave - Israel cancelled Humanitarian visas. Until she can enter again, Susan has been publishing her accounts of this brief time in Gaza. These pieces are haunting and honest. The devastation and state violence is much worse than what we've seen online.

I'll post her articles in this thread as they're published. And the videos she's produced. And urge everyone to read/watch.

Keep speaking up for Palestine!

1/-

@palestine #Gaza

If you've not bookmarked it already, here's the link for the live streaming of the request for provisional measures hearing, in the ICJ case of South Africa vs Israel. Starting in about an hour and a half > https://webtv.un.org/en/asset/k1c/k1c10lsjoq

Free free Palestine!

@aral may all victims of past and present genocides and ethnic cleansing get justice. After Palestinian people are liberated from the apartheid regime of Israel, I'll continue to speak up against genocide and other extreme forms of state violence. But Palestine (and Aboriginal rights) is where my current focus is. @Ryntastic

Houthis are shining lights of humanity and hope. Yemen, Palestine, and South Africa are doing more to disrupt the apartheid regime of Israel's extreme violence than all affluent Western nations combined. Reminding us how flawed, racist, and inhumane Western democracy really is.

Edit: Turkey has just announced they'll be backing South Africa's application to the IJC. Another nation speaking up against Israel's crimes of genocide :sickos2:

[No white reply guys, please. I'm venting - probably about you. Just shut up and listen]

Mastodon is full of white moderates with "polite" excuses for racism and racists. "Polite" excuses for supporting a genocide. "Polite" excuses for state violence against Black, Indigenous, or Arab people.

This bullshit is exhausting. And it's infuriating that few white people can see what's going on. Because this abusive polite-white racism and white supremacy is often invisible to people who don't experience it themselves. Or they benefit from maintaining the status quo of systemic racism.

But online and offline life are not disconnected spaces.

Systemic racism is driving the apartheid state of Israel to murder and terrorise Palestinians. Systemic racism is being used to excuse this genocide. Systemic racism resources IOF. And white-polite people around the world enable this violence to continue with no consequences.

But back to Mastodon....

Systemic racism is keeping Mastodon from being an inclusive, safe, anti-racist space. White-polite racism is stopping Mastodon from being an effective space to advocate for Palestinians, and to condemn the apartheid regime of Israel.

Free Palestine, from the river to the sea.

Fuck white-polite

I'll never forget who stated Israel (government) has a right to attack civilians, while Palestine does not have a right to defend themselves against this heavily-militarised state.

The horror of witnessing wave after wave of state violence. The sadistic violence. Murdered and maimed children. Whole families wiped off the earth. Communities destroyed. Libraries, universities and art galleries gone. Scars and trauma that will last for generations. I will never forget.

People standing on the wrong side of history will be remembered for many generations.

The love, kindness, endurance, community care, and strength that Palestinian people showed the world will also be remembered for many generations.

#SavePalestine @palestine

I'm not going to write From the River to the Sea today. Because yet another person will do another nuisance report - someone so full of hate they can't envision a liberated Palestine where Palestinians and Israelis co-exist in harmony.

I'm not going to write, once again, that I strongly condemn the state of Israel for apartheid, ethnic cleansing, genocide, and massacring civilians. Because yet another person will just do another nuisance report - someone who holds irrational, race-based hate for Palestinians and other Arab peoples.

I'm not going to speak of the 1000s of innocent children who have been murdered by the state of Israel; or displaced, orphaned, starved, injured and traumatised. Because yet another person will just do another nuisance report - because they are so heartless they feel nothing when witnessing the murder of Palestinian children.

Instead, today I will simply say: may you remember to your last breath what you did or didn't do as countless people were slaughtered by the immoral Israeli government and brutal IOF. May you forever be remembered for what you did or didn't do during these dark days.

PS reporting me for speaking up against extreme state violence says more about you than it does about me.

@palestine #Palestine #FreePalestine

Today marks 6 weeks since Hamas killed an estimated 1200 Israelis.

May peace be upon them.

Today marks 6 weeks of brutal attacks on Palestine by the state of Israel. Over 12,000 people murdered by the apartheid regime of Israel. Millions displaced, starving and dehydrated. Countless trapped under rubble, injured, and/or orphaned. And no ceasefire or mercy in sight.

May Allah be merciful with the martyrs.

Both Palestinians and Israelis need to be liberated from the state of Israel's extreme violence.

May they all be free, from the river to the sea.

#Palestine @palestine #FreePalestine