Digital apartheid

Last Friday, more than 200 people were wounded when Israeli police shot rubber bullets and threw stun grenades at Palestinians in Al-Aqsa mosque. Israeli forces tried to prevent medics from treating the injured and at least three Palestinians lost an eye as a result of the attack. On Monday, Israeli occupation forces again fired at Palestinians, who had gathered at Al-Aqsa to pray and protect the site from settler violence, with rubber-coated bullets, stun grenades, and tear gas; reporters, journalists and medics were among the wounded. In the latest act of collective punishment, Israel began a ruthless bombing campaign in the Gaza Strip on Monday night, flattening civilian infrastructure and media offices. The current death toll is estimated to be at least 65, 16 of whom are children, with 365 wounded, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health. On Wednesday night, settler and police violence against Palestinians in the city of Lydd (also known as Lod) peaked as hundreds of Israelis stormed the city, attacking Palestinian protesters following the murder of 33-year-old Palestinian man, Musa Hassouna. Israeli Border Forces were eventually transferred to Lydd from the West Bank. Furthermore, fascist Israelis participated in an attempted lynching of a Palestinian man in Bat Yam, forcibly removing him from his car and beating him unconscious.

The Israeli Supreme Court has since delayed the Sheikh Jarrah forced removals for 30 days, but activists have identified this as a stalling tactic meant to diffuse momentum and support for the Sheikh Jarrah residents.

In a recent CNN interview, Mohamed El-Kurd, a Palestinian poet and activist from Sheikh Jarrah, powerfully turned the age-old media trope of Palestinians being inherently ‘violent’ on its head by responding to the reporter’s leading question with one of his own: “Do you support the violent dispossession of me and my family?” As usual, US mainstream media organisations attempt to hide the asymmetrical nature of Israel’s aggression by defining its latest and ongoing attacks on the Palestinian people as ‘clashes’ or a ‘conflict’.

Mainstream media’s ongoing efforts to whitewash Israel’s deadly occupation, coupled with the dire and rapidly escalating situation of Palestinians in Sheikh Jarrah as well as all Palestinians resisting in support of them, make unrestricted access to social media especially crucial for Palestinians and their allies.

But rather than amplifying the righteous struggle of Palestinians resisting violence and displacement, social media companies are furthering the interests and agenda of the very government attacking them.

This latest round of social media censorship of Palestinian posts about Sheikh Jarrah is part of a larger pattern of repression, given the long and well-documented complicity between Israel and social media companies in regulating and censoring Palestinian content and accounts. Instagram officially attributed these latest deletions to a “global technical issue”. Twitter likewise claimed the restriction of the account of Palestinian writer Mariam Barghouti, which was subsequently reinstated following a huge social media outcry, was an “accident”. Activists and watchdog organisations have expressed doubts about such explanations, given the targeted nature of the removals and censures.

Decades after Edward Said’s criticism of the US media’s insistent refusal to allow Palestinians to narrate their own stories, the voices in support of the Palestinian liberation struggle are being silenced not only by mainstream media organisations but also social media companies.

But we must not give in. Despite efforts by social media companies and media organisations to silence Palestinians, those who truly believe in equality, justice and freedom should continue to endorse and amplify the calls to save Sheikh Jarrah, stop the expansion of illegal Israeli settlements, end all military funding for Israel, and bring an end to Israel’s occupation of Palestinian lands and state-sanctioned discrimination against Palestinians. We should also support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, until Israel agrees to cease its colonial and apartheid practices for good. Media organisations and social media companies can try to control and distort narratives about Palestine, but they cannot hide the truth and silence Palestinians’ righteous calls for justice forever.

Excerpted: ‘Digital apartheid: Palestinians being silenced on social media’

Aljazeera.com