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Tuesday, August 12, 2014

Gaza writer tells journalists and activists to f*** off (update)

I thought that this was interesting: a rant from a Gaza writer, Lina Alsaafin, who loves Hamas, loathes Israel but also hates how Gaza is a trendy topic being used by idiots:

- Do not infantilize it by God-awful chants such as the morbid “Gaza Gaza don’t you cry/We will never let you die.”

- Gaza is no more an “Arab cause” than it is a “Muslim/Islamic ummah cause.” The former are collaborators with the Zionist regime, the latter does not exist. So save your takbeers (unless it is to cheer on the resistance) and empty rhetoric on saving al-Aqsa mosque (it’s not the one with the shiny golden dome by the way) for when Salah al-Din emerges from his grave.

- Gaza is not a charity basket case. Use those bake-sales to attain something oh so slightly pettier. We don’t want money to ameliorate the disastrous conditions. We want an end to the siege and a border crossing we can be in charge of. We want dignity.

- Gaza is not a cool warzone for you to add on your CV and Facebook albums. So pseudo journalists, fuck off. Orientalist journalists, the same applies to you. Foreign journalists who love reporting about the location of resistance rockets fired-endangering whole neighborhoods- the darkest depths of hellfire await you.

- Gaza is not a cool slogan. Gaza is not cool for you to parade your activism shamelessly. Gaza is not an acceptable mainstream easy activist protest where flags of parties who are actively involved in killing civilians such as Hezbollah can be waved around.

- Gaza is not a platform to use for your political and public speaking career, George Galloway. Gaza is not for bigots, no matter how “good” of a speaker they are.

- Gaza is not a “feel-good call of duty even though I am so angry by all the killings there.” If you want to protest, do it right. Do not hold hands for the umpteenth time in front of the Israeli embassy chanting “Free Free Palestine” like a broken record. Do occupy or smash up the embassy. Quality over quantity.

- Gaza is not for selfies.

- Gaza is not to be used for people to further their own careers and star-studded personalities who support oppression elsewhere. Gaza is not for hypocrites, like Abby Martin.

- Dear West Bank especially, and the rest of Palestine in general: Gaza is not a neighboring country. Do not protest in “solidarity” by holding candles and gathering at city centers. Rise up against the slavemaster’s puppets, the Palestinian Authority. Rise up against the slavemaster, Israel. Shove your solidarity to somewhere where the sun don’t shine.

- Dear the rest of Palestine: do not internally Orientalize Gaza. That includes describing singer Mohammed Assaf as “dark-skinned but with a great personality.” Perhaps it is too much to ask to get rid of your colonized minds.

- Gaza is not for your own fetishization. Do not fetishize Gaza.

- If you do not understand what is meant by “Gaza is Hamas, and Hamas is Gaza” as Israel relentlessly bombards it with thousands of tons of heavy weaponry and massacres then do not even torture us with your senseless analysis.
She's a completely off the wall terror supporter, but in order to understand the Middle East, you need to understand people like her.

I wonder what the pro-terror crowd - demonstrating daily -  thinks when they read stuff like this.

(Newsflash for Lina: Israel doesn't need the media to tell it where rockets are launched from. Less than a second after they are fired, Israel knows the exact location. But nice to know that you, so outspoken to the rest of the world, meekly follow the rules of your beloved Islamist masters who want you to remain a second class citizen.)

UPDATE: Looks like she isn't really from Gaza, but Ramallah/London. She just really, really identifies with Hamas, I guess.  (h/t R Burns)