Many of you reading this have seen the current turn of events happening in Palestine, with people uprising and standing up for their basic rights as humans to live in peace and dignity. There have been a lot of buzz on social media and it might get overwhelming to understand how exactly we can be do our part and be supportive. We put together 5 things you can do to support Palestinians during these times:
1. Share information about the situation. The main and most accessible way to do this is to share information from reliable sources on social media. Try your best to fact check the post before sharing it to avoid misinformation. Sharing on social media not only amplifies the message to a large number of people and creates awareness on the tragedies happening, but also “fights” against the Instagram algorithm that’s trying to censor posts raising awareness on Palestinian rights.
2. Protesting is an effective way to show alliance to a cause and demand change. You don’t have to be in Palestine or Palestinian for that matter to be able to march to support Palestinians. The more people show up in the marches, the more awareness is created on the issue and the more your country’s politicians pay attention to the issue in hand and may consider changing some foreign policies they have set with Israel. These policies can have an impact on funding and selling weapons to Israeli military as well as pressuring Israel to stop violating UN international laws and denying Palestinians their basic human rights and existence.
3. Whether you’re posting on social media or talking to your friends or coworkers about the issue, make sure you’re using the right language to accurately describe the situation and help them picture it and empathize. Mainstream news outlets have used words such as “clash” between Israel and Palestine, which implies a violent confrontation between two parties of similar strength, power and capability. The current situation however is a state-sanctioned violence between an oppressor (Israel) and an oppressed party (Palestine). When referring to Israeli settlers, make sure to emphasize the fact that they’re illegal settlers as established by the UN, and what the Israeli government is doing to Palestinians right now in Sheikh Jarrah is not just evicting them out of their own homes, but is an ethnic cleansing of a group of people that is irrelevant to a religious struggle as pictured in mainstream media.
4. Make sure to follow media sources that provide accurate unbiased information on the situation. On Instagram, this could be pages like @letstalkpalestine , @theimeu , @visualizing_palestine , @palestinianyouthmovement and many more. These kinds of pages usually provide reliable, unbiased, comprehensive and easy to digest resources to share, educate and raise awareness on the matter.
5. Our dollars have more power than most of us think. Where you choose to spend your money does not only have an effect on your personal consumption habits, but can have huge economic and political consequences. Simply put, if you choose spend more of your money buying products from bigger corporations rather than smaller businesses, you’re automatically helping the rich get richer and small businesses dying out. In the same token, when you’re buying products from companies that are well known to support and fund Israel, you’re contributing to the ethnic cleansing of innocent people in Palestine. Doing background research on the companies you’re putting your dollars in and boycotting companies that go against your morals and your stance on human rights can have a significant impact.
We hope this gave you a comprehensive view on what you can do to support Palestinians in these difficult times, and the impact these actions can have. So please share and keep raising awareness and keep the momentum going.
