Will Posting On Social Media And Other Grandstanding Affect The Palestine Conflict?

I was at a rave last night and they lit this thing on fire while waving the Palestine flag around.

At a symbolic level it’s lovely. A group of anarchist ravers were bonding in solidarity to create a picturesque moment. I believe that everything about their intentions were sincere.

At a practical level I’m really uncertain what the point of it was. We were in the middle of nowhere, most of them weren’t sober, and this was very much preaching to the choir. My understanding is the goal was raising awareness. We’re blessed in a position of privilege over here in Canada. The least we can do is raise awareness right?

This article is not condemning their actions. I think it’s wonderful people are choosing to use their voices. I begin to question how much of this actually affects change?

Netenyahu does not care at all if people criticize him. 

Most social media posts are clearly virtue signalling, they don’t help

I can think of this one cornball artist on my timeline that acts real high and mighty while posting about Gaza.He shares every meme and post he sees and adds comments like “Why does this even need to be said?”

Often the rhetoric comes with this implication that if you are not also posting incessantly on the topic you are the scum of the Earth. Or somehow complicit to the bigger evil. While the person uses American made social media, which indirectly contributes to the funding of the IDF.

Social media posts linked to charity make sense. Social media posts linked to articles that provide context and actionable information are useful. Social media posts telling you where the protests and IRL activism happens are for the cause.

Turning your social media identity into a person who posts about causes feels so disingenuous. You can almost see the dopamine hit their system as they hit “enter” and watch the interactions come in. Then they get in the comments and start attacking anyone that doesn’t fall in line. 

This may be only the second or third thing I’ve posted related to the conflict since October. My take is too nuanced to get into over social media comments and I don’t think me rah raging online is going to make a difference. Besides, everyone I know is already aware of Gaza, none of us know what to do next.

That being said, I do have big love for the IRL activists.

Protesting is about disruption 

Protests, when done effectively, are about creating a disturbance.

All the people who are peacefully protesting, but being real annoying and inconveniencing people, are doing it right in my opinion. Even if it does mean that people are blocked from getting into schools or workplaces. 

I draw the line at blatant discrimination. If only Jews are being blocked from accessing class because they are Jewish (allegedly this happened at McGill), that is fucked up. If a building connected to Israel’s entrance is blocked, that sounds like how they did it back in the day.

This kind of thing shows solidarity and creates a ripple effect. It creates conversation and plants seeds. I often think about how BLM disrupted the Toronto Pride parade.

It was effective.

I don’t know that sharing memes online and shaming people who don’t parrot your opinions is the wave.

While I often question the effectiveness of protesting, I do respect the action. Those are all people who are taking a risk to be there. They may even be missing work or other responsibilities to fight for something bigger.

That speaks to my soul.

Social media is an organizational tool for action

It’s clear that social media can be used to galvanize a cause and organize it.

I imagine most of the people sharing the memes believe they are part of the galvanization effort. It’ll be a shame for this cause when the next crisis happens and it is forgotten, but maybe it does help. It’s probably better to post for activism, even if it’s vain, than for destructive reasons.

I’ve spent the last 8 months thinking about the social media debates of 2014. In July 2014 Hamas was throwing bombs at Israel and a much younger me was standing in a desert watching jets fly to Gaza to bomb them. I was on Birthright at the time and well, there was an active conflict.

Then for a while the whole Facebook and Twitter sphere was all about Gaza and West Bank. 

Despite all the posting, Netenyahu continued colonizing the West Bank. Frankly no one even talks about the West Bank much. Then Hamas struck in October and a new generation of youngsters was exposed to Gaza.

It feels like every generation gets exposed to it. Protests. Then nothing changes.

Anyway here’s where I stand.

A quick synopsis of my thoughts on the Gaza crisis and us

I think Netenyahu is the root of all evil here.

Notice I don’t say Israel? Canada does not act. The Canadians who run the government act.

It’s important to be really specific when we have this conversation. Generalizations are pretty pointless. Netenyahu’s aggressive policies have made life very hard for Palestineans in Gaza and West Bank.  

Obviously Netenyahu inherited this mess. But he’s been in power for a lot of the years in recent history. This is largely on him.

Hamas is clearly a terrorist group. Fuck them and their terrorist actions. They leverage the deaths of Palistineans for political and financial clout. Lots of other countries funnel money into Palestine and Hamas jacks it all.

The people of Gaza clearly had no choice when electing Hamas. Imagine voting for someone else in that climate. It bothers me when Jews act like the people of Gaza electing Hamas was democratic like how we elected Trudeau.

That’s a bullshit false equivalency.

The regular degular Palestineans in Gaza are suffering and it breaks my heart. They had no choice in this. Don’t make it sound like they did for politics. 

I respect the passion on both sides. The Jews here are fearful for their safety. Because literally Jewish schools are getting shot up as if the KKK were hanging crosses in my neighbourhood.

Literally 2 schools.  

There’s a lot of antisemitic stuff going around. The second anyone says “Kill the Jews” or any of those derivatives at a protest, I’m out. That protest is now in hate crime territory. 

I’m mostly sad and helpless when I think about it. I feel torn between two sides. I avoid the topic because most of the people trying to talk about it in my life have terrible takes. 

I respect the activism though, even if some of y’all are corny.

Live Long and Prosper Everyone