Urgent Appeal For HelpGazaChildren: Help Refugees Flee To Khan Younis!

Herbawi Textile Factory in Hebron. The last remaining Keffiyeh factory in Palestine. By Pirates and Plants on Flickr

Some guides to thinking through & responding to Zionist talking points

Decolonize Palestine's list of myths and debunkings of them, including "Israel made the desert bloom," "all Jewish people are indigenous to Israel," and "Palestinians won't participate in the peace process"

Bo Forbes, "Talking Points Guide: Israel-Palestine" (2023)

Jared Sacks, "A 'Self-Hating' Jew’s Guide to Zionist Talking Points" (2014)

Palestine Institute for Public Diplomacy, "Talking points and messaging guidance for Palestinians and allies" (2023)

starbucks_red_cup on Reddit, "Some Zionist talking points and responses to them"; and comments (2023)

Middle East Policy Council, "The Original "No": Why the Arabs Rejected Zionism, and Why It Matters" (specifically a response to the "Palestinians are at fault for rejecting the 1947 partition plan" narrative)

If you prefer podcasts:

Citations Needed, "News Brief: Debunking the 5 Most Common Anti-Palestinian Talking Points" (2021)

i feel obligated to talk about this bc i am egyptian and one of the central reasons people from gaza have been fundraising is because of egypt's border policy, which is no longer active since the rafah border was destroyed

i know nothing gets people more heated or self-righteous than the idea that they might be getting scammed, and i know the gofundmes here can be overwhelming in your inboxes and i know for many people in the west who want some kind of reliable process this can seem sketchy but palestinian bloggers on here (and palestinians across platforms including on gazafunds.com) don't want you to be scammed any more than you want to be scammed, and they have put in an extraordinary effort to verify information literally in the middle of a warzone

the truth is you all have no idea how difficult this entire process is from top to bottom, tech companies and fintech companies literally hate anything that passes through this area. i'm banned from uber and doordash because i used an egyptian credit card while travelling and it flagged their automated fraud systems and they never reinstated it lol like that's how arbitrary it is. and egypt is one of the better-connected countries in the area.

the entire reason people in gaza are relying on gofundmes is because the barriers to entry and exit are not accidental—they're deliberate! this is literally what being occupied and middle-eastern means. it means you don't have easy access to bank accounts, you don't have easy access to fundraising, you don't have easy access to your own records, and you are automatically mistrusted by the world at large of how thoroughly dehumanized your language and your people have been during a genocide where you are being bombed and living in a tent. this is also part of what it means to be a refugee from the global south or to be a refugee from the global north, where these processes are expedited (as they were for ukrainian refugees, for example) precisely because they are part of the structure of a war.

like just to explain to you guys how difficult it was for me (someone with access to networks across the world) to get money to a friend in gaza, because egypt's also going through an economic crisis and transferring usd here is close to impossible: to get 15k usd (enough to get 3 people out of gaza) to the office in egypt that registers people for evacuation, that family needed

a stable internet connection to communicate with us (they were only able to get in touch briefly every other day)

first-degree relatives in egypt to register for them

people from abroad who could raise the money for them (which they did; they were family friends who knew them)

an egyptian with a usd bank account and a foreigner coming to egypt who could carry usd in cash to divide it among themselves because there is no other way to receive that amount of money here at once

we managed to get the money to their relatives here, they managed to register them, and then the rafah border was destroyed. so now the are just waiting while being bombed and displaced from one area to another. and this is a family who had every connection needed. imagine how it is for people where only one of these links are dropped?

that's why the work the palestinian bloggers do here to support palestinians in gaza is necessary, because they fill in for people who don't have good language skills, who don't have friends abroad to fundraise or vouch for them, who don't have relatives in egypt who can receive money for them, etc

does this mean every fundraiser is 100% reliable? no. this is why the verification list exists! the things i would be wary of would be if someone sends you a false or phishing link, or if someone who is running the campaign from abroad decides to scam the palestinians they're raising it for and refuse to send the money, both of which i've witnessed personally

but the likelihood of someone faking being from gaza and getting onto the verified list is much smaller because the verification process is rigorous and like i said, palestinians themselves don't want to be promoting scams. but also most of these gofundmes protect your donation, meaning if someone disputes it you get your donation back. they are paranoid to the extent that they will sometimes refuse to pay out people in gaza even after the campaign goal is reached for no reason except that anything from the middle east is generally regarded with suspicion. i've seen paypal also refuse to do the same

as a matter of fact from a tech standpoint it's so, so much easier for someone located in the west to create a fake gofundme/phishing scam than for a palestinian to do so, but by that token it's more difficult for someone in the west to convincingly fake being from gaza. which is why the verification list and other initiatives (like again, gazafunds.com) are so important

i have tried to get gofundmes on gazafunds before and i can promise you their process is rigorous. you might not see a lot of the paperwork behind a specific campaign but i know they don't add campaigns unless they verify their IDs personally or through a network of trusted references. the bloggers on here are a volunteer network working independently, of their own effort, and they are doing their best in what is a genuinely horrible situation. the border is closed now but people in gaza have worked out alternate ways to receive money raised online (again, often via relatives transferring to each other outside gaza or other means) and aid hasn't been coming in for months and those regulating the aid were killed, which means extremely limited supplies and high inflation, so money raised and received now is literally survival money that goes wherever it can, and people are very desperate to raise as much as possible as things get more dire. there is no employment in gaza right now. people have been living off their savings for ten months.

is that simple to convey to some blogger on tumblr donating 5$ to a gofundme? is it simple to understand? no. and that's part of the structure of genocide. you aren't going to be able to venmo someone and get a receipt like you do if you're donating to an org, so volunteers are doing their best to fill in the gaps for that by making sure you know how your money is helping real human beings while relieving the pressure on these humans, in a genocide with limited internet, to constantly post about themselves.

the fact of the matter is that your risk of being scammed by a gofundme from the verified list or gazafunds dot com is extremely low, but the damage of of assuming (and even worse, claiming) these campaigns are a scam is extremely high

if you don't trust a campaign, don't donate to it. if you notice a red flag you feel like the bloggers verifying might have missed, alert them to it. if you notice someone impersonating one of the verified campaigns on here (also common) alert people to it. i often have difficulty identifying which blogs are legitimate because they are deleted and remade so frequently, so i just try to reblog posts from the verified list or promoted by palestinians bloggers as i donate to them.

don't cast doubt on the process if you don't understand it, and don't be cruel about a situation you should pray you never experience—and odds are, if you have a US passport and a US bank account, you never will.

You're launching surefire hit PS5 exclusive Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth in 2 days, surely the best time to fire 900 people from across Sony's offices including the entire London branch

I’m no tumblr historian…but when has a game engine ever been trending on this app??

For artists and creatives that are indie game lovers, it’s always awesome to meet new artists and developers! I’ve found fellow artists and game devs by doing game jams (essentially, quick concept / prototype games traditionally made between 72 hours) since I first started making indie game.

I do all my game jams through itch.io, but there can also be in your local indie dev scene and other online platforms.

Game jams are also a great way to test how you work with others, problem solve, and lean how to communicate yourself. Builds confidence too!

I am being so serious when I say: if you have the financial and time privilege to get a group of friends together and make an indie project, PLEASE do. Indie games, indie animations, indie comics etc etc

the art industries are kind of in the shitter. It’s not so much because of AI (though that doesn’t help) but because studios just aren’t hiring people and funding projects anymore. People who’ve been in the industry for decades are finding themselves struggling, and once you have a mortgage or kids it’s harder to do something as risky as making something on your own.

completing projects is hard. it takes a lot of time and effort, and most people can’t afford it. so if you CAN afford to make art, even at the risk of no financial gain, I strongly encourage you to be as resilient as you can. We’re at a point where these industries are not going to turn around by themselves, and waiting for jobs to open up again in order to get experience and portfolio work might not be realistic.

people have been making art and telling stories longgggg before we were getting paid for it, and people aren’t going to stop just because no one has hired them to do so.

for everyone else: support indie artists when you can!!!! That person who made that cool indie game or youtube animation or webcomic might be doing this full time! your support might be the only reason they’re able to keep doing it.

and if you have already started an indie project: you’re so brave and I’m very proud of you!!! in fact, drop a link to it in the reblogs if you want! 👇

The Nakba represents not only a historical event but an ongoing reality, as it laid the foundation for the continued colonization and occupation of Palestinian land and violent dispossession of the Palestinian people. This series captures how the genocide and mass displacement of Palestinians in Gaza is an extension of the 1948 Nakba. 

all these retro style games that are like "NO tutorials NO handholding" apparently forgot about the little books that used to come with your game that detailed all the mechanics, controls, special moves, lore, maps, collectables, means of unlocking additional content, character bios, etc