aflamethatneverdies
But being normal has nothing to do with us
they/them. communist. posts about media and stuff.
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Congo: The Genocide that implicates us all
Heavy fighting erupted in 2023 between the Congolese Army and several armed groups, most notably the M23 militia, escalating an already disastrous situation. Thousands have been killed, and hundreds of thousands have been displaced. At present, there are 7.1 million displaced people in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Violence of this scale is not without precedent, with the conflict in Eastern DRC leading to an approximate 6 million deaths since 1996.
In November 2023, an unidentified man in the capital Kinshasa set himself on fire while holding a sign reading “Stop the Genocide in Congo.” Another man, Cedrick Nianza, did the same in 2011 while shouting Congo na nga, Congo na nga (my Congo, my Congo).
Violence and conflict inflicted on the people in the Congo is not new. Over a century ago, one of the worst atrocities in recorded history occurred with King Leopold II’s genocide of 10 million African people to control the rubber trade during his colonial rule over Congo from 1885 to 1908.
The modern conflict includes ethnically motivated killings, which have been a frequent reality in Congo since the spillover from the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi people occurring in their neighbor country Rwanda. Thirty years later, the M23 claims to defend the Tutsi from further acts of genocide.
Along with the ethnic divisions, the modern conflicts are fueled by a diverse constellation of internal, regional, and international actors with the essential factor driving the violence being control over resources.
Almost all new technology, especially what is described as ‘green tech,’ requires materials such as lithium, cobalt, copper, and tin. The Eastern regions of the DRC are rich in these materials – as well as in diamonds and petroleum – and are thus subject to fierce contestations by local militias, backed by foreign governments (such as Rwanda in the case of the M23 militia), and international capital. Those that mine for these materials experience horrible conditions, with many accounts of slave labor and child labor. These same minerals are bought by international companies and create technologies such as smart phones, laptops, electric vehicles, solar panels, ear pods, speakers – basically anything with a battery.
Many activists are calling for a boycott of new tech and insist that the transition to green technology – a phrase used to indicate a switch to more ecological forms of energy production – cannot be built with the blood of Congolese men, women, and children.
This is the third in a series visualizing genocides across the globe created by Hisham Rifai and Ayman Makarem. See the first two specials, Resisting Starvation in Gaza and ‘Zaghrouda’ in the Midst of the Sudan War below.
The artistic duo has also created the Revolution in Every Country comic series on revolutionary movement events and ideas in the SWANA (South West Asia and North Africa) region.
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the way that this page in particular was adapted just OOZES studio trigger tbh. like I know everyone likes to joke about studio trigger being the horny studio, but the quick jerky animation direction is what truly makes their work recognizable to me. I can practically see Lio Fotia bleeding through the pixels in that 5 frame animation of Falin peeking through her fingers
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🥰
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Similarities between Iraq War protests and Palestine Protests.
Source 1
Source 2
youtube
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Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, famous Palestinian Feminist Scholar, talks about the violence of forced incarceration of martyrs, the disrespect of their bodies, sexual violence against Palestinian men, women, and children, and the continued violence Jerusalem Palestinians face as part of the ongoing genocide.
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"The point to be argued is not how to qualify the status of homosexuality across the broad historical and geographical, not to mention religious, regional, class, national, and political variances of the Middle East. We must consider instead how the production of homosexuality as taboo is situated within the history of encounters with the western gaze. While in Said’s Orientalism the illicit sex found in the Orient was sought out in order to liberate the Occident from its own performance of the repressive hypothesis, in the case of Abu Ghraib, conversely, it is the (perverse) repression of the Arab prisoners that is highlighted in order to efface the rampant hypersexual excesses of the U.S. prison guards. The Orient, once conceived in Foucault’s ars erotica and Said’s deconstructive work as the place of original release, unfettered sin, and acts with no attendant identities or consequences, now symbolizes the space of repression and perversion, and the site of freedom has been relocated to western identity. Given the unbridled homophobia (among other phobias) demonstrated by the U.S. guards, it is indeed ironic, yet predictable, that the United States nonetheless emerges as sexually exceptional: less homophobic and more tolerant of homosexuality (and less tainted by misogyny and fundamentalism) than the repressed, modest, nudity-shy Middle East."
Jasbir K. Puar, Terrorist Assemblages: Homonationalism in Queer Times (2007)
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one reason (white) queer people misuse the term homonationalism is that they see queerness (or whatever you want to call it) as naturally disaffiliated with the US empire. so they understand homonationalism as a divergence from a natural mutual antagonism between queerness and empire. they talk about homonationalism as if it's an exclusively "normie gay" project, and as if it's a divergence from, rather than a consequence of, the overall trajectory of western lgbtqia+ politics. ironically it’s that self-exceptionalization by the queer, on the basis of their queerness, that imbricates them in homonationalism. they produce themselves as a homonationalist subject, and reproduce homonationalism, every time they articulate their queerness as individualized freedom. and Puar actually anticipates all of this in her original theorization of homonationalism in Terrorist Assemblages, and that's why it really helps to go to the text instead of osmosing queer theory solely through tumblr posts (esp when tumblr is so white and the queer theorists are not):
"Some may strenuously object to the suggestion that queer identities, like their 'less radical' counterparts, homosexual, gay, and lesbian identities, are also implicated in ascendant white American nationalist formations, preferring to see queerness as singularly transgressive of identity norms. This focus on transgression, however, is precisely the term by which queerness narrates its own sexual exceptionalism.
While we can point to the obvious problems with the emancipatory, missionary pulses of certain (U.S., western) feminisms and of gay and lesbian liberation, queerness has its own exceptionalist desires: exceptionalism is a founding impulse, indeed the very core of a queerness that claims itself as an anti-, trans-, or unidentity. The paradigm of gay liberation and emancipation has produced all
sorts of troubling narratives: about the greater homophobia of immigrant communities and communities of color, about the stricter family values and mores in these communities, about a certain prerequisite migration from home, about coming-out teleologies. We have less understanding of queerness as a biopolitical project, one that both parallels and intersects with that of multiculturalism, the ascendancy of whiteness, and may collude with or collapse into liberationist paradigms. While liberal underpinnings serve to
constantly recenter the normative gay or lesbian subject as exclusively liberatory, these same tendencies labor to insistently recenter the normative queer subject as an exclusively transgressive one. Queerness here is the modality through which 'freedom from norms' becomes a regulatory queer ideal that demarcates the ideal queer. ... I am thinking of queerness as exceptional in a way that is wedded to individualism and the rational, liberal humanist subject, what [Sara] Ahmed denotes as 'attachments' and what I would qualify as deep psychic registers of investment that we often cannot
account for and are sometimes best seen by others rather than ourselves. 'Freedom from norms' resonates with liberal humanism’s authorization of the fully self-possessed speaking subject, untethered by hegemony or false consciousness, enabled by the life/stylization offerings of capitalism, rationally choosing modern individualism over the ensnaring bonds of family. In this problematic definition of queerness, individual agency is legible only as resistance to norms rather than complicity with them, thus equating resistance and agency.
... Queerness as automatically and inherently transgressive enacts specific forms of disciplining and control, erecting celebratory queer liberal subjects folded into life (queerness as subject) against the sexually pathological and deviant populations targeted for death (queerness as population). Within that orientation of regulatory transgression, queer operates as an alibi for complicity with all sorts of other identity norms, such as nation, race, class, and gender, unwittingly lured onto the ascent toward whiteness. ... To be excused from a critique of one’s own power manipulations is the appeal of white liberalism, the underpinnings of the ascendancy of whiteness, which is not a conservative, racist formation bent on extermination, but rather an insidious liberal one proffering an innocuous inclusion into life."
Jasbir K. Puar, Terrorist Assemblages: Homonationalism in Queer Times (2007)
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Fundraiser masterpost
Latest update: 26/04/2024.
This is a masterpost for the evacuation fundraisers I've vetted so far, a few other fundraisers I find trustworthy but have not been able to vet (inability to communicate with the organizer), and a few semi-completed fundraisers or fundraisers for a different purpose (like house rebuilding, or aid distribution). The numbers next to the names have no significance beyond ease of navigation for me for when I check their progress in the future. You should look at the disclaimers instead and focus on those. Occasionally I will update these with new info, including new fundraisers, and the amount of cash that's been raised. Check in regularly on the original post when you see it being reblogged. In all likelihood once its reached you it's already outdated. Also please don't overlook the Sustainable Aid options near the bottom! The brain drain is already creating problems but having another way of keeping or creating new knowledge and key members of a functioning society is important.
VETTED FAMILY ESCAPE FUNDRAISERS
Walaa Abusamra (1). 10 family members. 28.4k out of 80k €.
Ezzideen Shehab (2). 6 family members. 9.7k out of 32.5k €. LOW ON FUNDS.
Madleen Abu Jayyab (3). 4 family members. 18.7k out of 70k USD.
Jehad Shehada (4). 1 individual. 3.5k out of 15k CAD. LOW ON FUNDS.
Aser Alassar (5). 5 family members. 405k out of 550k SEK. Or 37k out of 51k USD.
My friend Mona Abu Hamda (6). 9 family members. 62.6k out of 75k USD.
Mohammed Shamia (7). 7 family members. 10.7k out of 35k USD.
Abdullah Al-Saghir (8). 9 family members. 68.2k out of 100k €.
Randa Abubakr (9). 6 family members. 14.6k out of 17k €. COMPLETED ✅
Fadi Alshrafi (10). 9 family members. 54.5k out of 85k USD. (1 evacuated)
Osama Abdelrahman. (11). 9 family members. 35.2k out of 45k €. (1 CHRONICALLY ILL CHILD, NEEDS TREATMENT)
Alhaw family and the Albittar family (12). Between 18 and 12 family members. 8.8k out of 90k €. (EXTREMELY LOW, NEEDS FUNDS)
Verified Fundraiser by Palestine Asdiqa to help a malnourished baby with cerebral palsy. (13) 7.7k out of 31k USD. (URGENT + CHRONICALLY ILL CHILD, NEEDS TREATMENT)
Rana Abu Ahmed (14). 6 family members. COMPLETED ✅
Mohammed Abu Matar (15). 6 family members. 9.9k out of 34k CAD.
Moataz Abu Sakran (16). 3 family members. 12.4k out of 20k $ ORIGINAL CAMPAIGN COMPLETE, NEEDS TRANSFER FEES COVERED. 629$ out of 5k needed.
Ayah Abu Sidu (17). 10 family members. 15.8k out of 50.4k USD.
Said Fadel (18). 7 family members. 19.7k out of 50k USD.
Tasneem Nabil Musa (19). 7 family members (ALL INJURED, NEED MEDICAL CARE.) 10.5k out of 50k USD
Belal Azmi Msallam (20). 14 family members. 7.1k out of 160k AUD. EXTREMELY LOW ON FUNDS.
Mortaja Family (21). 11 family members. 28k out of 70k €.
Abu Ramadan family (22). 14 family members. 10k out of 148k €.
Mai Rajab (23). COMPLETED ✅
Amal Abu Shammala (24). 4 family members. 33.7k out of 42k €.
Maryam & family (25). 30.3k out of 50k USD.
Haneem Abdelhalim (26). 8 family members. 31.8k out of 40k USD raised.
Ahmed Masoud (27). 12 family members. 10k out of 60k €.
Mohammed Fareed (28). 30.2k out of 60k CAD.
Lena Nofal (29). 42.5k out of 44k € (NEARLY COMPLETE, original family registered to evacuate, extended family are being helped now)
Rasheda Alfaiomy (30). 6+ family members. 27.5k out of 65k USD.
Ula El Hindi (31). 1+ individuals. 8.6k out of 15k €.
Muhammad Safi (32). 5+ family members. 4.5k out of 30k BP. LOW ON FUNDS.
Yazan Khalaf (33). 18 family members. 16.9k out of 40k USD.
Afaf Masoud (34). 5+ family members (2 evacuated). 83.8k out of 110k €.
Motasem Khayal (35). 5 family members. 1k out of 43k € (26.5k needed for escape.) EXTREMELY LOW, NEEDS FUNDS.
Youseff Abu Saeed (36). 3 family members (1 is already out for treatment). 155k out of 200k USD.
Abdulaziz & Abdullah, escape & surgery (37). 2+ family members (1 has already been treated, 1 NEEDS TREATMENT). 96.3k out of 150k BP.
Nadine Abdullatif (38). 8 family members. COMPLETED ✅
Sami Salhab (39). 6 family members. COMPLETED ✅
Jehad Al Ghandour (40). 5 family members (1 already evacuated). 31k out of 100k USD
MORE VETTED FAMILY ESCAPE FUNDRAISERS (tumblr has a character-per-block limit, there's no difference between the following fundraisers and the previous ones).
Mahmoud Algharabli (41) COMPLETED ✅ (check last section for more info)
Dr. Marah & family (42). 2+ family members. 7.2k out of 40k USD. LOW ON FUNDS.
Khaled Alshabrawi (43). 5 family members. 1.5k out of 35k € (25k needed for escape, but will begin with 10k for stable housing). LOW ON FUNDS.
Muhammad Osama Alzaq (44). 5 family members. 3.1k out of 60k BP. LOW ON FUNDS.
Mohammed Wishah (45). 7 family members + 1 pet. 7.9k out of 71.5k €. LOW ON FUNDS.
Muhe Ayman (46). 5+ family members. 6k out of 60k €. (CAUTION: If you scroll down in the GFM there are photos of mutilated and dead babies.) LOW ON FUNDS.
Abdallah Animal Rescue (47). 1 individual + lots of pets. 34.5k out of 40k USD. (NEARLY COMPLETE)
Haya Orouq (48). 5 family members (1 injured, NEEDS TREATMENT). 35.9k out of 50k.
Retaj Abu Abdo (49). 8 family members. 9.1k out of 60k USD.
Mohammed Zyad (50). 9 family members (1 MISCARRIAGE). 5.6k out of 40k BP. LOW ON FUNDS.
Souad Al-Kurdi (51). 5 family members (1 DIABETIC W/O INSULIN, CRITICAL, 1 INJURY). 3.7k out of 50k €. LOW ON FUNDS.
Mahdy Zourob (52). 1 individual. 622 out of 20k €. LOW ON FUNDS.
Ahmed Alboji (53). 5 family members. 78.4k out of 100k USD. (TIME SENSITIVE)
Sama Lulu (54). 7 family members. 5.4k out of 80k USD. LOW ON FUNDS. (CAUTION: PHOTO OF INJURED CHILD IN GFM)
Fadel Moghrabi (55). 4 family members. 33.3k out of 40k USD. (NEARLY COMPLETE)
Qosai Hani (56). 2(+?) family members. 28.2k out of 40k USD.
Khaled Khraizim (57). 14 family members. 32.6k out of 100k €.
Ahmed Raida (58). 3 family members (1 INJURED, NEEDS TREATMENT). COMPLETED ✅
Rozan family (59). 6 family members. 3.6k out of 38k €. LOW ON FUNDS.
Samah Oudh (60). 5 family members. 30k out of 35k USD. (NEARLY COMPLETE)
Qasim Al-Kafarneh (alternatively: gfm) (61). 33 family members. 1st one, 5.7k out of 80k AUD. 2nd one 86k out of 94k USD. (NEARLY COMPLETE)
Mahmoud Qassas (62). 42 family members. 6.9k out of 200k CAD. (ONE CHRONICALLY ILL, NEEDS TREATMENT)
Hussam Ramadan (63). 14 family members. 14.8k out of 148k USD. LOW ON FUNDS.
Sana'a & Sujood (64). 8 family members. 8.8k out of 50k BP. LOW ON FUNDS.
Yousef Mounir (65). 5 family members. 65 out of 50k BP. LOW ON FUNDS.
Muhammad Mounir (66). 4 family members. 1.1k out of 45k BP. LOW ON FUNDS.
Hamdi Hijazi (67). 5 family members (1 NEWBORN, 1 MATERNITY RECOVERY) 889 out of 25k USD. EXTREMELY LOW ON FUNDS.
Maram Ahmed (68). 5 family members. 338 out of 30k €. EXTREMELY LOW ON FUNDS.
Dr. Alaa Raed (69). 8 family members. 6k out of 40k €. LOW ON FUNDS.
Fadi & Shahed Sharif (70). 11 family members (1 INFANT). 265 out of 62.5k USD. EXTREMELY LOW ON FUNDS.
Suheir Hojok (71). 10 family members (1 INJURED, PRONE TO STROKE, NEEDS IMMEDIATE EVACUATION). 16.3k out of 70k AUD. LOW ON FUNDS.
Haitham Gibreel (72). 7 family members (1 CHRONICALLY ILL). 340 out of 50k BP. EXTREMELY LOW ON FUNDS.
Hatem H. Rawagh (73). 5+ family members. 8k out of 40k €. LOW ON FUNDS.
Ze (74). 3 family members. 4k out of 34k USD.
Hani Al-Hajjar (75). 10 family members. 1.7k out of 50k €. EXTREMELY LOW ON FUNDS.
Ottawa4Palestine’s vetted fundraiser spreadsheet (76 different families with listed fundraisers)
UNVETTED, BUT HIGHLY LIKELY LEGITIMATE ESCAPE FUNDRAISERS:
Rasha family (1). 5 family members. 1.3 out of 15k € (EXTREMELY LOW, NEED FUNDS)
Natasha Matar (2). 14 family members. 20.8k out of 200k CAD (140k needed for escape). LOW ON FUNDS.
Islam Daher (3). 6 family members. 2.6k out of 50k CAD. LOW ON FUNDS.
Ahmed M. Saleh (4). 4 family members. 8.3k out of 35k €. LOW ON FUNDS.
Salwa Zarifa (5). 4 family members. 2.1k out of 50k €. LOW ON FUNDS.
Moutasem Quffa (6). 6+ family members. 7k out of 65k €. LOW ON FUNDS.
Alaa Nidal (7). 4 family members. 12.6k out of 22k BP (original goal met, family evacuated ✅. Extended family being helped now, 2 INJURED, 1 OF THEM ELDERLY)
Zeina and her family (8). 3 family members (1 evacuated, 2 NEED TREATMENT). 6.4k out of 90k $. LOW ON FUNDS.
Jamila Begum (9). 7 family members. 35k needed. UNKNOWN STARTING AMOUNT. Zelle 347-738-0257, and Venmo @/merilm
Amer Abdelmalek (10). 8 family members. 14k out of 100k CAD. LOW ON FUNDS.
OTHER FUNDRAISERS:
Mohammad Qadas. NEEDS TREATMENT + FOOD. EXTREMELY URGENT! HAS CHILDREN TO FEED!!
Help Yousef Replant Family Farm & Greenhouse. 2k out of 50k BP. SUSTAINABLE AID.
Rebuilding Developers Plus and Gaza’s community. 2.4k out of 47k €. SUSTAINABLE AID.
Samar Elrayih Hydoub. It seems that most family members have been evacuated, but they need an emergency 1.5k for medical expenses.
Eman Abdel Rahman. Need help rebuilding home and access to food. 7.1k out of 42.6k USD.
Ibrahim Adil Osman. All intended beneficiaries have escaped, they just need some financial support to start being stable enough to make money to get more family members to escape.
Anonymous Palestinian-Canadian woman. She was doxxed and harassed by zionists until she got fired. She's in a very precarious situation and needs funds to survive daily life. NEEDS FUNDS.
Abd Al Karim Adnan Alakklouk. Most intended beneficiaries have escaped, they just need some financial support to start a new life and send more family members money to survive.
Bana AZ. All intended beneficiaries have escaped, they just need a bit of support in establishing a new life. COMPLETED ✅
Kareem Abu Samra. All intended beneficiaries have been able to escape. They just need support to establish a new life.
Mahmoud Algharabli (previously no. 41). All intended beneficiaries have been evacuated. They just need support to establish a new life.
Al Hitana Omdurman soup kitchen.
Helping the People of Gaza – Mutual Aid Fund (run by my friend Mona)
Supporting Displaced Families in Gaza (CareForGaza)
Emergency Medical Relief for Gaza Refugees.
Help Sudan Tarada Initiative.
Amer Qudaih’s Relief efforts in Gaza.
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just came across this beautiful rendition of siúil a rúin by irish-palestinian artist roisin el cherif. this song has always been close to my heart, especially after it's use in the nightingale, a film that explores the (ongoing) colonial violence on the island that i call home.
i really love the way that she weaves the arabic language into this song, as well as the influences from both irish and palestinian styles of music.
all the proceeds of the release are being donated to the doctors without borders gaza emergency regional fund so if you love her rendition as much as i do i would really recommend purchasing it on band-camp (i've linked it above).
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Excerpt from Soviet-Armenian film Nahapet Նահապետ (1977) directed by Henrik Malyan. Based on a novel by Hrachya Kochar, the film depicts the Armenian genocide of 1915. Nahapet is a survivor who tries to rebuild his life after the tragic loss of his family. The scene is accompanied with Armenian folk song “Dle Yaman” Դլե Յաման, which became a hymn of the genocide, here it is sung by Melania Abovian.
One of the recurring scenes in the film involves scores of red apples falling from a tree, rolling into a river, and floating en masse downstream. The scene is a painful symbolic reminder of the multitude of Armenian bodies thrown into the Euphrates by the Young Turk regime during the genocide. (x)
An apple tree on the lakeshore, with countless red fruits rolling down towards the blue water, is how Malyan, the ‘lyricist’ of Armenian cinema, pictures the huge loss sustained by his nation. Yet like all true metaphors, this image is multi-semantic and means not only loss but continuation, the prospect of reaching the shore one day. […] ‘salvation’ and ‘revival’ of the apple tree symbolize the rebirth of a massacred nation. (x)
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‘خانهی دوست کجاست؟’ Where Is the Friend’s House?
1987 | dir. Abbas Kiarostami
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🎬 Taste of Cherry
1997, dir. Abbas Kiarostami
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Drawing in mspaint? Cool, impressive,
But whenever I see that, I think about the person who makes their art in power point
Every time I see them it boggles me
(their account)
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The months since October 7 have aggravated the most extreme campus panic I have witnessed. To judge by the American mass media, the campus is the most urgent scene of political struggle in the world. What is happening “on campus” often seems of greater concern than what is happening in Gaza, where every single university campus has been razed by the IDF. When all the Palestinian dead have been counted, it seems likely that these months will be recorded as having inflamed a campus panic no less intense than the one that accompanied the Vietnam War.
The correspondences between that moment and this one were unmistakable to those of us who watched, in person or through screens, as the NYPD hauled 108 Columbia University students off of their institution’s campus on Thursday, April 18, 2024. Like the campus panic of the 1960s–70s, this one is aroused by the spectacle of young people speaking out against the inhumane actions of the US and its imperial client states, as well as against the complacency and complicity of their own educational institutions. Now, as then, the act of protesting against injustice undergoes a curious transfiguration in the media, which refashions this action into the object of frantic scrutiny, surveillance, and suppression.
Harvard University professor Walter Johnson, in an essay about experience of working at Harvard since October 7 titled “Living Inside a Psyop”—the psyop being, precisely, “the campus”—calls this the “two-step maneuver” of campus panic: (1) Look over here, (2) Do not look over there. Overreact to this, overlook that.[1] Look at the US, not at Palestine. Look up at what is happening in the clouds over Cambridge, Massachusetts, where a plane trails a banner declaring, “HARVARD HATES JEWS”; do not look at what is happening on the ground in Gaza, do not look at the masses of the displaced, the bereaved, the starving, the wounded, the sick, the dying, and certainly do not look at the dead, murdered with artillery supplied by the US government and funded by American citizens’ taxes. When student protestors chant, “From the river to the sea,” hear a speculative antisemitic canard; do not hear a reference to an actual river, an actual sea, an actual and ongoing history of dispossession and occupation.
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