Seventy-three years after the start of the Nakba, wherein thousands of Palestinians were killed and thousands of others were forced out of their homes, history is repeating itself: in the last two weeks, hundreds have been killed in Gaza, and the residents of Sheikh Jarrah have the fate of their illegal evictions mulled over in court. Unlike 1948, however, the world is now able to witness, in real time, the atrocities being committed against the Palestinian people through social media.

For the first time, supporters of the Palestinian cause are able to bypass mainstream media to remove the world’s blindfold on the Israeli Occupation, and change the global narrative on Palestine- using only their smartphones.

The power of phones

From Zionists celebrating and singing to the burning of the third holiest site for Muslims, to the Israeli settlers killing innocent Palestinians, including children, to the forced displacement of families, the world can see it all. Through Instagram, Twitter, and Tik-Tok, Palestinians and non-Palestinians alike are spreading awareness to bring more attention to the Palestinian cause.

On Tik-Tok alone, #palestine has 8.8 billion views. The videos containing the hashtag is all pro-Palestinian content that not only raises awareness and reaches new audiences around the world, but also educates the public on the matter. The latter is particularly important as younger generations much prefer social media as a direct news source, as mainstream media is believed to be unreliable. Additionally, you can often find the newest information on Palestine on social media before news platforms can even cover it.

On Instagram, pro-Palestinian accounts gained a gigantic number of followers since the attacks on Palestinians started. For example, the account ‘eyeonpalestine’ gained 1.5 million followers in just three weeks. This indicates that people are interested in supporting Pro-Palestinian accounts that post daily, to stay up to date with the news regarding the matter and to show support.

Palestinians in Palestine such as Muna El Kurd, a resilient Sheikh Jarrah resident that documents the daily violations that are inflicted by Israeli settlers in the IOF, often live-broadcasts on Instagram to show exactly what is happening in her area at the moment. This raw footage is something that no news outlet can cover as authentically or as unfiltered as a Palestinian civilian can.

Such accounts are not only raising awareness, but also providing donation links which can have a palpable impact on the everyday lives of Palestinians. On Instagram, an account that that aims to provide medical relief to children in the Middle East, called PCRF, started a fund to provide medical and humanitarian aid to injured and sick children in the Gaza Strip based on their needs, in which so far, they raised over two million dollars out of the three million they need.

The awareness led by this social media revolution has had other palpable effects. Tens of thousands of people have stood up in solidarity with Palestine over recent weeks, taking to the streets in over 100 cities worldwide, from Amman and Istanbul to New York, Dublin and London. Pro-Palestinian model Bella Hadid even attended protests in New York and posted about it on Instagram. Mark Ruffalo, a lead actor for the multimillion-dollar movie franchise, Avengers, showed his support by tweeting “Sanctions in South Africa helped free its black people-it’s time for sanctions on Israel to free Palestinians. Join the call.”

The Digital Apartheid

Although social media has become a source of salvation for Palestine and its supporters, tech companies are still trying to silence and ensure the erasure of Palestinian content on all platforms.

7amleh, a non-profit organization that advocate for Palestinian digital rights, claims that “Facebook and Twitter are systematically silencing users protesting and documenting the evictions of Palestinian families from their homes in the neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah in Jerusalem."

Many Palestinian accounts convey that a lot of content is being removed or shadow- banned by Instagram or Tik-Tok for “violating terms” and “going against community guidelines”. Thus, the user can continue posting and sharing, but their reach becomes highly hindered.

Mohammed El Kurd, a very popular and successful poet and writer from Jerusalem, recently received a warning from Instagram that they might delete his account “because posting videos of state-sanctioned ethnic cleansing is against their community standards.”

 

IG also deleted my videos about the settler and IOF invasions a few nights ago calling it “hate speech” after it amassed over 2k reposts. They literally want us to rot and die but without the world watching.

— Mohammed (@m7mdkurd) May 5, 2021

After hundreds of people tweeted about the censorship that they are experiencing, Instagram CEO, Adam Mosseri, apologized for the “mistake” and “glitch” that occurred and expressed that this issue was not targeted towards any content in particular.

Under the Israeli Occupation's political pressure, platforms such as Facebook and Tik-Tok to censor information that includes Palestinian content. Benny Gantz, the Defence Minister of the Israeli Occupation, urged Facebook and Tik-Tok executives through a Zoom meeting to remove pages of Pro-Palestinians spreading ‘misinformation’. In response, the Facebook and Tik-Tok executives assured that they are committed to “quickly and effectively” removing such content from their platforms.

However, Palestine and its supporters found a way to try and resist this digital apartheid. By posting videos without text and expression and creating back-up accounts, users can try to defeat the biased algorithms on these platforms.

Social Media: Firmly standing in solidarity for a liberated Palestine

In a world where the Israeli Occupation has wide international support and military supremacy, it has always been able to control social media in its favor, depicting itself as a victim whilst ignoring the growing humanitarian crisis in Palestine.

Now that false narrative is shifting. The Israeli Occupation apartheid has lost control over public rhetoric. Palestinians are exposing the truth of their injustice online, and the world believes them. The media coverage on almost all social media platforms has created a vital presence- a movement- battling far right ideologies and changing the public attitude all around the world.

Palestinians claim that the media coverage is the only thing that is helping them at the moment. Muna El Kurd recently released a statement saying that, “the social media movement has changed the world.” She urged people not to give up on posting and continue to spread awareness as she believes that this is a step towards the liberation of the occupied land of Palestine.

“You are an army. Don’t underestimate a word, tweet, or post you upload to expose the crimes of the occupation.”