Charles Hope

@avygal @AkaLazarus @KeithLarson78 I’ve actually been working on a project that could help here. It’s a chat room with language translation. My DMs are open when you have a moment.

@AkaLazarus @KeithLarson78 Sometimes, yes. I just use google translate. But many Gazans speak English, actually.

This is a hard post to write and it will be a hard post for my fellow Zionists to read. Since last fall I’ve been making friends with Gazans on Twitter, getting to know them and who they are, what their lives are like, and what they have endured during this war. I have sent videos and voice notes, shared family pictures together, daily life, and hardships with several and had very deep discussions about the war and about peace. The vast majority of Gazans I have talked to want peace between our people, and not as a stop-gap before they take back the land. They just want to live. Their anti-Hamas protests “We Want To Live” started in summer 2023 BEFORE October 7 and restarted earlier this year during the war with Gazans risking their lives, and even losing their lives, for protesting Hamas. By now the algorithm for my feed is half Gazan Twitter and half Jewish Twitter so I read a large amount of their posts every day by pressing the “translate” button from Arabic, and I read their conversations to each other, without outsiders involved (except for sometimes me bursting in like the Kool Aid man lol oops). Their internal conversations with each other shows a deep hate of Hamas, a hate of “the occupation” but a longing for peace and a willingness and readiness to give up any form of violent resistance and make peace. They make jokes about where violent resistance has gotten their people, living in tents and in piles of rubble, and that they just want to taste chicken again. They hate Hamas more than Israel for the most part. In private conversations many tell me they do not say publicly what they think or say privately because of the culture of calling anyone who is fine with Israel existing a “collaborator” and the dangers of Hamas executing them as well. Some have told me they prefer the days when they were occupied by Israel and they had a much better life under Israel than Hamas and they don’t trust their own people to govern. Several have told me they want new Palestinian leadership and they want a peace agreement signed with Israel so we can all move on with our lives. NONE of the Gazans I’ve talked to had a problem with Jews as a people (can’t say the same for West Bank Palestinians though) and many Gazans told me about their parent’s friendships with Jews before 2005 or even visits to Israel growing up. When I try to talk to fellow Jews about this most tell me I’m being naive, that Gazans are lying, that they’re trying to get money from me (they’re not fyi) and they don’t want to believe that there are many Gazans that are decent people. To clarify, there are a lot of shitty, corrupt Gazans as well. There is Hamas, PIJ, and mercenaries and they are the ones with the means of control, money, and access to food in Gaza. Normal Gazans hate them and curse them. And to be totally fair, I have talked to and seen some Gazans that want nothing to do with Israelis or with peace. It has been the minority thus far I’ve personally talked to, but they exist, of course they do. Our own side is dehumanizing Gazans in our minds, and Palestinians at large, so we can ignore the very real tragedies happening. Yes, it is Hamas’ fault and they use their civilians as shields and GAZANS KNOW THIS AND TALK ABOUT IT DAILY and how awful it is. Israel IS targeting Hamas AND civilians are dying in the strikes against Hamas. Yes, it’s a war, and yes war is brutal. But to completely ignore the suffering on their side is not moral or ethical. There is the same dehumanization and cognitive dissonance happening on our own side towards the Palestinians as they do to us. We are better than that as a people and we must remain above that and cease stooping to that level. I set out to make a post today about the aid situation, and I am working on that as well, but it turned into this post as a sort of prologue to what will be a giant post describing the aid situation on the ground in Gaza, with anonymous testimonies from my friends included. But I knew that this all had to be said first before I even delve into the aid issues, which is a fucking catastrophe that our people should be ashamed of and need to pressure leaders to fix. That will have to be for tomorrow, though. Thanks for reading this far and feel free to (respectfully) ask any questions. Assholes on both sides of the conflict will be blocked.

@avygal What an excellent and optimistic project you’re undertaking! I haven’t heard of anyone else currently working to bridge this gap, but it’s really important.

I'm a Paul fan in the media & want to talk to Paul delegates! @d_gustafson @JakeSeverance @yakker2009 @mstebbins @FischerFreedom @Dubaruba

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@rudy Gingerman is the best but now has line.

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