A German art school stops funding the project “School for Unlearning Zionism” by Jewish Israelis because a right-wing journalist complained that it's anti-Semitic. It is terrifying and ironic that white Germans dictate what is anti-Semitic & which Jew qualifies as “good"/ "bad”.
This is a project in the spirit and tradition of anti-racism and intersectionality, seeking to promote a brighter future for all built on progressive values. Why did the journalist complain? Because some of the Jewish Israeli speakers promoted BDS.
This happens often in Europe and US and is built on normative and legislative precedents that equate advocacy for Palestinian freedom and rights/criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism. In Germany, the parliament passed a anti-BDS resolution recently that paved the way for this.
Our identity, existence and struggle are being made radioactive in an ever increasing shrinking-space that seeks to silence and smear Palestinians and our movement's allies. You can't even hold a Palestinian film night in Germany in a public venue without being attacked.
Anti-Palestinian racism is intensifying and the weaponization of a fight against hate & anti-Semitism is being utilized to do it. Instead of focusing these efforts against the far right, Palestinians and Jews who stand together through shared progressive values are targeted.
This is dangerous. The art school withholding funding must be held accountable: Weißensee Academy of Art Berlin. Email them and let them know this is not acceptable. We need to fight back against this shrinking space and racism. We can only do it together.
To learn more, read this article: berliner-zeitung.de/en/israeli-art…

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More from @Barahmeh

25 Sep
I was 11 when I first watched the footage. Mohamed Dura shielded by his dad from Israeli bullets. One moment they were pleading for their lives, the next they were dead. He was 12, we belonged to the same generation. The horror in his eyes still shakes me to my core 20 yrs later.
Those were the first day’s of the Second Intifada. TV channels aired the footage over and over again, and reported on other deaths ever hour. Israeli tanks patrolled our streets and helicopters were bombing our cities. Gunfire became our lullabies and lockdowns were our reality.
We tried going to Jerusalem for school but the main road out of Jericho had two zigzaged dirt mounds fitted with machine gun pits and the largest guns I’d ever seen. Negotiating that checkpoint became our daily routine. Would they or won’t they let us go to school today we asked?
Read 9 tweets
30 Aug
“You can BDS...but I will condemn and demonise you for it.” Because how dare us want to hold a country accountable for its oppression of an entire people? It’s oppression of us. Image
I can see how legally this might be a step forward but the phenomenon of shrinking space to advocate for Palestinian freedom and rights is a normative one as well. The fear of being smeared, attacked or have hate weaponised against you is a very powerful way to silence.
See the shit @RashidaTlaib, @IlhanMN and so many of us have to deal with because of just and moral positions. This environment of making Palestine radioactive is leading to self-censorship and a chilling effect that has a wider impact than any one law.
Read 6 tweets
15 Jul
Israel put us into fragmented territorial enclaves that serve as prisons. They control every aspect of our lives & land. When we demand freedom and right to movement, they say well we can’t visit Ramallah. The jailer is telling the prisoner they can’t visit the jail cell.
That’s the twisted logic of this apartheid system - it promotes the illusion that the oppressed and the oppressor are equal. Settlers live and roam our lands with more rights than we do and the Israeli military is in our cities every day arresting people. Yet we are being unfair.
We are not two equal countries. There is a one state reality where one people rules another through an unjust system. Now as we call for equal freedom and rights and the dismantling of that system we are treated to that logic by those who want to keep it.
Read 4 tweets
9 Jul
1/ Let me start by saying, welcome @PeterBeinart, it's great to have you. I appreciate the overall message of the piece - although I disagree with some of the points used to get there - among them the role of violence in Palestinian politics and society.

jewishcurrents.org/yavne-a-jewish…
2/ I understand the target audience, the nuance in framing the argument and the importance of moving the conversation forward, which this piece does. But we need to be very careful from feeding ugly preconceived notions regardless of whether the end is desired and noble.
3/ As many have pointed out and @PeterBeinart graciously referenced: these ideas are not new and part of a long Palestinian intellectual tradition. I'm glad we are having these conversations more widely but it seems that the world is just catching up.
Read 6 tweets
19 Jun
1/ Jericho is my hometown. This was my daily view of the Jordan Valley growing up from my grandparent’s house. The Barahmeh’s are one of the indigenous Jericho clans and their roots in the Jordan Valley go back centuries.
2/ From the moment I grew conscious of the world around me, I realized the valley didn’t belong to “us”. I’ve had the privilege of traveling the world but there are places few KMs away from home that I’ve never been too because I’m not allowed. That applies to the blue on the map
3/ When I was 19, I tried to visit Kalia Beach on the northern shore of the Dead Sea. Although it’s in the WB and 15 mins away, these beaches are owned/run by Israelis. They “should” be open to us. But I was immediately racially profiled and denied entry because I am Palestinian.
Read 18 tweets
14 Jun
If your foreign policy and foreign aid to Palestine are about tweaking around the edges and rearranging the deck chairs of a sinking titanic rather than addressing the systematic and structural oppression and supremacy, then you are part of the problem, not the solution.
In a time where paradigms are shifting, old solutions failing and political project crumbling. It is time to be humble, honest and self critical. Ask yourself: How do I help dismantle a system than make it cosmetically and superficially digestible so I can sleep at night.
Let me be clear: as a Palestinian I am not asking you to solve Palestinian problems. But this system and structure was not built in a vacuum. Your foreign policy and aid props it up and fuels it. This “de jure” annexation will end the facade you’ve hid behind.
Read 4 tweets

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