Deutsche Welle: The first digital Palestinian embroidery database. “Award-winning entrepreneur Zain Masri has so far digitized about 1,000 traditional Palestinian cross-stitching patterns, which are now available for download on her platform, Tirazain.”
Jerusalem Post: TikTok bans Palestinian terror group Lions’ Den from platform. ”
Video-sharing platform TikTok has restricted the account of the new Palestinian terrorist group claiming responsibility for a host of recent attacks against Israeli soldiers and civilians in the West Bank, the Lions’ Den. The group, which has yet to reveal its political affiliation to any Palestinian faction, has been using its social media platforms to share propaganda and increase support.”
University of Notre Dame: Literatures of Annihilation, Exile, and Resistance Launches New Website. “The new website includes an archive of recorded events featuring transnational writers and scholars from Iraq, Iran, Palestine, Syria, Egypt, Lebanon, Colombia, Chile and the United States whose work bears witness to truth and history and to the global struggle for freedom.”
It’s Nice That: The Al-Ameen archive preserves a precious insight into joyful Palestinian wedding culture between the 1960s-90s. “Raya Manaa is a Palestinian photographer based between Istanbul and Palestine. She grew up in a Palestinian village in upper Galilee called Majd Al-Kurum. One of the oldest olive trees in Palestine grows in this village. It is around 4,000-5,000 years old, Raya tells It’s Nice That. Thus ‘Majd Al-Kurum’ translates as ‘Glory of the Grove’. The wistful way Raya recalls the village of her childhood continues as she begins to tell us the story of her father’s photo archive.”
Teen Vogue: Palestinian Youth Are Dealing With Social Media Fame. “Many young Palestinians found themselves in a new international spotlight as their videos of the neighborhoods, attacks from the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) and settlers, and their own outrage went viral on social media. This virality resulted in a unified online campaign that had an unprecedented impact on international attitudes toward Palestine. But months later, some young Palestinians feel a tension between embracing their newfound following and being seen as one-dimensional symbols by their audiences.”
Washington Post: Why Palestinians are uniting around watermelon emoji. “Raising the red, green, white and black Palestinian flag is banned in Israel. So the watermelon — locally grown and similarly colored — has for decades served in Palestinian iconography as a subversive stand-in. In recent weeks, the watermelon has resurged on social media, as part of what some Palestinians say are efforts to preempt or circumvent online censorship and content moderation, in the face of heightened enforcement sparked by the Israel-Hamas conflict in May and the attendant wave of grass-roots Palestinian activism.”
The Arab American News: The Palestine Chronology: A new online database. “The Palestine Chronology will allow researchers, readers, journalists, students, scholars, and activists to easily access day-by-day summaries in a free and accessible digitized format. The Chronology was previously published quarterly in the Journal of Palestine Studies. It is now updated monthly on the platform.”
Dazed: An introduction to Palestinian women’s cinema by Habibi Collective. “Since 2018, Habibi Collective, which is operated by Assyrian Iraqi film programmer Róisín Tapponi, has been instrumental in circulating Palestinian women’s cinema. To discover and watch more films by women from South-West Asia and North Africa, check out Habibi Collective’s streaming service Shasha. The world’s first independent streaming service focusing on films from South-West Asia and North Africa, it was established by Tapponi in 2020. Here, they curate an introductory list to Palestinian women’s cinema, for a Western audience.”
Artforum: Tell The World: Hanan Toukan And Adila Laïdi-hanieh On The Palestinian Museum. “The Palestinian Museum sits nestled among the fertile hills of the West Bank in the university town of Birzeit, several miles north of Ramallah…. To further explore the role museums can play in reclaiming narratives of dispossession, Artforum invited scholar Hanan Toukan and the museum’s director, Adila Laïdi-Hanieh, to talk about building an institution under colonialism. The conversation took place in May amid Israeli airstrikes in Gaza.”
BBC: Gaza conflict: Instagram changes algorithm after alleged bias. “Instagram is changing the way it showcases content after being accused of suppressing pro-Palestinian messages during the recent Gaza conflict. The app had favoured original content in its ‘stories’ feature over existing, re-shared posts, but will now give them equal treatment, it said.”
New York Times: ‘Social Media Is the Mass Protest’: Solidarity With Palestinians Grows Online. “As Israeli airstrikes pummel Gaza, the reaction from Arab capitals has been muted and protests scattered. But the voices on social media have been loud and clear.”
Al Jazeera: Gaza-based journalists say their accounts blocked by WhatsApp. “According to the Associated Press, 17 journalists in Gaza confirmed their WhatsApp accounts had been blocked since Friday. By midday Monday, only four journalists – working for Al Jazeera – confirmed their accounts had been restored.”
BBC: TikTok: How Israeli-Palestinian conflict plays out on social media. “Once known primarily for viral dance trends, the video app has also become a key platform for sharing news. The Chinese-owned site has a vast, mostly younger audience, with an estimated 700 million active monthly users worldwide. Footage of rocket fire over Israel, destruction in Gaza and Palestinian protests have all gone viral on the site. It has brought the conflict to people’s phone screens around the world.”
Stars and Stripes: Facebook says it halts hackers tied to Palestinian security. “Facebook said Wednesday it has broken up a hacker network used by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ intelligence service in an attempt to keep tabs on journalists, human rights activists and government critics.”
WAFA News Agency: The Palestinian Museum launches phase two of its Digital Archive project to include more than 360,000 items. “The Palestinian Museum announced the launch of phase two of its Digital Archive project (PMDA), which will continue for three years as of March 2021 and when complete, the archive will include more than 360,000 freely-available items, according to a press release. During phase two, the project will widen its reach, gathering Palestinian archives from families and institutions, and from diaspora Palestinians in Jordan and Lebanon.”
