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What are you doing for Palestine? (discuss.online)

submitted 1 week ago by OmegaLemmy@discuss.online to c/progressivepolitics@lemmy.world

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I've felt a delayed sense of intense dread following the election of trump and watched as the Palestinian genocide only got worse

My family members care only with words, my friends are more interested in nationalism, our party is both authoritarian, pro-israel and also lying to their citizens about being Anti-Israel, and not a single major nation has done anything towards Israel that can directly affect it

I send my donations and I attend rallies, but to what end? Do they matter? People seemingly rather distance themselves than have actual progress, seemingly attempting to be at the moral high ground no matter what, even if it means ignoring a genocide, it's disgusting

I don't know what to do, am I meant to only provide a shelter to who can survive? What about the rest? I can't help but fucking shiver and its giving me a panic attack

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[–] supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz 12 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Even as we lose the material fight against stopping the palestinian genocide (which is horrific), we have decisively won in the realm of hearts and minds, look at polling all over the world.

Your voice is not in vain, history will be written about why the zionist narrative didn't take a suffocating hold on the conversation in places like the U.S. despite the narrative and the people pushing it on paper having every advantage.

Also something to consider, there is going to be blowback for the Palestinian Genocide for the rest of our lives, and many including Netanyahu desperately wanted that blowback globally to simplify into antisemitism instead of a more complex anticolonial understanding, the fact that normal people all over the world like you keep speaking up about being against the genocide and have done so from the start for the simple reason that you are against genocide makes jews all the over the world safer by taking momentum out of the cycle of bigotry, the louder we are the less this becomes about bullshit and the more it becomes about standing up together against genocide because genocide is awful.

[–] ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net 9 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Short of going there as a medic or for humanitarian aid, the most powerful thing we can do to help is to organize ourselves in our local communities to better prepare ourselves for resistance and build up grassroots movements to demand our governments stop assisting in the genocide.

What that actually looks like:

finding those local communities and getting involved to make connections
We can effect things drastically with a general strike. This targets their income streams, and can bring a fascist government to its knees if done on a large enough scale.
Contact a union and attempt to unionize your workplace, so that the general strike is even more effective.

Suggestions:

🌍 Global: IWW (Français) - (Español)
🇦🇷 Argentina: FORA
🇦🇺 Australia: ASF-IWA
🇧🇷 Brazil: FOB
🇧🇬 Bulgaria: ARS, CITUB
🇩🇪 Germany: FAU
🇬🇷 Greece: ESE
🇮🇹 Italy: USI
🇳🇱 🇧🇪 Netherlands & Belgium: Vriji Bond
🇪🇸 Spain: CNT
🇸🇪 Sweden: SAC
🇬🇧 United Kingdom: UVW

Continuing to participate in publicly visible resistance demonstrations like 50501 to encourage others to stand up with you and prove to them that there are hundreds of thousands of others who will join them in the fight. A large part of Nazi Germany's success in taking over the country was a lack of massive public demonstrations against the new regime, making people feel helpless and afraid to take a stand.

If we put in the work, we can resist this and we can win, and that would be the best way available to us to help the Palestinians being genocided right now, as well as speaking out about what is happening.

[–] clay_pidgin@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Hi, the link in point 1. finding those local communities is just on the verge of being helpful to me. If non-profits are not ideal, what sort of group SHOULD we look for? My main issue locally is food, especially for students. There are food pantries and churches around, and I already help out at a few places close to distribution.

[–] ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net 4 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

Just to be sure; when you click that link, does it take you to a guide on how to find like minded people, or only a comment below the guide that says nonprofits are sellouts? It seems to bring me to the guide, but that's only a sample size of one.

I ask since food pantries and churches are some of the places it recommends looking, among others.

If you have a Food Not Bombs chapter near you, that'd be a good group to visit and talk to as well.

[–] supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

It brings me to a post that starts with

"Folks have asked me how to find and build community.

Here is a very pragmatic and approachable way to find the community in your local town or neighborhood."

That is the link you intended I think.

[–] ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net 2 points 6 days ago

Cheers for confirmation ^^

[–] clay_pidgin@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

There's that comment and a good length chain below, but I boil the message down to "join non profits only until you can find the GOOD groups", but I didn't understand what the next step is supposed to be. Ask around, check the library, come at it from the service NEEDER angle, but then what?

Neither the library nor the cool garden shop slash local bookstore were able to tell me about any mutual aid or antiwar groups in the area. Food not bombs's website says there are two local groups but both entries are years old dead leads.

[–] ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net 3 points 6 days ago

The ultimate goal of joining those types of groups is to find individuals that share your values who you can make connections with.

The more rural the area and sparsely populated the area, the harder it will be to find those types of existing groups, making churches, food banks, and non-profits or charities the only realistic options in the beginning.

If you live in an area where you're not able to find any existing group that deals with a particular issue in your area, the only option at that point would be to create your own group to tackle that issue, becoming the mutual aid you seek.

An example of what the latter could look like is to create a community garden or open a community fridge to help with creating food stability for your community, possibly by working with local businesses who have excess food to give away/write off, or by working with your local food banks or churches.

If you have a local DSA chapter, that can often have people interested in joining up with you in mutual aid.

Did you get any results from using a search engine to search your town/city plus the word mutual aid?