Donate to UNRWA or Something Instead of Just Posting Ai Slop
If you want "All eyes on rafah" divert your eyes and effort to it instead of just a machine made mirage
I have been seeing this^ around a lot.
In the past week, Israel, using bombs gifted by the United States, launched its illegal siege and bombing raid into the city of Rafah against the order from the United Nations’ International Court of Justice and even against the recommendation of the U.S. Biden administration. Since the start of this conflict and of this new siege, Palestinian civilians and journalists have had to record and document everything they’re enduring in Rafah just so the world believes them in the face of one of the most extensive propaganda efforts in history. So, to reshare an inhuman AI-generated template out of the uncanny valley to bring awareness to Rafah is so strange to me.
So many people, including some of you who are subscribed to this “blog” and read my bullshit, are sharing the image, at the start of this I’m honestly trying my best not to judge, but it’s just all so weird. I know it’s not “necessarily harmful,” but I don’t think showing human solidarity with an AI image is needed when there are so many resources and charities that can be shared instead, especially if your activism starts and ends with solely posting online. Yes, this post has been extremely popular; however, its presentation alone feels awfully reminiscent of that useless and performative black square from the 2020 protests following the murder of George Floyd. I may be out of my depth, but this is just my opinion.
An AI image, being the one people feel most comfortable sharing on the English-speaking internet, just tells me how disconnected we have become from our humanity. Machines and algorithms over human experiences, over photos of what’s going on, over sources on the ground, over real art or poetry or whatever made by the people there, or literally anywhere other than a data center??? Why is the pain and mourning of our brothers and sisters on this planet “too dirty to touch?” Do we really need the sanitized machine-made gloves AI provides to even lightly “poke” at what’s going on and pretend that it is empathy? Maybe I’m just an overly cynical asshole, but I don’t believe so!!
Imagine if every single one of the millions who shared the “All Eyes on Rafah” AI post instead shared information regarding the PCRF relief fund. Would that have been better? Probably. But would that even be shared? I don’t know; I seriously doubt it, and what’s depressing is that even if it was, it probably wouldn’t change anything either, but it might have helped!!
This isn’t a holistic personal criticism for “something you individually posted online,” but if you have once felt called to briefly chirp online in support of Palestinian humanity, and if you think that was, in any way, shape, or form, “the right thing to do,” I urge you to not to stop there. I’d urge you to boycott companies on The Palestinian BDS National Committee’s targeted boycotts list instead of wasting time complaining about companies a person online told you to worry about. I’d urge you to consider donating a fraction of the money you can spend to people in dire need. I’d urge you to physically protest and urge the people close to you to do the same against your government, which uses your tax dollars to fund a regime that indiscriminately murders children you’ve never met without shreads of remorse, a government that continues to violate the basic standards of international law, an apartheid regime in the west bank that claims to be a “democracy” while determining civil liberties and the right to live by the difference of one’s faith, all while calling its military “the most moral on Earth.”
If we’re really doing this online shit, and if you’re going to use your online platform to post information online about what is happening in Palestine, Gaza, and the seat of most pressure, the refugee camps of Rafah, please share ways to help; please consider sharing “if you must post” things that uplift the brave Gazan journalists working on the ground who’s stories and images are so often and deliberately ignored by American and Western media. There is and have been so many horrible scenes from Rafah of so much unnecessary violence; however, the real stories that people are telling from the ground of their experiences and grief, the real photos of the destruction of so many innocent people’s homes, the art that is still being made by Gazans to funnel through their pain, and the real statistics, history, and policies that inform how and why this massacre shouldn’t and cannot be justified, are all things that are uniquely human and deserve to be spread, “if you must post.”
This all isn't meant to be a personal slight to anyone reposting AI templates, and I doubt how much this criticism “matters,” but still, I recommend that you try to feel a bit deeper, to find the time, the expendable resources you have access to, and the courage to engage with less distance and more love for your fellow humans even in the face of an abject horror of our doing. As this conflict and genocide continue, please interact with humanity without the “shiny plastic wrapping” this sanitized “AI slop” provides.
Gaza
Killed: at least 36,096 people, including more than:
More than 15,000 children killed
Injured: more than 81,136 people
Missing: more than 10,000
The latest figures from the Palestinian Ministry of Health in the occupied West Bank are as follows:
Occupied West Bank
Killed: at least 519 people, including more than:
130 children
Injured: more than 5,000
In Israel, officials revised the death toll from the October 7 attacks down from 1,405 to 1,139.
Israel
Killed: 1,139 people
Injured: at least 8,730^^Latest casualty figures as of May 28 at 2:15pm in Gaza (11:15 GMT):
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/longform/2023/10/9/israel-hamas-war-in-maps-and-charts-live-tracker
At this point, most aid has been halted from being able to enter the Gaza Strip both by Israel and many far-right Israeli civilian groups, but I would still take a look at these organizations, especially “western aligned” ones, which have a higher likelihood of getting in.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East
https://www.unrwausa.org/
Palestine Children's Relief Fund (PCRF)
https://www.pcrf.net/
World Central Kitchen
https://wck.org/
The Palestinian BDS National Committee
https://bdsmovement.net/Act-Now-Against-These-Companies-Profiting-From-Genocide