The Peanut Gallery

Visual Imagery in Gaza

Written by

Rowan Walch

in

This picture was taken by the Palestinian Chronicle. Five years after the 2014 bombings of Gaza, Islamic University of Gaza had been rebuilt to a useable standard. This is a Grand Poetry and Portrait exhibition. Gaza doesn’t have manufacturing, minerals, or other technological avenues to make money. They rely on education, art, and community to prop each other up, and flourish. The event was directed by professor Mosheer Amer, an English professor. This was a monumental meeting following the rebuilding of their library and English department. In his words, “That is true, but to me, IUG’s only danger to the Israeli occupation and its apartheid regime is that it is the most important place in Gaza to develop students’ minds as indestructible weapons. Knowledge is Israel’s worst enemy.” I can’t say it any better than he can, the enemy of Israel is knowledge, and decency. He no longer works here or makes a difference, as following the unjustified 2014 bombings, Israel made sure they finished their work in 2024.

Picture credits go to NBC News and Palestinian Chronicle. The first photograph is the IUG, in 2014. The second photograph was taken on October 11th, 2023, four days after the Hamas attack on Israel. No matter how hard I look, or you look, there isn’t much building left that would lead us to believe this was a revered University. What lies broken and bombed on your screen, is Gaza’s oldest and most influential university. The Islamic University of Gaza and was obliterated behind Israeli belief that it was a Hamas stronghold. According to the NBC News article Class Destroyed, the IDF (Israeli Defense Force) apologized shortly after for misguided intel. Three other schools were damaged by explosives, while Israa University, the newest school in Gaza, was leveled behind the same faulty “intel.” Plenty of American publications ran with Israeli propaganda that the schools are Hamas strongholds. Either way, Israel knows that Hamas doesn’t represent the wellbeing of Palestinian citizens, but they’re destroying their society. Gaza prides itself on education and human capital, and Israel knows that.
Here is Israa University, video shared generously by the Israeli Defense Force.

An estimated 80000 Gaza residents have been killed in the Israel-Gaza conflict dating from October 2023-present day. Only over 1200 Israeli citizens have died conversely. Here in the USA, there is plenty of people that believe Israel is acting altruistically.

Photo creds to ABC. Israel has used propaganda in visual imagery following October 7th like you wouldn’t believe. Pictures of Israeli children dead flooded the internet for months following the Hamas attacks. Israel wants the world to believe they’re the oppressed and marginalized. They’re powerful, rich, and have wide spread influence. For every one Israeli child that has died as a result of the conflict, 38 Palestinian children are killed. Israel is taking away the future, past, and present of Palestine in front of the world’s eyes, and some still cannot wrap their heads around it. This is genocide, and Israel used visual imagery of missiles, attacks, injuries, and deaths to set the table. Over 180 media and journalism professionals have been killed while reporting on the conflict by Israel as well. Israel works tirelessly to flood the internet with anti-Palestinian rhetoric, despite the facts clearly painting them as the aggressor. Our empathy and compassion is used against us, and made considerably more effective by visuals.

The CIA released a foreshadowing document detailing exactly how Israel uses threats, but also visual imagery to trick people all around the world. Music, movies, TV, newspapers, and anything we consumed regarding the Middle East is through an Israeli lens. Our every day media has been so influenced by Israelis that American Media painted them as underdogs for decades. We all believed Israel was oppressed and needed help, despite them being beleaguered aggressors. 750,000 Native Palestinians were pushed out of their homeland in 1948, by the Jews, Americans, and British. But through the use of visual imagery going as far as Textbooks perpetuating the “Big Lie,” Israel has cemented itself. The media has shown us the side of the Middle East the way Israel wants us to see them, it’s a tragedy. For an article comprised in 2004, it’s sad to see how effective a lot of the same methods still are.

Photo credits to Smex.org

This is a funny, fascinating, and harrowing picture all at the same time. Military ads on a dating app, funny. The lengths the USA and Israel are willing to go to kill of Palestine, fascinating. And Whats harrowing is the fact that young men who are easily manipulated and already vulnerable on tinder, are tricked no matter where they go. They won’t let you breath, they don’t want to.

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