Palestine: A Blogging Initiative for Jerusalem, the Praying City · Global Voices
Mohamed ElGohary

Palestinian bloggers joined hands to blog for their country, in a blogging initiative led by several Gaza bloggers under the theme: “For you, oh praying city, we blog.” In the following post, Abir Kopty, one of the prominent Palestinian bloggers, writes in Arabic about social media utilization in the Palestinian cause, and coordinating it with offline events on the ground.
She gives an introduction first:
A few days ago a blogging initiative started under the theme:”For you, oh praying city, we blog.” It is a blogging campaign for Jerusalem, started by bloggers from Gaza. Others followed from Palestine and Arabs from all over the world. The campaign goal was blogging and tweeting about Jerusalem till the 31st of January. This is not the first online campaign of its kind initiated by Palestinians. Since the beginning of the Arab Spring there were a lot of discussions about the important role of social media. The Palestinian arena is witnessing a strong tendency to use social media tools to deliver the Palestinian people's message to the world. Keep in mind that in Gaza specifically, using these tools was crucial in the fight against the Gaza siege that forced youth to utilize everything available to communicate with the rest of the world.
Social media tools are a very important media between Palestinians at home, in the refugee camps as well as in Palestinians in diaspora against all the boundaries, barriers and sieges. Communication has become nearly daily. A camp resident can communicate with someone in Ramallah, with a Gazan, and even between someone from Jerusalem and a American Palestinian.
Then she describes the utilization of social media among Palestinians:
مثلاً، أصدر المدونون الفلسطينيون في الفترة الأخيرة عدة بيانات مشتركة، قام بنشرها كل مدون فلسطيني يوافق عليها على مدونته الخاصة، منها البيان الرافض لإعلان الإخوان المسلمين في مصر تنظيم جمعة “إنقاذ الأقصى” في أحد أيام الجمعة ملتفين على إعلانها من قبل ثوار التحرير جمعة لإسقاط حكم العسكر، وذلك في ظل القمع الوحشي الذي تعرضوا له من قبل الجيش. كتب المدونون في بيانهم “نحن، مجموعة من الشباب الفلسطيني، نرفض أن يتم الزج بالأقصى وبفلسطين لضرب الثورة المصرية العظيمة”، وختموا بيانهم ب “فلسطين أقوى بمصر حرة وكريمة”. وقد لاقى هذا البيان رواجا كبيرا وتناقلته العديد من وسائل الإعلام المصرية. كما وأصدر المدونون بياناً متضامناً مع المدونة السورية المعروفة رزان الغزاوي والتي تشهد لها مواقفها في التضامن مع فلسطين وقضيتها العادلة. وقد طالب البيان بإطلاق سراح الغزاوي وكافة معتقلي الثورة السورية.وفي الذكرى الرابعة والعشرين للانتفاضة الأولى أطلق المدونون الفلسطينيون دعوة عبر مدوناتهم لكافة المدونين الفلسطينيين بتخصيص مدوناتهم يوم التاسع من كانون الأول لنشر قصص أو مقابلات مع شخصيات عايشت الانتفاضة الأولى أو نشر مقالات أو صور وأشرطة ذات صلة. وأكد المدونون والمدونات في بيانهم بأن هذه الذكرى تشكل مناسبة لتأكيد “إيماننا بالمقاومة الفلسطينية الشعبية كجزء أساسي في نضالنا من أجل الحرية وتحصيل حقوق الشعب الفلسطيني، غير القابلة للتصرف أو المساومة أو التفريط، وبمواصلة النضال حتى تحقيق الحرية والعودة.”كما وقام الناشطون في العالم الافتراضي بحملات مختلفة ترَكَّزت في فترة معينة، هدفت إلى رفع الوعي والمعرفة لدى المتابعين حول ممارسات الاحتلال. خلال أيام إضراب الاسرى عن الطعام نشط الشباب على شبكات الفيسبوك والمدونات والتويتر في دعمهم للإضراب، وأطلقوا دعوة عامة للإضراب عن الطعام يوما واحداً تضامنا ودعما لإضراب الاسرى، وطلب من كل مضرب أن يعلن هذا في شبكات التواصل “أسمي كذا وكذا، يوم 12.10.11 أنا مضرب\ة عن الطعام دعماً للأسرى الفلسطينيين”. وبالفعل قام الآلاف من العرب والأجانب بالاستجابة لهذه الدعوة. وبعد استشهاد مصطفى التميمي خلال المظاهرة  الأسبوعية في قرية النبي صالح، بعدما أطلق جندي إسرائيلي قنبلة غاز مسيل للدموع على وجهه عن بعد أمتار قليلة، قام الناشطون بحملة على شبكات التواصل حيث كتبوا النصوص في المدونات، وقاموا بحملة مركزة على التويتر كان وسمها #Israelkills، لإلقاء الضوء على جرائم الاحتلال بحق الفلسطينيين.يرى الكثير من هؤلاء الشباب أن النشاط في العالم الافتراضي ليس بديلا عن النشاط على الأرض، بل مكملا له، حيث يشارك البعض في المقاومة الشعبية في القرى الفلسطينية مثل النبي صالح والولجة والخليل وغيرها. ويقوم البعض بتنظيم أيام تطوعية، ويبادر لمسيرات ونشاطات مختلفة.
For example, recently, Palestinian bloggers announced several joint statements, shared by every approving Palestinian in their own blog. One of them is about refusing the Muslim Brotherhood announcement to organize the “Saving Aqsa” Friday, while backing the Tahrir revolutionaries [in Egypt] to name it as a Friday to take down the military rule, after the brutal repression that they faced at the hands of the army. The bloggers wrote in their statement: “We, a group of Palestinian youth, refuse to have Aqsa and Palestine's names used against the great Egyptian revolution.” They ended the statement saying: “Palestine is stronger with Egypt freedom and nobility.” The statement became very popular between bloggers and was also picked up by Egyptian media. They also issued a statement in solidarity with the Syrian blogger Razan Ghazzawi and all the Syrian revolution detainees.
To mark the 24th anniversary of the first Intifada, bloggers launched a campaign inviting all Palestinian bloggers to dedicate a post in the 19th of January about stories or interviews with people who witnessed the first Intifada, or publishing related articles, photos or videos. The bloggers assured in their statement that the Intifada memory is a suitable moment to reassure “our faith in the Palestinian resistance as a basic part of our struggle for freedom and to earn the non-negotiable rights of the Palestinian people, and to continue struggling till the realization of freedom and the right of return.”
Many online activists organized campaigns that are focusing on a certain period, aiming at raising awareness and knowledge to those who follow the occupation practices. During the detainees’ hunger strike, young activists shared their solidarity on blogs, Facebook and Twitter. They also announced a one-day hunger strike in their support. Everyone participating was asked to announce that on social networks in the following format: “My name is …., today 12.10.11 I'm on hunger strike supporting the Palestinian detainees.” Following that, many Arabs and foreigners supported the idea and joined in. After the martyrdom of Mostafa ElTamimi during the weekly demonstration in ElNaby Saleh village, after an Israeli soldier shot a tear gas bomb in his face from just a few meters, social media activists organized a campaign where they blogged and tweeted under the hashtag #Israelkills to spotlight occupation crimes against Palestinians.
A lot from those youth see that activism online is not a substitute of activism offline, but compliments it since some are involved in civil resistance in the Palestinian villages like Al-Walaja, Al-Khalil, and others. Some people also arrange volunteering days for marches and different activities.
Kopty then talks about coordination between the online and offline worlds:
Considering the fact the youth enthusiasm online is no less than their colleagues offline, the past year witnessed many events and youth initiatives raising the peaceful resistance value. All this was done in ways which were creative and different than before. So we see the freedom waves and freedom riders, we see a march of cars that wanted to drive through the settlement streets protesting the apartheid regime. The march was stopped by the occupation army. Not to mention the “Welcome in Palestine” campaign in Ben Gurion Airport telling visitors they have reached Palestine. They also organized the return marches commemorating the Nakba and the Six-Day War, along with volunteering days and street art activities. Two weeks ago, some special activity for an anonymous group was noticed, writing political slogans on Jerusalem walls, especially in Jewish dominated neighborhoods since 1948. This group mentioned in their statement that “This is our message to our occupiers and to our people in Palestine and in diaspora, we are telling them that we are here, our voice is still loud and we will continue to resist.”
These activities contribute to reviving Palestine. Many are engaged in photographing what is happening in real time, by live steaming or live blogging or via Facebook and Twitter, etc. This way the occupation is in a losing battle. Those who follow social networks know that the Israeli propaganda is not yet able to neutralize or fight the social media “army” who support the Palestinian cause.
Palestinian social media activity contributes to telling the world the Israeli practices against the Palestinian people, thus supporting BDS as well as the daily communication between Palestinians wherever they are, integrating their efforts on their networks and coordinating their campaigns and joint activities offline.
And finally, she concludes: