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Palestinians Tweet Tips to Ferguson Protesters Dodging Tear Gas, Rubber Bullets & Police Aggression in Missouri, USA

Categories: Palestine, U.S.A., Citizen Media, Digital Activism, Protest
Photos tweeted by Missouri based journalist @CassFM "Police fire tear gas near Al Jazeera crew, then disassemble the gear after they flee. #Ferguson" [1]

Photos tweeted by Missouri based journalist @CassFM “Police fire tear gas near Al Jazeera crew, then disassemble the gear after they flee. #Ferguson”

The murder of unarmed 18-year-old African-American Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri by a yet-to-be-named police officer has sparked days of unrest [2] in the small St. Louis suburb with local police forces sending officers in military-grade riot gear [3] to ‘pacify’ protesters.

Reports of police abuse towards protesters and journalists [4] in the central US state of Missouri, have surfaced in the past few days as well. Ferguson's population is nearly 70% black [5], yet the local police force is predominantly white. Rights activists say Americans of color, particularly young black men, are disproportionately targeted and accused of wrongdoing [6] by law enforcement officials. 

As reports made it to social media that police in Ferguson were using teargas and rubber bullets on protesters, Palestinians immediately responded with advice on how to deal with it, citing their experience with Israel's occupation forces.

Palestinian activist and Birzeit University student Mariam Barghouti [7] reminded Ferguson protesters that the pain will pass. She also tweeted on how to minimize the pain once teargassed:

Rajai Abu Khalil [13], a Palestinian Doctor and Co-founder of Physicians for Palestine tweeted:

Al-Jazeera Host Wajahat Ali views Palestinian solidarity as proof that the situation in Ferguson is troubling.

The connection to Palestine is indeed an eerie one. Iranian-American activist and author, Trita Parsi [19], leader of the National Iranian American Council [20], shared a statement released by Ferguson's Chief of Police announcing that he had been trained on how to ‘prevent terror attacks’ in Israel.

Palestinian solidarity with the people of Ferguson hasn't gone unnoticed. American Twitter activist ‘Faithful Black Man’ tweeted two images showing the similarity between protesters in Gaza and Ferguson. He then expressed joy in hearing a Ferguson crowd chanting “Free Gaza”.

Palestine-based journalist Dalia Hatuqa [26] tweeted a video of a Ferguson supporter shouting “You gonna shoot us? Is this the Gaza strip?”

We should note that many of the images supposedly showing Gazans throwing teargas canisters back at the police/occupying army are actually taken in the West Bank. As Al Jazeera correspondent Mohammad Alsaafin [30] noted, teargas cannisters are usually the least of Gazans’ problems: