29 September 2024 – Twitter thread by Charlotte Kates, International Coordinator of the Samidoun Palestinian Political Prisoners Solidarity Network
This is a very important note and policy for all of us at this time. The zionist/imperialist forces are not only attempting to hit the people, the movement & the leadership of the Resistance with missiles and drones, but also with disinformation and psychological warfare.
There are several elements of this campaign, which everyone has encountered throughout social media apps. While the proliferation of false information is sometimes simply due to enthusiasm or seeking a “scoop,” it is clear that the result is the same: confusion and mistrust.
One of the goals of the recent terror pager attacks and the assassinations of great leaders of the Palestinian & Lebanese Resistance, is to induce unease, uncertainty & a lack of confidence in the Resistance, which has been nurtured and is so deeply rooted in its popular cradle.
Online and on social media, however, the collective ties and direct work that bind people together are often much more difficult to assess, and Big Tech algorithms push engagement with trolls, zionists, racists and imperialists, even to expose or dispute them.
These campaigns take several forms: distributing false and/or unverified public information about Resistance operations, political developments or internal decisions. When this fake news is then unconfirmed or untrue, people may feel disappointment or uncertainty.
The goal of enemy propaganda here, of course, is to direct that disappointment to the Resistance rather than to the false information in the first place. It can also lead people to engage less in the effort to support the Resistance through media.
It is far better to wait a few hours, a day, a few days, for trusted information from the Resistance than it is to compete for quick, unverified posts. Even with all the censorship, every resistance org has a Telegram channel while sources like RNN provide excellent translation.
Another form these efforts take are the mass zionist bot/spam/troll campaigns. They know they will never kill the Resistance through their assassinations and crimes, so they attempt to report, target, and fill with disgusting replies and quotes all posts honouring the martyrs.
In the past days, the thousands — millions? — of posts saluting the great martyr, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, have been particularly subjected to this kind of attack, which aims to discourage everyone from posting and highlighting the martyrs and their lives of struggle.
These also take the form of the “concerned” person who claims to believe that one part or another of the Resistance front is not doing enough and has abandoned Palestine or Lebanon — even as Sayyed Nasrallah was assassinated because he refused such a separation.
While there are always efforts to improve the security of the Resistance and its performance on all fronts, these efforts are being led within & by the Resistance forces themselves — not by Westerners and/or agents of reactionary imperialism-serving regimes, on social media.
Other posts attempt to stir up the sectarianism whose rejection is inherent in the resistance alliance, to use US foreign policy talking points, or to undermine any of the heroic military operations of the Resistance, from Al-Aqsa Flood/7 October 2023 onward.
Never let them say it is impossible to win; that any of the great forces of the Resistance are defeated, without a plan, “overestimated their strength”. Zionism & imperialism have only massacre and genocide as weapons; the Resistance is steadfast & far more powerful than F-35s.
Whatever the intentions of the poster, the effect is the same: to create distrust between the people and the resistance, to undermine the local, Arab, Islamic & even international popular base of support for the Resistance, to spread defeatism and fear.
A reminder once again to revisit this excellent article [8 Rules on the Nature of War] by Basil al-Araj. It is true about Palestine, it is true about Lebanon, it is true about all fronts of this unified Resistance.
Social media can feel separated from the struggle on the ground, and of course, it is nothing in comparison to the sacrifices and commitment of those on the front lines of Resistance.
It is important to remember that if we are part of a movement, of any organization or the liberation movement as a whole, that we have responsibilities that come with that, & those responsibilities include relaying the verified news from the trusted leadership of the struggle.
This applies to everyone of us, whether we are part of a solidarity committee in our town, an SJP on our campus, a youth organization in our community, we have a responsibility to this movement that includes trusting and upholding our collective leadership.
So much effort in the West has gone into attempting to destroy this, from the “anti-terror” laws targeting “glorification” or “coordination” (nothing illegal here, just you knowing where to turn for reliable info) to the individualist frameworks of imperialism and NGOization.
But even in the heart of the imperial core, the strength & leadership of the Resistance is so clear that it must be obvious to all that the Palestinian, Arab, Islamic and international liberation movements have a distinguished leadership that it is an honour to advance & amplify.
When we want to know what we should say about X, Y, or Z, there is a plethora of articles, statements and materials available that make clear the perspective and viewpoint of the Resistance. It is not our goal to replace that clarity of vision with a watered-down version.
Instead, it is to publicize, popularize, build the international popular cradle of the Resistance, of those who fight daily, with their strategic thinking & brilliant planning, their guns & missiles & RPGs, their Fadi-1s, Yaffa drones & Yassin-105s, for humanity’s liberation.
We are living in an era of a great revolutionary movement, of the freedom fighters, the fedayeen and the mujahideen of Palestine, Lebanon, Yemen, Iraq, Syria, Iran and beyond. A movement that is confronting imperialism and zionism and reaction at all levels.
To be clear, we are speaking about Hamas and Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and AnsarAllah & the gov’t and armed forces of Yemen, the Iraqi resistance forces and Hashd Shaabi, the forces of Syria and Iran; and ofc the revolutionary left like the PFLP & others.
A movement that changed the world on 7 October 2023, that has pulled off the mask of zionism and imperialism. A movement that showed all that Palestine will be free of Zionism and that the Arab world & the region will be free of imperialism.
The Zionists and imperialists are a genocidal war machine, with their air power and their war crimes. But the Resistance is stronger, deeply rooted in the land. The Resistance is the future. Let us live up to our responsibilities to it.
Glory and immortality to the martyrs. Victory to the Resistance, return and liberation for Palestine, from the river to the sea.