PROTESTING STUDENTS PRIMETIMES : WORLD ESSAY

Palestinians and Palestinian Students rally support on social Media. As images of Sheikh Jarrah,  destruction in Gaza and police raids on AI Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem have barrelled from Palestinian online platforms including PaliRoots and Eye on Palestine across-

Instagram, Twitter and TikTok, they have united a new generation of Arab students activists with progressive allies, some of whom may not have known where Gaza was two weeks ago.

''Stand with the oppressed,'' @_prada, an American combination fashion-criticism Instagram account and social justice megaphone, wrote its 2.7 million followers, in one of three posts over the past weeks highlighting Israeli actions against the Palestinians.

Palestinian students and activists say they aim to seize control of the narrative from the media outlets that they say suppressed their point of view and falsely equated Israel's suffering with that of its occupied territories.

They refer to Israeli policies as ''the colonization of Palestine,'' describe its discrimination against Palestinians as an apartheid regime and characterize the proposed eviction of Palestinian families from Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood which, which helped set off the current conflict, as an ''expulsion'' and part of the ethnic cleansing campaign.

Even the word conflict, which they say  inaccurately suggests a dispute between equals, is under siege. 

Cartoon : First Girl : So aren't Israelis and Palestinians just fighting over religion? 

Second Girl : They are not 'fighting', Israelis are the oppressors and Palestinians are the oppressed and the situation is about anything but religion.

Social Media has allowed Palestinian and world activists to change - or, in their words, correct - the story, while having a much wider impact. Some posts literally take a red pencil to text from mainstream outlets, including The New York Times, The Washington Post and CNN, crossing out headlines and substituting other words.

Users accused Instagram and Facebook of bias in deleting posts about Sheikh Jarrah and AI Aqsa, prompting the platforms to apologize and blame a technical issue.

''Because we were able to escape the gatekeepers of mass media, because we were able to escape the likes of The New York Times,'' said Mohammed eI-Kurd, 23, the brother of the woman in Sheikh Jarrah video,'' we were able to reach the world.''

Posting and tweeting to his hundreds of thousands of followers, almost exclusively in English to amplify his reach, Mr. eI-Kurd said the events of the past week, starting with the Sheikh Jarrah tensions shown in the video, had made the Palestine argument instantaneously accessible for a global audience.

''The situation is quite simple, right? he said in a phone interview from Sheikh Jarrah, where he had returned from studying poetry at Brooklyn College to help his family fight their eviction. 

''Somebody came and stole my home with the help of the army and the police and when you step out of that, that's the entire story of how Israel came to be.''

The reality is somewhat more complex. Israel's Supreme Court is weighing the claims of a Jewish organization that has legal title to to the Sheikh Jarrah property and wants to evict the Palestinian tenants, who also claim ownership.

Palestinians see the eviction case as part of the historical displacement of Palestinians, including current Israeli efforts to remove Palestinian residents from the certain parts of Jerusalem, which they saw violate international law.

The Publishing of this Master World Essay, continues.

The World Students Society thanks Nada Rashwan, Nick Fandos, and Catie Edmondson.