Orientalising Palestine: A Digital Archive
This is a crowd-sourced digital archive of Orientalist and dehumanizing coverage and takes on Palestinians. Its goal is to serve as a repository of contemporary Orientalist content about Palestine and Palestinians.
Since the beginning of what many experts have called a second Nakba, I am struck by how Orientalist talking points deployed as a way to dehumanize Palestinians and justify what genocide scholars have described as a “textbook case of genocide” are similar to those analysed by Edward Said in the third part of his 1978 Orientalism. More still, I am struck, and appalled, by how committed European as well as settler colonial States and the mass media they host remain to the use of such tropes in their public outputs.
The compilation of this archive was initiated on Twitter on October 17, 2023, in the context of the war crimes and genocide enacted by the IDF in Gaza following the murder and kidnapping of over 1,000 Israelis by Hamas on October 7. Since then, Gaza has been subjected to an uninterrupted, and intensifying, campaign of collective punishment that includes the cutting by Israel of their access to water, food, medication and fuel, as well as the carpet bombing of its civilian infrastructures (including dozens of attacks on hospitals, ambulances, schools, mosques, churches, apartment buildings and UNWRA facilities), the targeted murder of local journalists and their families, and (recently leaked) plans of forcible transfer of Gaza’s surviving population in Egypt’s Sinai (see here and here for numbers). By November 5, Israel had killed c.10,000 Palestinians, including more than 4,000 children. These war crimes (see also here), which are funded and condoned by the United States of America, are also perpetrated with the support of Canada, the UK and most of Europe’s governments (Ireland being a notable exception).
A growing number of Indigenous and Black scholars and critiques are expressing their support for Palestinian sovereignty as well as their understanding of the settler colonial, and racist, nature of this genocide (see notably here, here, here, here, and here). Thus, in its October 13, 2023 statement of solidarity with Palestinians, The Red Nation writes:
It should be clear to tribal leaders and all Native people that we are on a parallel path with Palestinian people struggling for land back and decolonization. Native nations and people face the same settler colonial violence that has descended upon our Palestinian relatives. Two-hundred years of US federal Indian law forms the basis for the imperial foreign policy the US now uses to support Israel in its genocide of Palestinians. Let us not forget that Native water and land protectors have always been labeled as “terrorists” when defending our homelands from US colonial aggression.
At the time of writing, more civilians were killed in Gaza than during the Srebrenica (Bosnia) massacre, settler violence and Land theft has been growing at a steady pace in the occupied West Bank, and growing popular demands for a ceasefire have been met with silence from local governments. In many universities in North America and Europe, students and faculty voicing their opposition to the genocide of Palestinians and asking for a ceasefire have been met with a concerning, and Orwellian, mix of silence, bullying, doxxing, censorship, and other retaliation measures.
While I made it clear that Orientalising and dehumanizing content about Jews related to Israel’s collective punishment campaign would be included in my thread (to date, I have come across no such content and none has been brought to my attention), the aim of the present archive is to focus on the Orientalisation of Palestinians. Given my work as a historian who works among other things on Orientalism through time and places, I consider it my moral duty to make this data available in one, open-access digital space.
Let me be clear: I strongly condemn antisemitism, Islamophobia, as well as anti-Arab and anti-Palestinian racism. I also condemn all attacks on all civilians. Crucially, I acknowledge the fundamental difference between antisemitism on the one hand, and critiques of Zionism on the other.
I believe that all civilian lives matter, that international law should apply to all, that ancient-to-modern history matters, that critical thinking matters, that the meaning of words matter, that understanding how power and oppression function matters, and that academic freedom matters all the time, and now more than ever.
I want all Palestinians to be free, all Jews to be safe, and I believe that these two goals are not mutually exclusive, on the contrary.
In this moment (to paraphrase Prof. Noura Erakat’s speech linked above), I am grateful to all the students and mostly junior colleagues who have sent and continue to send me Orientalist items to be added to the list.
As mentioned above, part of the archive was initially published as a thread on Twitter:
It has since expanded considerably, and I will update it as new content is brought to my attention. As you scroll through the archive, pay attention to the othering tropes that emerge. While you do so, ask yourself: What are the intended functions of this Orientalist lexicon? Who is its intended audience? And who is it meant to benefit?
One last note: I have decided to deposit the archive here for now given the urgency of the present moment, but my aim is to transfer it to a more user-friendly, and archiving-appropriate, repository down the line. Once it is done I will share the update here.
Digital Archive (Work In Progress)
1. October 13, 2023, National Post (Toronto) cover
“Civilized world” vs “savagery”
2. October 15, 2023, ChatGPT
“The question of justice for Palestinians is a complex and highly debated issue”
https://www.instagram.com/p/CydbE5sutDQ/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA%3D%3D
3. October 16, 2023, Israel’s PM official twitter account
“Axis of evil”; “they seek to destroy Israel and murder us all”; “abyss of barbaric fanaticism of the Middle Ages” vs “heights of progess”
4. October 16, 2023, Israel’s PM Twitter account
Hamas = ISIS = Nazism; “World united” vs Nazis, ISIS and Hamas
5. October 16, 2023, Israel’s PM Twitter account
“Our friends in the enlightened world” — on the Enlightenment as the root of the idea of “civilization”, see this post.
6. October 16, 2023, Israel’s PM Twitter account
“barbaric terrorists in Gaza”; brutal children murderers
7. October 17, 2023, Arsen Ostrovsky’s Twitter account
Hamas = terrorism = “victim card”
8. October 14, 2023, Arsen Ostrovsky’s Twitter account
“Hamas = Nazis 2023” = “Fact”; Children murderers
9. October 16, 2023, BBC’s Twitter account
Hamas = ready to sacrifice the sick and children
As Lowkey and others noticed:
“24 hours after the BBC tweeted this, bombed the Baptist Hospital in Gaza. It was sheltering patients and displaced people.”
10. October 14, 2023, Arsen Ostrovsky’s Twitter account
Hamas = ISIS = terrorists = baby murderers
11. Oct. 12, Twitter account of someone who seems to be a Hindutva supporter
Palestinians = Hamas = Terrorists = civilian killers and rocket throwers vs Israeli = civilian protectors
Palestinian mom = veiled+dressed in Black vs Israeli mom = blond hair+in colour
12. October 15, 2023, Israel’s PM Twitter account
Palestinians = “bloothirsty monters who have risen against us to destroy us”
13. October 17, 2023, Israel’s PM Twitter account
Full thread here
14. October 17, 2023, Vadim Vilensky’s (Vaugh =Toronto area real estate agent) Twitter account (see here)
Gaza = ‘lot’ of land to be sold on the ‘market’
Bombing of Palestinian civilians = worth a laugh
N.B.: Settler colonial States framing non Christian colonized lands as ‘empty’ is the basis of the Doctrine of Discovery
15. Oct. 18, NYTimes, on the bombing of Al Ahli hospital
“Palestinians say” ; switch from active “strike kills” to passive “100s dead”
16. October 18, 2023, NYTimes, on the bombing of Al Ahli hospital
Commenters under previous post pointed out that the title was changed a 3rd time by the NYTimes.
Switch from “strike” to “blast”
17. October 16, 2023 BBC News
BBC News “admits that it misled the public about pro-Palestinian demonstrations in the UK”
18. October 11, 2023, CNN
Hamas = decapitaters of babies and toddlers
19. October 18, 2023, USA President Joseph Biden
Palestinians = “the OTHER team” (the word “other” is very meaningful here) bombed their own people’s hospital; Palestinians = muderers of babies and the sick
20. October 13, 2023, Arsen Ostrovky’s Twitter account
Palestinians = cockroaches (on this matter, see this piece)
Compare with this 1939 cartoon depicting Jewish refugees as rats, thrown out of Germany and Nazi occupied territories & denied entry to Europe (from Austrian newspaper Das Kleine Blatt)
21. October 12, 2023, The Daily Mail cover
King Charles says “Them” = “terrorists” therefore BBC can say “Them” = “terrorists” (the word “them” is particularly meaningful here)
Full issue here
22. October 17, 2023, The Guardian, on the Al Ahli hospital bombing
Palestinian victims are “feared dead”; the cause was a “blast”; subtitle below says the Health Ministry is “run by Hamas”
23. October 18, 2023, The National Post front page
Palestinians = Hamas = “terror group” = “suicide mission”; picture: Palestinian = gun x Black vs Israel = house and trees
24. Jewish settler on tiktok
Palestinians = Hamas; bombing of civilians is “the sweetest sound”
25. October 18, 2023, settler teenagers in Israel to an Arab-speaking female journalist
Bombing of Al Ahli hospital “is an Arab explosion”; “death to Arabs”; “Arabs all go to Russia”; “Arab terrorists”; “go here and die”
https://www.instagram.com/reel/CyilvP4LbdL/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA%3D%3D
26. October 17, 2023, billionaire and ex Harvard donor Les Wexner
Academic freedom for critiques of Israel’s war crimes = “absence of clear moral stand”
See here
27. October 18, 2023, Israel’s PM Twitter account
Hamas = “Islamic Jihad” = “terror organization” = murderers of sick and kids
28. October 7, 2023, Gadi Yarkoni, head of the Eshkol Regional Council (Southern Israel)
Palestinians = “not even animals but something monstrous”; Palestinians who don’t “flee” = “they have no right to life”; Israel’s peace = emptying of Gaza from its population
See here
29. October 9, 2023, Israel’s Defence Minister Yoav Gallant
Palestinians = “human animals”
30. October 16, 2023, Tzipi Hotovely, Israel’s ambassador in the United Kingdom, on Sky News
Palestinians = “Nazis” = “worse than ISIS”; “there is not a humanitarian crisis”
31. October 19, 2023, Sarah Silverman on her instagram story
To say Israel cutting water and electricity to Gaza is inhumane = “a very strange thing”; Palestinians can be deprived of water and water and electricity by Israel; benevolent Israel vs Hamas terrorists; Hamas = unable to “build the infrastructures to support themselves”
See here
32. October 17, 2023, University of Ottawa Medicine faculty Yoni Freedhoff
Palestinians = “genocidal death cultists who behad babies, rape women, execute Holocaust survivors, abduct hundreds of hostages including infants“; Palestinians = kill their own civilians
33. October 18, Amy Schumer on her instagram story
Palestinians = “Islamic Jihad” = killer of their own sick and children; 1st hand experience of survivors of the al Ahlia bombing = “propaganda lie” = anti-Jewish = “terrorist lies”
34. October 19, 2023, Israel PM, Germany’s Chancellor and USA President on Israel PM Twitter account
Hamas = “the new Nazis” = “worse than ISIS”
35. Oct. 19, 2023, Israel PM Twitter account
Palestine/Hamas/Hezbollah = “axis of evil” = Middle Ages = bondage and war and slavery and annihilation = backward vs Israel/UK/USA = “progress and humanity”, “peace and prosperity” = forward
36. October 18, 2023, Israel MP Merav ben Ari in the Knesset
Palestinian children in Gaza brought the genocide “upon themselves”
See here
37. October 16, 2023, Israel PM Twitter account
Palestinians = children of darkness = children of the jungle vs Israelis = children of the dark = humanity
Note how this tweet is similar to the description of SS men’s ethos quoted below (picture sent by a Twitter user)
38. October 18, 2023, Professor Shai Davidai, Columbia University Business School faculty on Youtube
Palestinians = terrorists; student organisations who are showing solidarity with Palestinian civilians = “pro-terrorists/terror” organisations that must be “eradicated”; Palestinians = rapists
39. October 17, 2023, “Proud Zionist” Twitter account
Palestinian children = terrorists = ISIS
40. October 19, 2023, Israel ambassador to the UK
Palestinians = “Jihadic Islam” = lies = insane = immoral vs Israel = truth = reasonable = moral; Palestinians = Hamas = terrorist vs Israel = “democratic country”; Palestinians = “they don’t care killing their own children” or “about human rights”
41. October 19, 2023, Israeli official David Saranga and “Jew Belong”
Hamas = terrorists = ISIS = responsible for the blockade and siege of Gaza
42. October 18, 2023, Chris Rose, re the bombing of Al Ahli hospital
Palestinian sources and witnesses = faceless = black = guns = terrorists = lies
43. November 5, 2023, Eli David’s Twitter account
Palestinians = Hamas = killers of Jews; students critical of Israel’s war crimes = supporters of Hamas + killing of Jews + destruction of Israel
44. November 4, 2023, Eli David’s Twitter account
Palestinians = Hamas = use Hamas babies as human shields
45. November 3, 2023, Metacanada via Marc-André Bahl’s Twitter account
Supporters of Palestinian rights = supporters of terrorists dressed in black
46. October 29, 2023, Marc-André Bahl’s Twitter account
Palestinians = stealers of UN aid
47. November 4, 2023, former E-Talks Canada host Ben Mulroney’s Twitter account citing a tweet from Toronto Sun journalist Warren Kinsella
c.100,000 people who marched insupport of Palestine in Toronto on November 4 = supporters of Hamas = should be deported or prosecuted
48. November 5, 2023, an Israeli soldier (and singer?) giving a speech on a stage
Palestinians = impure = evil = immoral = Hamas vs Israeli pure = justice = moral whose land includes all of Gaza and also Lebanon =
Note the end of the speech:
“we will eliminate evil, we will uproot Hamas, we will uproot all our enemies and we will destroy everyone, with God’s help, sooner than later”
49. November 5, 2023, Eli David’s Twitter account
Palestinians = dress like Saudis and Talibans = sword bearers who behead White people
50. November 4, 2023, Eli David’s Twitter account
March in support of Palestinians and for a ceasefire = Kristallnacht = Nazi
51. October 18, 2023, Israel’s Twitter account
Palestinians = Islamic Jihad + Hamas + hospital bombers + users of human shields
52. October 20, 2023, Israel PM Naphtali Bennett’s Twitter account
Palestinians ought to be “crushed” = Nazis = terrorists who can wither in rot; Palestinian women = terrorist mother who deserve to cry
53. October 20, 2023, Noya Cohen on tiktok
Palestinian women all wear black + are all hijabi; Palestinian women’s oppression is a spectacle; Palestinian women’s murder by the IDF is funny
54. October 20, 2023, University of Ottawa Medicine faculty Yoni Freedhoff’s Twitter account
Events in support of Israel = peace and music = where police protects vs events in support of Palestine = genocidal chants against Jews = police enforcement
55. October 21, 2021, Israel’s Twitter account
Palestinian civilians = Nazi civilians; Israeli mass bombing of Gaza = something to be proud of
56. November 2, 2023, footages of Palestinian detainees forced to listen to a children’s song for hours
Torture and dehumanization of Palestinians = a funny and fun spectacle
57. October 27, 2023, IDF propaganda tiktoks
War crimes and genocide of Palestinians = a fun adventure
58. October 28 and 29, 2023, Era Gigman’s Twitter account
Palestinians = Scylla-like monster = evil, long-nosed tree = terrorists
59. October 27, 2023, Amy Schumer’s instagram account
People who oppose Israel’s war crime + genocide and ask for a ceasefire = supporters of Hamas = condone children stabbing + throwing grenades at kids + rape of Jewish girls + beheading
60. October 19, 2023, Lora Ries for Heritage Foundation
Palestinian migrants = ‘suicidal’ for Americans
61. October 22, 2023, ancient History Professor Christopher W. Jones
Ceasefire = Hamas victory = injustice = getting away with murder
61. October 13, 2023, Aric Rindfleisch’s Twitter account
Palestinians are best unfree
62. October 26, 2023, Md Nili Kaplan
People who attend marches in support of a ceasefire in Gaza = embolden “Jew hate” + celebrate the slaughter/rape/abduction of Jews
63. October 23, 2023, National Post columnist Tristin Hopper
Support of Palestinian rights = endorsement of “medieval barbarism”
64. October 22, 2023, Concordia University Professor Gad Saad
65. November 5, 2023, Concordia University Professor Gad Saad
66. British MP John Howell
Palestinians = Hamas
67. November 4, 2023, David Frum’s Twitter account
Palestinian casualties = Hamas numbers = unreliable = inflated
68. October 30, 2023, Israelis on tiktok
To deprive Palestinians of water and electricity = funny
69. October 30, 2023, Israel UN Ambassador
Palestinians = Hamas = Nazis
70. October 9, 2023, A Twitter account
Ethnic cleansing of Palestinians = a good thing
71. November 5, 2023, Israeli then Minister of Heritage, Amichai Eliyahu
Palestinians can be sent a nuclear bombed and “they can go to Ireland or deserts, the monsters in Gaza should find a solution by themselves”
72. October 26, 2023, Amy Schumer’s instagram story
Critiques of Israel’s war crimes = antisemite + violent
73. October 26, 2023, Hollywood producer James Woods
Palestinians = savages = from the Stone Age; “Hamas savage” and their supporters should all be killed and “buried with the entrails of pigs”
74. October 26, 2023, Israeli instagram account
Palestinian suffering = funny
75. October 25, Former Israeli ambassador to the UN Dan Gillerman
Palestinians = “inhuman animals”
76. October 25, 2023, tiktok trend
Palestinian suffering = funny; Palestinians = teeth missing = dress in black and face masked
77. October 25, 2023, George Monbiot’s Twitter account
Hamas = deliberately kill civilians vs Israeli government = “inevitably” kills
78. October 24, 2023, Theology Professor Craig A. Carter’s Twitter account
Muslims = antisemites = grow at a threatening pace
79. October 24, 2023, Arab against antisemitism Twitter account
Palestinians = Arabs = Muslim = colonisers vs Jews = Indigenous
for a short blurb on how this Orientalist narrative is historically bankrupt, see here
80. October 9, 2023, Yakvolf Twitter account
Collective punishment + genocide of Palestinians = a desirable thing
81. October 22, 2023, BBC
Israelis are massacred vs Palestinians are killed
82. October 21, 2023, Meta
Word “terrorist” added to the biographies of some Palestinians on instagram
see on this matter this piece:
A MintPress study has found that hundreds of former agents of the notorious Israeli spying organization, Unit 8200, have attained positions of influence in many of the world’s biggest tech companies, including Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Amazon.
83. October 19, 2023, Berlin police
Palestinian flag = illegal = flagbearer can be beaten and pepper sprayed
84. November 5, 2023, French journalist Céline Pina
Killing of Israeli children = inhuman vs killing of Palestinian children = human
85. November 3, 2023, Dr Eva Lonn, Head of cardiology at McMaster University
People who march to ask for a ceasefire and protest war crimes against Palestinians should be deported
86. November 5, 2023, 1,000 Israeli medical doctors
87. November 6, 2023, Israeli singer Narkis entertaining soldiers
88. November 2023, A 2014 tweet by Bethany S. Mandel resurfaced in the context of her support of Israel’s war crimes in Palestine
Palestinians = “fucking animals” who deserved to be “nuked”
89. November 5, 2023, NYTimes
Nakba = migration; Palestinians “were expelled” but the expeller is not named; genocide = war
90. November 5, 2023, Israeli Lieutenant Colonel Iddo Ben-Anat quoted in article title by the Sydney Morning Herald
Palestinians = Mice
article here
91. October 11, 2023, CBC host and medical doctor Brian Goldman’s Twitter account
Palestinians = Hamas = threat to be “eradicated”
92. November 5, 2023, UofOttawa medicine faculty Yoni Freedhoff’s Twitter account
People who march to ask for a ceasefire and condemn the genocide of Palestinians sing ‘genocidal chants’ + terrorist/communist/nazi flags + monuments defaced + antisemite
(note what seems to be the unproblematized and naturalized assumption that Judaism is a“race”)
93. November 5, 2023, UofT Medicine faculty Karen Devon’s Twitter account
Jewish girls = “pure and beautiful” vs People marching to ask a ceasefire and condemn the genocide of Palestinians = sickening; critiques of Zionism = antisemitism
94. November 6, 2023, Matt Bracken’s Twitter account
Washington protestors = ‘Great replacement’ march; there is a lot — I’ll let you sort it all out at your own pace
95. November 6, 2023, Michael Ramirez for The Washington Post
96. November 7, 2023, Nili Kaplan, Md PhD, and someone named “Rob” on their respective Twitter account
Tweet 1 = Peaceful protesters asking for a ceasefire and end of genocide in Palestine = Hamas supporters = Jew haters = want to ‘wipe out’ Israel; Tweet 2 = peaceful protesters justify armed violence against themselves
link to Tweets here
97. November 7, 2023, Michael Walzer for The Atlantic
Palestinians = should not resist their oppression
98. November 7, 2023, Harvard University Rabbi Zarchi
Palestinians + ceasefire/anti-genocide voices = “below animals” = “monsters” = “barbaric” = are lead by the “heart and the head” (= “horizontal” = pulsions and violence) as opposed to only by the head (= “vertical” = reason)
(note that to approach life from the head and the heart is at the core of Indigenous ontologie — see notably the work of Leanne Betasamosake Simpson on Land-based pedagogy)
99. November 8, 2023, Yishai Fleisher’s Twitter account
Rashida Tlaib = terrorist = a member of Hamas
100. November 8, 2023, Yishai Fleisher’s Twitter account
Gaza = Israel’s Land and beaches
101. November 10, 2023, Maryland Anti-Palestinian Rally
102. Nove,ber 6, 2023, Young Israeli people connecting live with tiktoker Hamza
103. 29 October, 2023, Israeli young man on tiktoker Hamza’s channel
104. November 16, 2023 Idan Cherry on tiktok
This clip offers is a pot-pourri of clichés
105. November 18, 2023, The Jewish Ginger on tiktok
Israel = rational vs Palestine = Hamas = terrorism = suicide
106. October 13, 2023, Israel Truth tiktok account
Palestinians are meant to be oppressed; the usual, bankrupt weaponization of archaeology for Zionist purposes
107. October, 20, 2023, American Politisks on tiktok
Palestinians have tried for 500 years to kill Christians and Jews
108. November 16, 2023, Pat Condell on tiktok
109. November 11, 2023, Eli David on Twitter (2 posts)
111. November 18, 2023, Eli David on Twitter
111. November 11, 2023, Comment under Eli David’s post on Twitter
112. November 10, 2023, Montréal Gazette title
Protest for ceasefire and against genocide = pro-Hamas protest
113. November 12, 2023, Concordia Professor Gad Saad on Twitter
The usual “the West” x “clash of civilizations” clichés
114. November 12, 2023, Nitzan Mintz on Instagram
115. November 8, 2023, earlier tweet from Maurice Hirsch
Lives of Palestinian children are disposable
116. November 9, 2023, USA Representative Michelle Salzman
All Palestinians must be killed
