Abolishing the Victim Complex: Reframing Palestinian Nationalism Saarah Khan

Abolishing the Victim Complex: Reframing Palestinian Nationalism By: Saarah Khan

Navigating mainstream media sources on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can be tricky – there is an abundance of politically skewed reports, someone always drags in the argument of morality, and there are always two camps that seek to discredit one another.1 Yet, it is one of the few ways that diasporic Palestinians can receive updates on families, friends, and fellow Palestinians in their homeland.2 How have Palestinian mass media and social media in non-Arab countries aided the construction and maintenance of a national identity in Palestinian diasporic communities, in the post-1967 period? The transition from the consumption of mass media to Arab social media in Palestinian diasporic communities from the 1970s to present-day can be explained by the transnational and empowering nature of the latter. Not only is social media a more suitable tool for Palestinians in diasporas, whose political rights and freedoms are often restricted by their host countries, but it also grants disenfranchised Palestinian’s agency in forming and exercising their national identity through political means.

A short note on the definitions used in this essay. Transnationalism is understood as “the processes by which immigrants forge and sustain multi-stranded social relationships that link together their societies of origin and settlement.”3 I have also used Rashid Khalidi’s characterisation of Palestinian national identity, where their bid for statehood, as well as the advocacy of human rights violations carried out against Palestinians living in the occupied territories, is key to their national identity. 4 Three main types of sources constitute the research used in this essay: mass media and social media platforms in non-Arab countries, and secondary literature on identity-formation and identity-maintenance within the Palestinian diaspora. This essay aims to explore the transnational nature of contemporary Palestinian national identity, and its relationship with modern media. Thus, I limit my scope to Arab social media rather than more traditional forms of media, like the Arab press, radio and television which can be restricted by political borders. First, I will be looking at the construction of a diasporic identity for Palestinians in the 1970s and 80s. This development will be contextualised against their exodus in 1967, which consequently introduced the dominant image of a displaced, and helpless Palestinian people to international discourse.5 The need for scattered Palestinians to maintain links to their homeland was primarily addressed by Arab political organizations like the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), who used mass media to further their political agenda.6 Then, I will be considering examples to explain the prominence of Arab social media and its contributions to the maintenance of a contemporary Palestinian national identity. Arab social media influencers and initiatives highlight the Palestinian national struggle by engaging Palestinian creative capacities in the resistance movement and providing platforms for dialogue. This allows for transnational engagement and freedom of political expression.

Thirdly, I will be analysing the use of social media as a tool for diasporic mobilisation of Palestinians during times of conflict. Here, I will be using Elizabeth Mavroudi’s definition of diasporic mobilisation to mean “helping the homeland in material ways” i.e., sending remittances, donating to charity, participating in social activism.7 I posit that while it is a welcome tool for Palestinians in diasporas, social media may not always inspire them to pursue action.8 To better understand the extent of diasporic engagement, I strive to answer a secondary research question: How politically active are Palestinian diasporic communities? I will take social activism and diasporic mobilisation focused on the Palestinian cause to mean the same thing. Finally, I will be examining the limits that social media as a platform imposes on the maintenance of a Palestinian national identity, as content can be controlled by political groups who have interests in seeing an outcome favourable to Israel.9 After the Palestinians lost their state in 1947, as well as any hope of reclaiming it with the Arab military defeat in 1949, they also lost their status as a people in the international system.10 Due to the lack of a focused national narrative, Palestinians of this time became socially and politically adrift as they were all made to follow separate paths of integration into the respective nation-states whose authority they were under: Palestinians in the West Bank received Jordanian citizenship but no political rights, Palestinians in Israel received

Israeli citizenship but were oppressed by military laws and Palestinians across the Fertile Crescent and the Mashreq faced barriers to organization and political expression because of their refugee status.11 It is also important to note that Palestinians of younger and older generations were divided on their understanding of national identity: post-1947 generations associate the Nakba with the failure of their country’s leadership to assert their claim to the land.12 This association also ties back into how Diana Allan stresses upon the significance of the Nakba in making the modern Palestinian identity.13 Despite this deep-set fragmentation, a national movement begun to stir in Palestinian communities in the 1950s.14 The movement would go on to establish the primary political objective of Palestinian nationalism: liberation from Israeli occupation. Introduced to the international stage in 1964, the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) would become the Palestinian people’s national representative.15 While Palestinians had first became a diasporic people with the Nakba of 1948, the phenomenon of their dispersion gained greater international attention with the 1967 Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories. This trend occurred precisely because the modern Palestinian identity had only emerged with the efforts of the recently established PLO.16 Here, ‘modern Palestinian identity’ is understood purely through the terms of self-determination – it is the aim to liberate Palestine from Israeli occupation by granting it the status of a nation-state.17 After its military defeat in the 1967 Arab Israeli war, the PLO scrambled to take advantage of the politically charged situation. By using existing institutions and structures, the PLO implemented a framework that would transform the grassroots resistance movement into a legitimate national political organization.18 Its network of political groups also helped provide a form of transnational engagement as Palestinians in the occupied territories and Palestinians in the diasporas were now represented under one cohesive entity.19 When the PLO had engaged in armed conflict against Israel during its formative years, it motivated Palestinians to recognise the organization as their sole political representative.20 In 1974, the Arab League and the United Nations General Assembly also recognised the PLO’s status in the international system as the sole authority on Palestine.21 This dual vote of confidence in the PLO’s legitimacy, from the nation and from the international community, was the catalyst in augmenting the transnational spread of its message and ideology. Recognising the deep divergence between Palestinians in refugee camps and Palestinians in diasporic communities, the PLO began to actively define and shape Palestinian national identity during the 1970s and 80s.22 Palestinians living in diasporas were still highly scattered and had not formed communities yet, for the most part, they had assimilated into the social framework of their respective host countries.23 In order to form a Palestinian civil society in diasporas, the PLO began establishing civil institutions like youth associations, medical clinics, local militias, and pottery shops.24 However, these were established only in those diasporas where the PLO had an existing sphere of control, or political connections. 25 So, when their political influence in an area faded, the civil society institutions of that area would also collapse, or be forcibly removed. Thus, the PLO needed to reach Palestinians and its allies without requiring bilateral political support. By the early 1970s they had an answer: party elites devised and implemented mobilisation programs, which would coopt mediums from popular culture like news, poetry, songs, and cartoons.26 In a move she identifies as “cultural activism”, Dina Matar argues that the PLO began investing in formal cultural spaces by the early 1970s to not only mobilise the Palestinians in the diasporas, but also to engage allies in dialogue.27 In 1971, the PLO formed the Unified Information Unit as its public relations division, which would disseminate the organization’s ideology and fight disinformation efforts from the Israeli camp.28 A variety of mass media was used to reach the audience through different popular channels: Filastin alThawra was inaugurated as the official PLO newspaper in 1971, WAFA was the PLO-controlled news agency, Sawt al-Assifa was the official PLO radio.29 Additionally, PLO-backed art and cultural associations were responsible for producing films, theatrical performances, and political posters about Palestine’s national movement.30 As part of its efforts, the PLO also allocated funds towards institutionalizing and growing existing local-scale media that had been maintained by Palestinian guerrilla groups.31 Best explained by Benedict Anderson’s term “imagined communities”, the PLO employed the use of mass media to disseminate a newly-imagined national identity and history during the 1970s.32 The PLO’s pursuit of cultural activism sought to accustom Palestinians and international allies’ to the symbols of the Palestinian national movement; important figures and their stories of heroism and struggle were infused in popular songs and poems as part of the Palestinian national consciousness.33 The PLO also exclusively employed Palestinian writers, designers, and artists to enable their political capacities and create new ways for them to engage with the national movement.34

Still, one of the most common ways that Palestinians engaged with their national movement was to join the armed struggle against Israeli forces, as they perceived it to grant them greater agency, as publicized by PLO’s media outlets.35 In fact, the primacy of ‘armed struggle’ as a way to achieve the PLO’s political objectives was enshrined in Article nine of the Palestinian National Charter.36 The first indication that the PLO was successful in forming a new type of Palestinian identity, was when the Palestinians living in camps reconceptualized their identity. More specifically, they shifted from “refugees” to “militants, activists, or revolutionaries”.37 Another example of the PLO’s role in forming the modern Palestinian identity, was with their free distribution of Filastin al-Thawra to groups that had been directly disenfranchised by Israeli forces – guerrilla fighters, refugees in camps, and those living in the occupied territories.38 The newspaper was cleverly constructed to inspire Palestinian national sentiments, and further develop the Palestinian national movement: it commemorated politically significant dates, like the Nakba of 1948, and its first two pages would usually be emblazoned with colourful posters of guerrilla fighters or images of the flag of Palestine.39 Filastin al-Thawra also used diction in a way that presented Palestinians as the agents of their own liberation, rather than victims of an occupying force.40 Moreover, Filastin al-Thawra introduced phrases like “Palestinian personality” to the local lexicon because it sought to recognise Palestinians by their common national identity and suppress differences in gender and class.41 By disseminating the newspaper amongst politically vulnerable groups, PLO authorities believed they would encourage Palestinians to join the armed struggle, strengthening their politically active base. Thus, the narrative of organized, large-scale mobilization of Palestinians was very much embedded in the aesthetics of popular culture that was being produced by the PLO.42

Despite their significant role in reframing Palestinian national identity in the 1970s and 80s, the PLO’s use of mass media was limited in its ability to empower Palestinians in the diasporas to join the national movement. Diasporic Palestinians often lived outside the sphere of control wielded by the PLO which was mostly based in Lebanon – it was the centre of their activity in the 1970s.43 Moreover, the organization was more concerned with mobilizing the Palestinians in camps and occupied territories during this time.44 On the other hand, any Palestinians who responded to the PLO’s mobilization programs and joined the armed struggle as guerrilla fighters, were automatically characterised as “terrorists” by rival political groups in attempts to discredit the Palestinian cause.45 The more recent advent of social media platforms, like online blog forums, has managed to satisfy the Palestinian diasporas’ demand to easily access information about their homeland as well as provide them with a way to engage with their national identity.46 With its ability to enable dispersed Palestinians to engage in the Palestinian national movement, social media has become the superior tool for participation versus the PLO’s mass media of the 1970s and 80s. Looking at a case study of the Palestinian diaspora in the UK, they seem to agree that Palestinian media is “irrelevant” as it is only concerned with promoting political interests which do not always align with the Palestinian national interest.47 Instead, the British-Palestinian community endorses the use of the Internet as a medium for media consumption – blogging sites allow them to engage transnationally with Palestinians from other countries in a way that newspapers and news channels cannot provide.48 Similarly, the use of virtual spaces by the diaspora residing in Malmö allows second and thirdgeneration Palestinian-Swedes to explore what it means to be Palestinian.49 Thus, the emergence of social media has transformed the way that diasporic Palestinians interact with their national identity. Additionally, Arab-American influencers and platforms are creating new ways for diasporic Palestinians to maintain links to their national community.50 Firstly, community-based cultural initiatives are enabling Palestinians in diasporas to contribute to the national cause. Take for example, Dar Collective by Palestinian-Filipino social media personality Subhi Taha.51 Nominated for “Breakout Youtuber of the Year” in the 11th Annual Shorty Awards which showcase the best of social media and digital content, Taha has built a large social media following through comedic skits.52 His content destigmatizes cultural differences, addresses misconceptions about Islam, and calls attention to topical issues across platforms like YouTube and Instagram. Along the same lines, Taha founded Dar Collective at the start of 2020. By collaborating with indigenous and diasporic artists, the initiative aims to highlight the cultural identity of one community at a time.53 The first community that Dar Collective focused on was the Palestinian community, reflecting Taha’s own heritage. Artistic pieces that are a part of the Palestine series range from clothing to posters.54 Going one step further, the initiative has a philanthropic aspect, as it ensures that a portion of the funds accrued from the sales of the

series are set aside for donation to the UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East).55 Another similar community-based initiative is PaliRoots. 56 With a big presence across artistic and cultural mediums – songs, podcasts, vlogs (video blogs) –PaliRoots was also created with the objective to raise awareness about Palestinian cultural identity.57 In addition to clothing and jewellery, PaliRoots makes and sells items that are endemic to the Palestinian national identity like olive-oil soap from Nablus and “the only kufiyah to be authentically made in Palestine.”58 The unique aspect about PaliRoots is the way it has encompassed so many non-Palestinians in its pursuit of educating the public about Palestinian national identity.59 Both Dar Collective and PaliRoots have enabled diasporic Palestinians and allies to contribute to the Palestinian national movement, in a creative capacity –something that they were previously not able to do easily. This effect relates back to how the PLO had also employed Palestinian artists and writers as part of its attempt to carry out cultural activism. and mobilize Palestinians in camps and occupied territories.60 As initiatives based in America, Dar Collective and PaliRoots also seek to broaden the scope of what it means to be Palestinian and encourage identity-maintenance in diasporic communities. Secondly, influential Arabs on social media (colloquially known as ‘influencers’) are providing diasporic Palestinians with platforms for expression of their national identity. When these influencers voice their pro-Palestinian sentiments, they end up encouraging like-minded individuals and groups to come out with their own support for the Palestinian cause. For example, Ameer al-Khatahtbeh’s brainchild Muslim.co is an online publication for Gen-Z and millennial Muslims that dually seeks to inform people about topical Muslim issues like the mistreatment of Uyghurs as well as break down cultural barriers through entertainment.61 Coming from a Palestinian and Jordanian background, alKhatahtbeh continuously calls attention to political developments on the Palestinian cause and engages with the online Palestinian liberation movement under the hashtag “freepalestine”.62 He is an influential figure on social media, as he was just honoured by the Forbes 30 Under 30 List for 2021 and Muslim.co has almost amassed 600 thousand followers on Instagram, which is why it is significant when he uses his platform to highlight the Palestinian cause.63 If social media following is a barometer for influence, then the Hadid family is a highly influential ally and advocate for the Palestinian liberation movement. The family members in focus are the patriarch Mohamed Hadid, a Palestinian who immigrated to the USA in the wake of the Nakba, and his celebrity children – Gigi Hadid and Bella Hadid, the supermodels, and their brother, Anwar Hadid.64 Amongst the four of them, their social media presence on Instagram alone reaches up to 102.8 million people.65 As stated on Mohamed Hadid’s Instagram account, they are all “unapologetically Palestinian” as they frequently use their platform to raise awareness about the Palestinian movement. Situated in America the Hadid family’s role is significant, as it allows Palestinians in diasporas to see their political views represented by mainstream celebrity figures. This representation can help PalestinianAmerican’s identify with their national cause and inspire Palestinian-allies to participate in the liberation movement. These examples illustrate the important role that Arab social media platforms and influencers play in maintaining Palestinian diasporic communities. They create new ways to express the Palestinian national identity, sustain the Palestinian narrative in mainstream media, and influence others to support the liberation movement. They also allow Palestinians to form online communities as a way of transnational engagement. Thus, we see a key difference between Arab social media and PLO’s mass media – the former gives agency to diasporic Palestinians while the latter had focused on mobilising only the displaced and oppressed Palestinians of the territories. In all the given examples, social media was welcomed by Palestinian diasporas as it gave them greater agency than they had before. Palestinians use news media not just for active participation, by way of reading comments and writing blog posts under published reports, but also to socially engage with their national identity.66 Khalil Rinnawi argues that once they become a part of this “virtual community” they also become less of a marginalised community.67 Diasporic Palestinians are a vigilant audience – they must receive daily news updates whether they be informed by media sources or by family and friends living in Gaza and the West Bank.68 Yet, despite its ability to politicize Palestinian diasporic communities, social media cannot fulfil all aspects of their national identity. Since diasporic Palestinians use social media primarily as a means of transnational engagement and social contact with one another, they are not always well connected to the Palestinians living in the occupied territories or refugee camps.69 Thus, there is no guarantee that social media will be able to inspire diasporic mobilisation during a crisis in their homeland.70

Their inability to act can be explained through two distinct reasons. The first reason considers the political status of Palestinians living in diasporas. For example, Palestinians in Greece are usually not granted citizenship because of a law that does not allow non-Greeks to gain Greek citizenship.71 So, a lack of formal political rights means that the Palestinian diaspora in Greece is unable to mobilize. Efforts to mobilize the diaspora are rendered more difficult when you consider that Palestine’s national authority is not as concerned with reaching out to the dispersed Palestinians or providing them with formal ways of engaging.72 Thus, there is a lack of any inclusive political entity that encompasses the different types of Palestinians: those living in the occupied territories, those living in Israel, those living in refugee camps, and those living in diasporic communities. Even after being granted citizenship, Palestinian diasporic communities may face restrictions in exercising their political rights, as the governments of their host countries may be influenced by lobby groups – let us take the example of the Palestinian-Canadian community. In 2011, the government of Canada cut the budgets of certain Arab community organizations, on the basis that they were promoting anti-Semitism and extremism.73 These organizations, like Palestine House, were important as they fundamentally opposed Israeli occupation in the Canadian context and allowed diasporic Palestinians to engage with their community.74 Therefore, the Canadian government’s move was a direct attempt at trying to decentralize the Palestinian national identity in Canada. Then in 2019, local Canadian governments tried to codify the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism into law, which included criticism of Israel as essential to its meaning.75 If implemented on social media platforms, it would suppress Palestinian freedom of expression and prevent diasporic mobilisation during times of conflict. Thus, if they had been successful, the Canadian government would have disempowered the politically active Palestinian diaspora.76 Therefore, the political status of Palestinians and their lack of governmental allies in the non-Arab world means there is a constant risk of being formally prevented from engaging in diasporic mobilisation.

The second reason why Palestinian diasporas may be unable to mobilize through social media stems from the nature of social media itself – digital content is open to control and regulation by groups who have an interest in the Israeli cause. In a case study, it was found that posts with moderate Palestinian voices found greater support and circulation on Facebook than posts with more emotional Palestinian voices or personal stories of suffering.77 Best example being the Canadian case as detailed above, political groups may try to encourage a particular narrative if that suits their agenda better.78 Conversely, they may also use social media to actively stifle the Palestinian diaspora’s efforts at mobilisation during a conflict.79 So, even though Palestinian diasporic communities are highly politicised – as seen through their active online participation and political efforts to create spaces for maintaining their national identity80 –they are not always able to mobilise during times of crisis.81

While both aimed to form a modern Palestinian identity, Palestinian mass media and Arab social media have empowered two different audiences. The PLO adopted popular culture for disseminating the Palestinian national movement, and mobilising its people during the 1970s and 80s. This allowed Palestinians living in refugee camps and the occupied territories to form and maintain links to their national homeland. On the other hand, Arab social media has allowed for the creation of virtual spaces where diasporic Palestinians are able to socialize and engage with their identity.82 While they do pursue activism and express personal stories, and generally maintain strong links to their national identity, diasporic Palestinians may not always be able to mobilize during a crisis. It is also clear to see that perhaps there are two distinct forms of Palestinian national identity – one belongs to those who live nearer to the homeland (refugee camps, occupied territories, and even the Gulf) and one belongs to those who live further away from the homeland (diasporic communities across Europe and North America). While social media does seek to transcend geographical distance, there may be something to say for the role played by the proximity of the homeland, and all its conflicts, in maintaining the collective bid to return.

Notes

1 Ola Ogunyemi, Ola Ogunyemi, and Amira Halperin, “The Use of New Media by the UK’s Palestinian Diaspora,” in Journalism, Audiences and Diaspora (London: Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2015), 218. 2 Ogunyemi and Halperin, “The Use of New Media by the UK’s Palestinian Diaspora:” 218. 3 Linda Basch, Nina Glick Schiller, and Cristina Szanton Blanc, Nations unbound: Transnational projects, postcolonial predicaments, and deterritorialized Nation-States, (Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Gordon and Breach, 1994), 7. 4 Rashid Khalidi, Palestinian Identity: The Construction of Modern National Consciousness, (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997). 5 Dina Matar, “PLO Cultural Activism: Mediating Liberation Aesthetics in Revolutionary Contexts,” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 38, no. 2 (2018): 359.

6 Matar, “PLO Cultural Activism:” 354. 7 Elizabeth Mavroudi, “Deconstructing Diasporic Mobilisation at a Time of Crisis: Perspectives from the Palestinian and Greek Diasporas,” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 44, no. 8 (2018): 1310. 8 Mavroudi, “Deconstructing Diasporic Mobilisation:” 1310. 9 Abigail B. Bakan and Yasmeen Abu-Laban, “Palestinian Resistance and International Solidarity: The BDS Campaign,” Race & Class 51, no. 1 (July 2009): 45. 10 Khalidi, Palestinian Identity, 178. 11 Ibid., 179. 12 Ellen Fleischmann, The Nation and Its "New" Women: the Palestinian Women's Movement, 1920-1948, Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 2003, 13-14. 13 Diana K Allan, “Commemorative Economies and the Politics of Solidarity in Shatila Camp,” Humanity (Philadelphia, Pa.) 4, no. 1 (2013): 133. 14 Khalidi, Palestinian Identity, 180. 15 Helena Cobban, The Palestinian Liberation Organisation: People, Power and Politics. Cambridge Middle East Library, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 28-30. 16 Khalidi, Palestinian Identity, 181. 17 Khalidi, Palestinian Identity, 191. 18 Jamil Hilal, "PLO Institutions: The Challenge Ahead," Journal of Palestine Studies 23, no. 1 (1993): 47. 19 Hilal, “PLO Institutions:” 47. 20 Helena Cobban, The Palestinian Liberation Organization: People, Power and Politics. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 57. 21 Hilal, “PLO Institutions:” 47. 22 Ibid., 50. 23 Ibid., 50. 24 Ibid., 50. 25 Ibid., 51. 26 Matar, “PLO Cultural Activism:” 357. 27 Matar, “PLO Cultural Activism:” 359. 28 Ibid., 357. 29 Ibid., 357. 30 Hilal, “PLO Institutions:” 362. 31 Ibid., 360-362. 32 Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. (London: Verso, 1991), 20. 33 Hilal, “PLO Institutions:” 356. 34 Hilal, “PLO Institutions:” 358. 35 Cobban, The Palestinian Liberation Organization: People, Power and Politics, 27. 36 Ibid., 43. 37Hilal, “PLO Institutions:” 359. 38Ibid., 360. 39Ibid., 360. 40Ibid., 361. 41Hilal, “PLO Institutions:” 361. 42Ibid., 364. 43Ibid., 358. 44Ibid., 356. 45Cobban, The Palestinian Liberation Organization: People, Power and Politics, 3. 46Ogunyemi and Halperin, “The Use of New Media by the UK’s Palestinian Diaspora:” 218. 47Ogunyemi and Halperin, “The Use of New Media by the UK’s Palestinian Diaspora:” 222. 48Ibid.,231. 49Jessica Retis and Roza Tsagarousianou, The Handbook of Diasporas, Media, and Culture, (John Wiley & Sons, 2019), 542. 50Anderson, Imagined Communities, 12. 51 “Dār Collective,” Dar Collective, accessed December 12, 2020, https://darcollective.com/. 52 “Subhi Taha - The Shorty Awards,” The Shorty Awards - Honoring the best of social media, accessed December 12, 2020, https://shortyawards.com/11th/subhitaha_. 53 “Collaboration,” Dar Collective, accessed December 12, 2020, https://darcollective.com/pages/collaboration. 54 “Palestine Series,” Dar Collective, accessed December 12, 2020, https://darcollective.com/collections/palestine-all-1 55 “Giving Back,” Dar Collective, accessed December 12, 2020, https://darcollective.com/pages/giving-back. 56 “The Palestine Movement,” PaliRoots, accessed December 12, 2020, https://www.paliroots.com/. 57 “Our Mission,” PaliRoots, accessed December 12, 2020, https://www.paliroots.com/pages/our-mission. 58 “Hirbawi Kufiya,” PaliRoots, accessed December 12, 2020, https://www.paliroots.com/collections/kufiya. 59 “Palirooters Come from Different Walks of Life,” PaliRoots, accessed December 12, 2020, https://www.paliroots.com/pages/ what-is-a-palirooter. 60Matar, “PLO Cultural Activism:” 359. 61 “Muslim,” Muslim, accessed December 12, 2020, https:// muslim.co/. 62 “Muslim,” Muslim, accessed December 12, 2020, https:// muslim.co/. 63“Ameer Al-Khatahtbeh,” Forbes (Forbes Magazine), accessed December 12, 2020, https://www.forbes.com/profile/ameer-alkhatahtbeh/?list=30under30-media. 64 “Anwar Hadid Is the Palestinian Advocate We've Been Waiting For,” Mille World, February 15, 2020, https:// www.milleworld.com/anwar-hadid-palestinian-activist/. 65I calculated this amount by totalling each of the member’s ‘Followers’ values on Instagram, up to date as of December 14, 2020. 66Ogunyemi and Halperin, “The Use of New Media by the UK’s Palestinian Diaspora:” 224. 67Khalil Rinnawi, ‘Instant Nationalism’ and the ‘Cyber Mufti’: The Arab Diaspora in Europe and the Transnational Media, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 9, no. 38 (2012): 1456. 68Ogunyemi and Halperin, “The Use of New Media by the UK’s Palestinian Diaspora:” 225. 69Retis and Tsagarousianou, The Handbook of Diasporas, Media, and Culture, 543. 70Mavroudi, “Deconstructing Diasporic Mobilisation:” 1309. 71Ibid.,1313. 72Ibid.,1316. 73Rafeef Ziadah, “Disciplining Dissent: Multicultural Policy and the Silencing of Arab-Canadians,” Race & Class 58, no. 4 (April 2017): 13. 74Ziadah, “Disciplining Dissent:” 13. 75Candice Bodnaruk, "Canadian Activists Challenge Adoption of Problematic Anti-Semitism Definition," The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, 05, 2020, 34. 76Bodnaruk, “Canadian Activists Challenge Adoption of Problematic Anti-Semitism Definition:” 35. 77Yifat Mor, Yiftach Ron, and Ifat Maoz, “‘Likes’ for Peace: Can Facebook Promote Dialogue in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict,” Media and Communication 3, no. 4 (2016), 16. 78Ziadah, “Disciplining Dissent:” 13. 79Ibid., 13. 80Ogunyemi and Halperin, “The Use of New Media by the UK’s Palestinian Diaspora:” 224.

81 Mavroudi, “Deconstructing Diasporic Mobilization:” 1309. 82 Retis and Tsagarousianou,The Handbook of Diasporas, Media and Culture, 543.

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