Anthropologist, writer, painter. Loves the sea, the desert, turtles, and sci-fi. Fiction in German, academic in English. Nominated for the KLP and DSFP 2022.
Almog Levy is now three years old.
On October 7, 2023, his parents were at the Nova Festival. His mother, Einav, was murdered, and his father, Or, was taken hostage by Hamas.
Since then, Or's family has been raising Almog, with every childhood milestone marred by his parents' absence.
Nearly 16 months later, Or's name is on the list of 33 hostages to be released. With the help of psychologists, they are starting to explain to Almog that his dad might come home, while trying not to get their hopes up too high.
Recently, Almog asked to buy two chocolates — one for him and one for his father, so they could eat them together, Or's brother Michael shared.
On October 7, 2023, Hamas slaughtered ~1,200 men, women, and children and took 251 hostages. But hundreds of thousands more were affected by the horrific massacre. People around the world lost friends, parents, siblings, children, colleagues, spouses, partners, aunts, uncles, cousins...
So many lives, like little Almog's, will never be the same. 💔🎗️
👀 BREAKING: This ad, when tested, moves under-30-men by 2+ points away from Donald Trump.
That’s HUGE MOVEMENT!
Please share widely!
Guys don’t want to be controlled either. #MAGAInYourSheets
My brother and wife (who was a Palestinian Christian) were stopped at a checkpoint in 1974 and harassed by PLO militia (in Beirut). They asked to have my brother's watch and remarked that his wife was pretty (hint, hint).
Many Palestinian militia groups were involved in the Lebanese civil war, the great majority of whom would have killed us.
My family was driven by PLO militia to the Beirut International airport on our way out of Lebanon (thank G-d that they did not put a bullet in our heads).
My parents were kidnapped by Fatah and held in captivity (where bad things happened to them).
Our home in Beirut was stolen by Palestinian refugees (we never got it back).
BUT, Kiffeyeh Karen from Oberlin College knows more about the situation than I do.
Incidentally, I harbor no ill will toward Palestinians notwithstanding my tragic personal history. I accepted the reality and I moved on. Perhaps the "Nakba" folks need to accept that Israel is here to stay. There is room for everyone in that region to have a good life but only if you are willing to accept the right of your neighbors to exist.
This is how Shani Louk's family asked for her to be remembered. Smiling and alive.
The biggest photojournalism competition in the world decided to trample on the family's wishes in favor of giving a photo of Shani's mutilated body a prestigious award. She wasn't even named in the caption.
Among the photographers honored is Ali Mahmud, the AP freelancer who came under fire for logging photos during the early hours of October 7th, indicating previous knowledge of Hamas's brutal attack.
Photos showing violence and death can be newsworthy or important when they humanize the dead or galvanize the public. The "winning" photo does neither; it only further dehumanizes Shani, retraumatizes her family, and legitimizes Hamas's actions under the guise of journalistic neutrality.
No one should be rewarded on the backs of murdered women.
Rest in power Shani Louk, we'll remember you as the beautiful soul you were.
Is it still necessary to remind people that Gaza borders Egypt? That Qatar is the political arm of Hamas? That Hamas can release the hostages which it kidnapped? That Palestinians can pursue peace with the Jewish state? Infantilizing Arabs is a Western neo-colonial disease.
Thread: The Girls I Met in the Tunnels
Seventeen-year-old Agam Goldstein-Almog saw Hamas murder her father and sister. Then she was taken to Gaza.
These are excerpts of her words on her experiences as a hostage of Hamas.
1. Together with my two young brothers, aged nine and eleven, the four of us had been taken from our home in Kibbutz Kfar Aza on the morning of October 7, but not before terrorists shot my father, Nadav, point blank, and afterward went after my older sister, Yam, the bullet tearing through her face. Their blood spattered everywhere. We stepped over my father’s dying body as the terrorists screamed at us, took us out of our home, and drove us into Gaza.
I ask, urge, and beg you to watch every word of this clip. Merav Svirsky's parents were murdered on 7.10, her brother Itai was abducted and is still held in Gaza.
Today, at the Knesset, she gave a chilling explanation to why time is quickly running out.
#BringThemHomeNow
It will take more than a lifetime for me to understand how anyone can think these are lies. How anyone can deny this happened. Or justify it. It happened.
If u are a WOMAN and u watch this,u will feel what I feel,for the first time in my life as a good person-to see every single #HamasTerrorist DEAD.
If u are a MAN and u watch this, u might wanna volunteer to help my dark thought.
If u are still a Hamas supporter after watching this, u are no Woman,no Man,no Human Being.
Graphic. Cruel. Unbearable .
🎥 from @kann_news .
HOW DARE YOU @GretaThunberg. How DARE you call for ethnically cleansing the Jewish people from our ancestral land?? You know nothing. No history, no reality, no truth. So I have this to say to you.
Israel is not a colonialist state – it’s a refugee state which was literally decolonized from Britain.
The majority of Israeli Jews are people of color, whose families were ethnically cleansed from other parts of the Middle East.
Throughout history, the only indigenous sovereign entities to exist in the land have been Jewish states.
Jews originate from the land, derive our religion and our practices from it and despite centuries of exile and displacement have always kept an unbroken presence there.
And you Greta Thunberg, are chanting “crush Zionism” on the streets of Sweden.
Zionism is the Jewish people exercising our right to self-determination in some parts of our only historic, ancestral and indigenous homeland.
Hamas showed us on October 7 what “crushing Zionism” looks like and you want to cheer that on Greta?
Greta Thunberg, if I can borrow your famous phrase, “how dare you!”
But this is how antisemitism works – Find what is most evil to you, and blame it on the Jews, or today - on the Jewish state.
I can understand that younger generations in western societies feel guilty about the evils of colonialism.
But Israel’s history is not your history, and whatever guilt you feel, supporting the massacre of Jews in their ancestral land will not wash away the sins of your fathers. When your ancestors were colonizing the world, my ancestors were being slaughtered by Cossacks.
We were dreaming – next year in Jerusalem – of building a life raft in our homeland. We fled genocidal violence in Europe. We were ethnically cleansed from Arab countries all over the Middle East. And we built a liberal, democratic Jewish state. That is not a colonial enterprise.
Zionism is not a colonial enterprise – Zionism is the decolonization movement of the Jewish people.
And to anyone who cannot accept our presence or who slanders Israel as something it is not, we are here to say: “how dare you.”
A brave Palestinian woman outright blames Hamas for stealing the humanitarian aid.
The part where she waves her finger at the @AlJazeera reporter who is very uncomfortable with what she says is just epic.
"Naama is only 19, but she’ll always be my baby girl. A girl who truly believes in the good of all people. She enjoys athletics and dreams of a career in diplomacy, and her greatest passion is helping those in need.
Time is running out for Naama Levy, who was last seen covered in blood and terrified, being forced into the back of a Jeep at gunpoint.
Hamas has kept her hostage for 64 days.
Bring her home.
Dear Mom, family members, friends, and most specifically Palestinian friends who have been bombarding me with angry messages everywhere,
I am not anti-Palestine. I am anti-Hamas. I am anti-terrorism.
Palestinians are my brothers and sisters. I went to school in Yemen with many Palestinian refugees.
But here’s the ”plot twist” – Israelis are also my brothers and sisters, and that does not sit right with many of you.
I grew up my entire life caring about Palestinians and demonizing Israelis. Thankfully, I grew up and had the chance to meet Jews and Israelis outside of Yemen, and it opened my human eyes. I have also come to care for and understand Israelis.
Israelis are human beings, just like the Palestinians, and they are worthy of peace and love.
This has been the centerpiece of what I have been saying all along –pushing for coexistence and peace.
I have not taken part in the war discourse. I have only taken part in the human discourse.
My Yemeni culture, the schools I studied in, and the mosques I prayed in, stripped me off my humanity. I am proud to have regained my humanity and to share this with people.
It’s not ”bad timing” to be expressing this. On the contrary, in times of division and hatred, when I see millions of my Arab and Muslim brothers and sisters popularize Jew hatred and the destruction of Israel, it is more important than ever for me to voice support to Israelis and Jews.
I am not a war expert. I am not a war analyst. I don’t delve into subjects I do not know about.
What I do know is, however, that Hamas are cold-blooded terrorists.
They are our enemy.
They are Israel’s enemy, and they are the Arab and Muslims’ communities' enemy. It doesn’t take a war analyst to understand this.
I have seen the footage. I have personally spoken to October 7 survivors in Israel who miraculously fled from Hamas’ massacre, and everything they told me sent chills down my spine.
Hamas are no ”freedom fighters.” They are terrorists. They kill their own people, they slaughter Israelis, they mutilate, rape, behead, and kidnap women.
There is no difference between the horrors and terrorism of Hamas, ISIS, and AlQaeda.
And saying all of this is not a defense of Israel’s war in Gaza. These are just facts.
Calling these terrorists ”freedom fighters” or ”liberation fights” is a part of disinformation propaganda that has succeeded.
The truth is, Hamas is the one who wants to continue this war.
They are the ones who started it. And they are the ones who have promised to pull an October 7 over and over again.
This needs to be understood, to understand the extremism that we are dealing and fighting with.
And by we, I mean us: Arabs, Muslims, and Palestinians.
We have to fight against the extremism and language of violence that are inbred in our societies, in our schools, and our mosques.
I'll keep saying this: The enemy is not out there. The enemy is within.
Well, I had lots of interesting experiences in London wandering around the beginning of a “From the River to the Sea” protest.
Socialist & Communist Parties— everywhere! More communist/socialist organizing tents than Palestinian ones (who is funding those groups?). Open calls for the non-existence of Israel. I saw no one advocating for a two state solution.
Plenty of nice, sincere young people, & totally clueless. Scores of craven, cynical adults who have decided to use the Palestinians as a symbolic, ideological human shield in the way Hamas continues to do so —literally.
And I did see real & alarming Islamism, I feel sorry for my normal Muslim friends (the vast vast vast majority of Muslims) because of the way these extremists are defaming all Muslims & also highjacking their own ambitions. What I saw in London fuels Islamophobia.
It was all rife with antisemitism, of course, but cleverly I heard an Islamist guy yelling on a megaphone “anti-Zionism is NOT antisemitism.” Of course, anti Zionism is antisemitism. Then, the same guy immediately advocated for the elimination of Israel “from the river to the sea” in favor of a Palestinian state where “all people can coexist, whatever their religion.” This guy was not naive. He was absolutely sinister. He was also chanting against Biden, Sunak & — Jordan’s King Abdullah II & Egypt’s Sisi!
No one wanted to talk about the hostages held by Hamas or October 7. It is as if none of it exists, none of it happened…just astonishing. Worse i saw lots of “right to resist” paraphernalia in all the tents, but especially the socialist ones!
What was also astonishing was watching older, white socialists handing antisemitic signs to young, modern Muslims which said “from the river to the sea.”
A few folks asked me if I cared about the children in Gaza. I said, “yes, my heart is broken for every child in Gaza. I care about all people, and that’s why I hate the way Hamas has chosen to sacrifice so many of their lives & has stolen so many of their futures … by choosing hate & terrorism. Hamas speaks openly about sacrificing them, they don’t even hide it. Gaza should have been Dubai. Instead it aspired to be ISIS.”
I did not see many “ceasefire” signs. I saw a pile of them but almost no one holding them. This wasn’t about a “Ceasefire” even if that’s what they call the protest.
We need peace & justice in the Middle East for everyone, but — to put it mildly — what I saw isn’t how we get there. It is the opposite.
I refuse to call what I saw a pro-Palestinian protest, despite lots of Palestinian flags. It was an anti-Israel, antisemitic protest organized by marxists, socialists, communists & Islamists preying on the humanitarian (if, uninformed) sympathies of young people and with the total cooperation of adults who should know better.
@EASAinfo Thank you for clarifying... In light of the one-sided letters EASA and the American Anthropology organizations have published, and tweets eg by CulAnth on 7/10 celebrating "decolonization", I almost wasn't surprised.
What? I just have no words anymore. @EASAinfo is hosting an event discussing the necessity of violence? I sincerely hope they do not mean to justify the atrocities committed by Hamas on the 7th of October. I... Just.... Can't.