Pi James

Writer, producer, advocate, storyteller. Ex-UN now comms consultant for social change. SYD-PEK-ISB-JFK-LAX-PVG-SFO-MEL. She/Her. Free Palestine

[Pi James @Pi_James]

@nytimes The interviewer was so patronizing! Sally Rooney was gracious and patient and brilliant

[Pi James @Pi_James]

@mhdksafa 🇵🇸

[Pi James @Pi_James]

Opinion: Aid can no longer be dictated by foreign policy or geopolitics https://t.co/4qxQ597Rok #Devex via @Devex #CeasefireNow

[Pi James @Pi_James]

👋 @SenatorWong @MurrayWatt @PatConroy1 as an agricultural superpower, 🇦🇺 can play a critical role in ending this global food crisis. Will you rejoin @IFAD and help millions of smallholder farmers fight against extreme weather conditions? https://t.co/LGCsR4498B

[Pi James @Pi_James]

In the last 4.5 months I have said "I feel like I'm going insane" thousands and thousands of times. This thread makes it clear that is exactly the point.

[Alon Mizrahi @alon_mizrahi]

People are saying that they're feeling like they're going crazy. I want to congratulate you on displaying great courage and conviction. And I will tell you why: because in the past few months you have been mostly successfully withstanding a psychological warfare campaign of a massive, massive scale.

(Keep reading, it's going to be fascinating. And if you're not following me here yet, follow).

I am not talking about trolls and bots and the obvious complicity of mass media. I am talking about something entirely different: a well planned, well executed and heavily budgeted campaign by US and Israeli organs of government responsible entirely for fooling great numbers of people into believing all kinds of nonsense (and not believing the simple truth).

This may sound shady (not to the radicals among us: they're aware), but I'll tell you that in Israel "Management of Consciousness" is a formal activity and department of the IDF. And I guarantee you the US is no different.

And throughout this campaign I have been noticing certain tactics used by Israel for "management of consciousness" being employed, massively, by American representatives (the Europeans are usually just useful idiots: no one needs to even lie to them smartly. And I'm talking about the "leaders").
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I am by no means saying you have not been lied to before as Americans (or as citizens f another country). But I bet many of you feel you have never been lied to this blatantly, this brazenly, to an actually disorienting effect.

So I'm going to very briefly run through 3 such tactics, and then tell you why they're using them (nothing is ever coincidental about how power speaks). I promise you it's going to make a lot of sense. And you're going to recognize them immediately.

Tactic #1: denying what you know is true, and they know you know they know is true (or seriously claiming what they know you know is a lie). Examples: we did not, or are not attacking, so and so hospital, while people are there filming themselves being bombarded. Also: The IDF claims only militants were targeted in X incident, when you're looking at images of dead women and children. This can be called: lying to your face. repeatedly, even though it is obvious for everybody they're doing it, and you're seeing it.

Tactic #2: claiming, or doing, two things that are mutually exclusive. Examples: claiming to care about people and providing the means to kill them. Talking about the importance of aid while not using any kind of public message to warn Israel it cannot withhold it. Talking about values and democracy while defending and justifying a genocide. There are a million examples of this, I'm sure you'll come up with plenty more.

Tactic #3: saying things like "we'll investigate", "we'll look into it", or "we're waiting for confirmation". Two brothers shot by a sniper a month ago? A man waving a white flag shot in front of a camera? 3 Israeli hostages killed by IDF while waving white flags? A command center under a hospital? 100 People killed in one attack? 400? Who remembers? And by the way: we're still looking into it.
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Now if you'll notice, these 3 tactics have one very prominent element in common. Because these 3 tactics are used not to convince you of one reality or another. They are not trying to tell Israel is either good or bad, or that civilians die unjustifiably or not. This is not the point of all this, and this is why it feels like a break from previous traditions of political deceit.

The real purpose of these tactics is not to convince or dissuade you of anything in particular. They are meant to destabilize you psychologically. This is the disorientation I was referring to earlier. It is not coincidental, it is the desired effect of this strategy.

Yes, it is strategic.

This is what you do when you want a population confused and disarmed from any psychological certainty, which is the basis for all political motivation and action. But if you don't know what's happening, and not sure what your government does or stands for, what are you going to fight? How will you convince other to join you?
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They have been doing it to Israelis for decades: always talking from both sides of their mouth at the same time, denying what everybody watching knows is a complete lie and saying they'll investigate when it is clear it there is never any intention behind it.
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By always maintaining two opposites in your consciousness, they are always giving you false hope, and always denying it, thus slowly breaking you (after 100 instances of this you stop hoping, and after 200 you forget hope ever lived in you). By always providing a grain of simulated recognition of your fears, they're letting you think that maybe you're heard and maybe not everything is a lie, but only to disappoint you a minute later. And again. Again.

My brothers and sisters, it is intentional. They are not sloppy or confused, but very methodical.
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This is the very. very short and condensed version of what they're trying to do to us psychologically, which is really to disintegrate us not only as a society, but as individuals as well.

The trick to resisting this strategy is to always trust your instincts (because you are good and they work beautifully), and to always remember that they are using duplicity intentionally, strategically, to destabilize you. So your answer is, as always, clarity and resolve.

[Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur oPt @FranceskAlbs]

11 January 2023 - ICJ, The Hague

Watching African women & men fighting to save humanity & the int'l legal system against the ruthless attacks supported/enabled by most of the West will remain one of the defining images of our time. This will make history whatever happens.

[MEAA @withMEAA]

The decision to sack Antoinette Lattouf from her role as an ABC radio presenter over sharing a social media post from a reputable human rights organisation is incredibly disturbing. Read the full statement: https://t.co/B1IAkQkl3W #MEAAmedia

[MoTaz @motazazaiza9]

If I called for huge protests all over the world, especially in the US to stop killing us and call for a ceasefire
Do you believe we could move the people to do it?
Ceasefire now!

[Pi James @Pi_James]

@SenatorWong .@SenatorWong A good place to start would be calling for a permanent ceasefire and stopping Israel's genocide in Palestine.

[António Guterres @antonioguterres]

I've just invoked Art.99 of the UN Charter - for the 1st time in my tenure as Secretary-General.

Facing a severe risk of collapse of the humanitarian system in Gaza, I urge the Council to help avert a humanitarian catastrophe & appeal for a humanitarian ceasefire to be declared.

[Pi James @Pi_James]

@AlboMP @SenatorWong @POTUS @KamalaHarris please watch this video, any of the videos from Gaza - thousands of children killed, hurt, traumatized, orphaned - and explain why you are not demanding a permanent ceasefire. This is collective punishment; their blood is on your hands.

[Al Jazeera English @AJEnglish]

“Bury me with him!”

This is the moment Palestinian boy Saaed bids farewell to his brother Mohammad, who was killed in an Israeli air strike on Gaza City.

More than 700 Palestinians have been killed since a truce between Israel and Hamas ended.

[Hend Amry @LibyaLiberty]

That moment when one world leader finally says what you’ve been a seeing with your own eyes and for that moment washes away the unforgivable gaslighting of your own government

[Nadine نادين @nadine_chemali]

Someone just said to me “I never imagined it would get this bad when it started, 30 days ago”

We did. We screamed and cried and posted and tried to say what was coming.

No one listened.

And it didn’t start 30 days ago, it’s been over 75 years.

[Pi James @Pi_James]

@NaomiAKlein must be commended for remaining absolutely spellbinding interview after interview on Palestine / Israel regardless (and often despite) of who is doing the interviewing

[Pi James @Pi_James]

THIS

[Ryan Grim @ryangrim]

Everyone who visits the occupied territories comes away changed. This from TNC is must watch.

[Democracy Now! @democracynow]

“You can’t behold evil and then return and not speak on it.”

Ta-Nehisi Coates speaks about how an experience in Palestine illuminated the connections between the African American and Palestinian liberation struggles, and the moral responsibility to speak out.

[Ambassador Majed Bamya 🇵🇸 @majedbamya]

Palestine TV journalist Mohammad Abu Hattab was killed with his family in an Israeli airstrike. His colleague Salman Al-Bashir removes his protective gear marked PRESS on air saying: “We can’t take it anymore, we are exhausted. We are victims. The only difference between us is the time of death. We are killed one after another. And no one cares about the catastrophe or the crime that we endure in Gaza. No protection for anyone or anything. This gear and helmet do not protect any journalist, they are just empty slogans. We are victims, live on air. We are victims awaiting our turn to be killed. Mohammad was here half an hour ago (reporting). Now he lies dead with his family in this same hospital.”

[Pi James @Pi_James]

@SenatorWong @AlboMP how many more children have to die before you call for a #CeasefireForGaza ? Where is your humanity? What has happened to you? How can you turn away?

[Pi James @Pi_James]

@AlboMP @AlboMP how many more children have to die before you call for a #CeasefireForGaza ? Where is your humanity?

[Paul Barry @TheRealPBarry]

This from the head of UNICEF