A Twitter thread from Iyad el-Baghdadi (above), the founder of Kawaakibi Foundation and the author of The Middle East Crisis Factory

I’m a Palestinian and I do not enter conversations or debates that are premised upon my own dehumanization. Such as:

– Palestine doesn’t/didn’t exist
– Your people aren’t a people
– Go back to Jordan (or Hejaz, or Arabia)

– You are the colonialists
– You don’t belong here (this is our ancestral homeland, not yours)
– Palestinian refugees aren’t refugees

– You left your homes in 1948 and 1967 out of your own accord
– You were squatters in historic Jewish land
– Yes we kicked you out from your land but get over it, it’s ours now, get over it

– You have lots of children in order to spite us
– You have a “violent, hateful culture”
– It’s your fault that we kill you / you brought it upon themselves

– Israel is nice to gay people so that justifies the occupation
– Hamas is bad so that means we can kill your unarmed protesters
– Your leadership is corrupt so that justifies the occupation

– You’re more free in Israel than in Cairo or Riyadh so that justifies the occupation
– Your deaths are “tragic” but they’re necessary
– Arab countries didn’t give you citizenship so that means what we did to you is OK

– “Get over it”
– You lost the war, go find another country to belong to
– Gaza elected Hamas 12 years ago so that means every Gazan forever is fair game

– We suffered more than you and that means your own suffering doesn’t matter
– You’re incapable of self-rule
– You don’t understand democracy

– According to the Bible you shouldn’t be here
– According to the Qur’an you shouldn’t be here
– Iran supports some of your militants and that means you’re all terrorists

– The Nakba is your fault
– You’re the aggressors
– You rejected the plan a bunch of people you don’t know cooked up to partition your country so you deserve what happened to you

(Btw when I say I won’t enter a conversation premised upon any of the above, I don’t mean I won’t talk about individual points. If you come at me with a question and engage compassionately, I will engage. If you come at with me with an assertion and engage aggressively, I won’t).