In a World of Loud and Violent Antisemitism, Listen to the Whispers

On social media, images of Palestinians celebrating the murders of Jews with fireworks, handing out sweets, and dancing in the streets presents the picture of the dehumanization of Jews by Palestinians that Hamas wants the world to see. But anonymous surveys paint a different picture. Today, despite rockets and other terrorist attacks on Israeli civilians originating in Gaza, almost 4 out of 5 Gazans agree at least somewhat with providing incentives to both sides to “take more moderate positions.” Among Palestinians overall, support for negotiations is increasing while support for armed attacks is declining. And roughly two-thirds of Gazans would like to see more Israeli companies in the Palestinian territories.

How is it that we only see images and messages that lead us to the worst conclusions about what Palestinians believe about and have in store for Jews?

In 2019, a thousand or more people attempted to peacefully protest aspects of Hamas rule. Gaza’s Health Ministry, which issues reports of alleged Palestinian casualties after clashes with the Israeli Defense Forces was suddenly silent on the number of deaths and injuries after the Hamas crackdowns. The cruel and violent treatment of protesters –– and even their family members –– along with the inability of journalists to effectively report on it illustrated to many Palestinians the futility of opposing Hamas.

But some Palestinians in Gaza continue to defy Hamas and send messages to the outside world. With the help of animators, illustrators, and musicians, filmmakers at the Center for Peace Communication (CPC) are turning Gazans’ private whispers into publicly defiant cries. Using altered voices to protect those who told their stories, the Whispered in Gaza series features Gazans from all walks of life who describe, in vivid detail, what life is like under Hamas. These 25 animated film shorts have been translated into six languages, including English, Portuguese, French, and Farsi.

“I now understand that their jails are full of honorable people,” one Palestinian says. “Anyone who tries to think for himself winds up there.” He uploaded to social media a video of Hamas police beating a child with Down syndrome and received thousands of supportive messages before being arrested. Others in the series describe the harassment, violence, cruelty, corruption, and even murder of Palestinians by Hamas. A mother shares her refusal to allow Hamas to turn her children into terrorists. “I don’t want my children to be exposed to that indoctrination,” she says. “I want them to think rationally.”

Only 7% of Gazans surveyed say conditions there are positive. Yet those who disagree with Hamas’s message or methods, or simply ask for better living conditions, are labeled “traitors” and “Zionist collaborators.” In other words, there’s no way to tell how many of the Palestinians in the videos depicting the celebration of terrorism are there because they support such attacks and how many are there merely to protect themselves and their families from Hamas.

As soon as the series was released, Hamas attempted to sabotage the films’ distribution platforms. Shortly thereafter, fake versions of the shorts appeared with Hamas-approved narration. (The Hamas-created counterfeits have been flagged as copyright violations and taken off various media platforms.) As CPC president Joseph Braude explained in the Times of Israel:

Their content predictably twists the testimony. For example, in one of our clips, the speaker explains that under Hamas, “it’s forbidden to say we don’t want war,” and change must “come from the people.” In the Hamas version, “The solution is in the Resistance, none other” and “though we’ve endured four wars, we stand with the Resistance and will never ever give them up.” in another clip, “Amna” describes her fear of sending her children to Hamas-run schools “where they indoctrinate people.” The Hamas version has the speaker proudly sending her children to a Hamas school for an upright Islamic education.

As of this writing, the videos have been up for about four weeks and have been viewed over 4.5 million times on the CPC’s platforms alone. Palestinian viewership is estimated at several hundred thousand. On social media, expressions of support for Gazans and their efforts to defeat Hamas are spreading, including across Arab countries, where historically sympathy for Hamas has been dominant.

The Egyptian news platform Al-Masry al-Yawm, for example, noted Gazans’ “testimonials of arbitrary arrests, extortion, and blackmail by Hamas members, as well as systemic violation of basic personal freedoms” as well as “the enrichment of Hamas members and their families even as most Gazans are impoverished.” Palestinian journalist Fadil al-Munasafah concluded “No rational person can deny that the [Whispered in Gaza] series captures much of what daily life in Gaza is actually like.” And protesters in Iran see similarities with their own efforts to reject Islamist rule.

In 2005, Israel unilaterally withdrew from the Gaza strip, requiring 9,000 Jewish residents to leave their homes. Some were even forcibly removed. Only hours after the withdrawal, two Gazan rockets were fired at Israel, the first landing near Sderot, an Israeli town less than a mile from the newly created border with Gaza. In an expression of solidarity and shared humanity, the first public screening of Whispered in Gaza is scheduled to be held in Sderot, the city most targeted by rockets from Gaza. “As educators living in Sderot,” writes George Stevens, who organized the event, “we found it important to understand, analyze and confront what living beside and beneath Hamas does to people.”

Despite Hamas’s brutal regime, the courage of Palestinians to speak out, to refuse to hand over their children, and to work toward a better life continues. And now that whispered Palestinian voices are being amplified, Israelis and Jews across the globe have a new way to connect with the humanity and dignity of the people Hamas wants to paint as Jews’ inhumane and eternal enemies. “What is so crushing about this whole thing is that we have the requisite capabilities [to build a good life in Gaza]” says one Palestinian in the film series. “I hope that those capabilities will be utilized soon, with the world’s help and with the help of ourselves, as Palestinians, working together to improve things.”

Pamela Paresky is a Visiting Fellow at the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University and a Senior Scholar at the Network Contagion Research Institute. Her work has been published in a diverse array of outlets including Sapir Journal, Brookings, and the New York Times. She is a frequent contributor to Psychology Today online and her project, Habits of a Free Mind: Psychology for Democracy and The Good Life, is a set of teachable practices for fostering critical thinking as well as the habits of curiosity, compassion, courage and calling –– habits necessary for contributing to and thriving in a liberal, pluralist democracy. She is on Twitter @PamelaParesky.