Protesting Violence in Palestine: Radicalizing Gen-Z with Digital Activism

This opinion piece is inspired by Shaun's YouTube video titled ‘Palestine,’ and explores Gen-Z’s interaction with gore as a form of activism. 

Can Digital Activism for Palestine Lead to Radicalization?

As a Gen-Z person, I almost entirely engage with modern conflicts via social media. It’s no surprise that Gen-Z does so, we all engage with the world using platforms like TikTok, YouTube, and Twitter nowadays. I myself dismiss traditional news sources as sanitized and censored, because I know I will only hear what is approved for broadcast. Instead, I seek the objective truth from social media. The Israel Defense Force (@IDF) posts that their latest artillery shells hit a terrorist cell, and the response is footage of Palestinian mothers and fathers pulling their dismembered children from the debris of a civilian hospital. Instantly, I learn that the IDF is, at best, ineffective, or at worst, purposefully hiding war crimes, and the righteousness of my government’s support via proxy is debunked. The perpetrators of war crimes attempt to spread misinformation, and we respond with footage of grotesque violence and death too morbidly enticing to ignore.

In Palestine, Shaun makes an excellent point that much of the rhetoric used by the IDF sounds questionable, and provides evidence to counter their claims via raw footage of Palestinian people. This ability to notice their questionable justifications is the newest form of online media literacy, one that Gen-Z especially engages with regularly. Nowadays, illiteracy takes the form of an inability to critically analyze a voice of authority. Like many others, I watch something that arouses suspicion, and immediately check the comments and replies to gauge a group consensus. Like many others, I learned of the IDF’s questionable actions by witnessing civilians pulling bodies out of wreckage, with the caption “does this look like defending your borders?” Like many others, I was whipped into rage.

Unlike previous wars, I am not bombarded by images of destroyed cities and abstract body counts every week, but videos of dead civilians and weeping families every hour. Unlike previous wars, I cannot feign neutrality and ignorance by wearing the blindfold provided by the state, because it is immediately ripped away by the people. Unlike previous wars, I cannot sit on the fence and wait for history to decree who was in the right, because I am painfully aware that my government’s proxy war will ensure it's written as right. Unlike previous wars, I cannot absolve my inaction by stating “I can do nothing,” because spreading the truth demands my contribution. Unlike previous wars, I am immune to the propaganda meant to neutralize, and instead afflicted by propaganda meant to inspire radicalized peacemaking.

Digital activism is the latest form of wartime protest, and it is still propaganda. Never before have I been able to readily witness the suffering of warzone civilians, or been so readily exploited by said footage to inspire outrage. Our new form of wartime protest is driven by an algorithm that rewards an almost pornographic obsession with suffering families. We live in a new era of instantaneous access to the atrocities of our governments, but we remain susceptible to the oldest form of propaganda; mob mentality. Perhaps it is right to be outraged at the sight of suffering, to protest against the genocide of Palestine, and to demand our governments condemn the actions of the IDF, but it’s just as important to point out that this fervor and radicalization is what fundamental extremists dream of. I am not equating anti-war activism with fascism; I am warning that mob mentality can quickly turn anti-war protest into violent uprising. Social media, in its pursuit of becoming free of government censorship and propaganda, instead becomes the new breeding ground for radicalization perpetuated by our own anger. No longer do we need mass media to incite rage; we do the work for them with our activism.

As a Gen-Z person, engaging with and reposting footage of the humanitarian crimes that the IDF tries to bury is one of the most effective tools of activism; social media offers an impressively open arsenal to engage with modern conflicts. But we cannot fool ourselves into believing that makes us better than the account managers of the IDF, because our activism is still propaganda; we’ve collectively agreed that reposting a dead child is more acceptable than being bystander to genocide. Regardless of standing, we parade the dead as a means to denounce the perpetrators and justify retaliation, but does that make us better? When we attempt to enact world peace, will we have to show our children a rotting corpse to convey the cost of war? When the next conflict arises, will our children remember our anger, and take it a step further? When the next trend of digital activism hits, will someone wield our anger and turn us against one another?

None of this is to suggest I want digital activism to stop. I am proud of Gen-Z’s denial and revolt against the evil of the world, and quietly hope it will encourage the next generation to be better. But the question lingers in the back of my mind, and I remain fearful of who will one day learn to exploit and wield our anger, and turn us against ourselves. Hopefully, if proxy war grows into civil war, we remain steadfast in pursuing peace. Hopefully our outrage ushers a better world, and not a worse one.

Thank you for taking the time to read this opinion piece. I am aware this is outside of my usual realm of topics, but I felt compelled to make comment. If you’d like to join the community and support my work, you can follow my social media, share this article, or donate using Google/Apple Pay via Buy Me A Coffee!