E-Guerilla Tactics

• Creating an international network of information sharing.
• Formulating a chat forum between the urban revolutionaries and EZLN for decision-making.
• Translating communiques into various languages in the chat rooms to discuss the well being of the Zapatistas.

“Cross-cultural dialogical praxis was the EZLN’s most powerful strategy of resistance, unification, and survival.

Ford & Gil as cited by Padgett, 2017

Palestinian Cyber-Activists

Structural Constraints

Structure of settler colonialism – global capitalist structure – economic and territorial structures – power structures.

PA Forces

• PA forces under President Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas officials in Gaza have curbed what they deem subversive online politics, claiming that expressions of opposition to the occupation are benign and imply mocking the president.
• Activists described the PA as practicing “indigenous collaboration” and being a “subcontractor of occupation,”.

(Tawil-Souri & Aouragh, 2014)

Hamas-Fatah Division

• The division has had a demoralizing effect.
• Their infighting, curfews, closures, military incursions, or exile, all affected cyber-activists.

(Tawil-Souri & Aouragh, 2014)

Facebook

• Facebook shut down some pages reported as inappropriate.

Engaging social media can be “empowering”, but online social networks offer activists less political agency as corporate algorithms and Facebook monopolism increasingly filter and define the digital world.

Tawil-Souri & Aouragh, 2014

• Political involvement on Facebook creates a form of engagement that is apolitical because one is inviting those already sharing the same argument. (Pariser as cited by Tawil-Souri & Aouragh, 2014)

(Tawil-Souri & Aouragh, 2014)

Other Real Frustrations

This engagement “creates a kind of self-rejoicing,”

Walid as cited by Tawil-Souri & Aouragh, 2014

It was just “online masturbation” that had become the goal rather than a tool
for organizing.

Ahmad as cited by Tawil-Souri & Aouragh, 2014

We can post YouTube clips of soldiers’ mistreatment [of Palestinians].
Maybe some of the B’tselem videos [from Shooting Back] make a
small dent, maybe Burnat’s film [Five Broken Cameras] rallies a few
foreigners to the Palestinian cause. But these don’t stop the ongoing
violence of occupation!

Mahir as cited by Tawil-Souri & Aouragh, 2014

Reference List

Padgett, R.(2017, February 25). Radical legacy of the Zapatista’s media strategy. SVLLY (wood). Retrieved from http://www.svllywood.com/intifadaessays/radicalmedia

Tawil-Souri, H., & Aouragh, M. (2014). Intifada 3.0? Cyber colonialism and Palestinian resistance. The Arab Studies Journal, 22(1), 102-133.