I’m pleased to share this LinkedIn post by Miral Askar, whose tagline is Building Products by Day, Advocating for Justice by Passion.
Remember that young Palestinian teenager who slapped an Israeli soldier (in 2017), her curls flying as the cameras rolled? That was Ahed Tamimi. She was 16 then, a girl from the village of Nabi Saleh who had grown up watching her home raided, her family harassed, her friends killed. That slap — a moment of defiance after soldiers shot her cousin in the head with a rubber bullet — landed her in an Israeli prison for eight months. Since then, she has become a symbol of Palestinian resistance, her name and face known far beyond the borders of her occupied village.
Today, Ahed speaks again — but this time her message is not just about Palestine. She says that since October 7, she has come to see something even bigger: that the whole world is occupied. The only difference is that Palestinians have had their land occupied, while the rest of the world has had their minds occupied. And she’s right. The mask has fallen. All the talk of democracy, freedom, and human rights now rings hollow, stripped away by the raw truth of what we’ve seen since October 7. The West’s “values” were never universal — they were conditional, weaponized, selectively applied.
Ahed’s words cut deep because they name what so many have begun to feel. That oppression is not just something that happens in faraway lands. It’s here, too, in the ways we are told what to think, what to fear, what to forget. Palestinians face soldiers and settlers; the rest of us face propaganda, censorship, and manufactured consent. Different weapons, same goal: control.
While we are fighting Palestinian liberation — we should be calling for the liberation of all of us.
Transcript:
As Palestinians, and especially after the war in Gaza, we discovered that we are freer than anyone else in the world. We are freer, and we have a voice, and we have an idea, than anyone else in the world. All foreigners, all Europeans, all Americans, everyone outside of Palestine, we realized that this occupation is not an occupation for the land, it is an occupation for humanity, and distorting the concepts of humanity inside us.
It is an occupation for the mind, an occupation for our ideas. Most of my generation, in countries outside of Palestine, discovered that they are occupied, just like me. But the difference between me and them is that they used their minds, and I used my land.
This is the only difference.
(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai.)
An International Educator in Vietnam 
A LinkedIn post by Reda Lyle:
My late father, Dr. Ezzat Abouleish, M.D. was a remarkable man.
To most, he was known as a pioneering anaesthesiologist for Labour and Delivery (he was truly one of the greats). He was respected, accomplished, and endlessly devoted to his patients.
To those who knew him (even those that met him for even a second), realised that he was also funny (very funny), kind, loving, generous, and always laughing. He had an infectious smile and warmth that drew people in. He carried his success with humility and never saw his privilege as something to keep for himself. It was something to use for others (to stand beside those overlooked and to speak out against injustice).
Since the 1960s, and even earlier than that, my father spoke out about Palestine. He wrote letters and articles to newspapers and magazines, determined that the truth should not be ignored. He saw the suffering, imbalance, and ongoing injustice…and he refused to stay silent.
Today, I share his words from a Facebook post dated January 13, 2009, as a reminder of how long this genocide strategy (horrific to call it a “strategy,” yet, that is exactly what it is) has been unfolding.
75+ years, and still the world turns away.
LinkedIn is where I usually write about marketing, storytelling, and business. But what good is influence, connection, or success if we don’t use it to stand for humanity?
The words of the late Dr. Ezzat Abouleish, M.D., my Baba:
“Israel wants land, wants all Palestine for herself; it does not want peace. Thus, it sieged Gaza; no food, no water, no electricity, no medicine, no trade or travelling. This created frustration and anger of the Gazzans who threw homemade rockets at Israel. This is just what Israel planned.
Now it has an excuse to invade Gaza, and it did. The Gazzans have to fight the invasion, but there is no comparison in arms; Israel has tanks, airplanes, helicopters while the Palestinians have none of these. The civilians have two alternatives, either stay and get killed or runaway and leave the land to Israel to grab. Egypt realizing the Israeli plans closed the borders. Now the Gazzans have no alternative except to stay home and get killed by Israelis in front of the world’s eyes. Those who suffered a holocaust in Europe are doing a holocaust in Palestine, and we are busy with the SuperBowl!!!”
I share this to keep my father’s words alive and to remind us all that silence is never neutral.
If you read this, please carry it with you, speak of it, and don’t look away.
Keep talking about Palestine.
Lowkey EXPOSES The Dark History Behind Israel’s Murder of Rachel Corrie https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLwdJeWlAaU
Rachel Corrie: Parents & Friend Remember U.S. Activist Crushed by Israeli Bulldozer in Rafah in 2003 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcnE_1wpETY