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“Makcik oh Makcik” – Twitterjaya Up In Arms Over Activist Siti Kasim’s Latest Tweet
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“Makcik oh Makcik” – Twitterjaya Up In Arms Over Activist Siti Kasim’s Latest Tweet

Siti Kasim’s tweet has racked up over 390K views and Twitterjaya did not hold back their punches.

by
April 23, 2024

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Vocal human rights activist Siti Kasim has always been on the receiving end of criticism, but this time around there is hardly anyone siding with her point of view.

Twitterjaya, from big name accounts to those with a small number of followers, is not taking kindly to her sharing of a thread by an Israeli lawyer @GalG_IL.

The Israeli lawyer, in what she called a “social network trip”, provided photos and videos to “personally conclude” that it is “quite clear that there are those in Gaza who know how to make extensive use of the networks and social media for the purposes of emotional extortion and also false propaganda.”

In short, Gal, while admitting there is suffering, suggested that there “is no genocide and no famine in Gaza”.

Cut back to our very own Siti, she shared the thread and added her take: “The situation in Gaza right now. Up to you to believe or not. Make up your own mind. Read the thread.”

While she did ask people to read and make up their own minds, the general tone of what she was saying, especially describing Gal’s post as “the situation in Gaza right now” clearly did not sit well with many.

Her tweet has racked up over 390K views and Twitterjaya did not hold back their punches.

Social media influencer Ceddy who has always been vocal on Twitter in speaking against the Israeli atrocities in Gaza, returned Siti’s words back at her but while sharing a video posted by activist @Kahlissee captioned: “Israel bombed an overcrowded neighbourhood with airstrikes without any prior warning.”

Another Twitter user @acaijawa with over 80K followers replied to Siti saying it was sad that she believed Israeli propagandists.

Former media practitioner Ooi Beng Cheang said he was reminded of a scene from the movie Gladiator.

Another Twitter user suggested Siti visited Gaza herself.

Twitter user @Dafrosty also threw Siti’s words back at her while sharing an AlJazeera post on an Israeli air attack hitting a residential area in Gaza City.

While some hurled insults, others worded their criticism of Siti’s tweet in a more polite, or sarcastic manner.

As all of the above are in the replies section, her Quote Tweets are not looking any better for Siti.

Based on our observation, we could only find one Quote Tweet who appeared to side with Siti.

Blaming Hamas or Downplaying Israeli’s Atrocities?

From Gal the lawyer’s “trip” around social media, she concluded that it was necessary to distinguish between the posts made by those whom she claimed were using “emotional extortion” and the “true voices of Gaza”.

She claimed that the “false propaganda” posts used Western buzzwords like “genocide”, “occupation”, “oppression” and “Zionism”.

She said that on her “trip”, she set out to look for authentic people of Gaza, those she has known all her life as these people “use much simpler words and not this indoctrinated manipulation bullshit”.

While Gal admitted “there is quite a lot of suffering, shortages in some places and lack of decent shelter etc”, there is also “a lot of cynical exploitation of it for propaganda purposes”.

She claimed that prior to the 7 October 2023 attack, there was already a lot of poor people in Gaza. Things have become more difficult since 7 October because the war damaged sources of livelihoods and many could no longer go to Israel where they worked.

“So in fact the main source of income is donations and funding from Hamas for control purposes of course. This is how, among other things, Hamas uses the population to ‘work for them’, and also to smile or cry for the cameras on demand,” Gal claimed.

On her conclusion that there was no famine, Gal claimed the problem was that food was not being properly distributed.

She claimed Hamas operatives were selling food meant for free distribution at high prices.

On claims that Gaza has turned into a prison, she claimed it was Hamas that had created a situation where it was expensive for people to leave instead.

Among her resharings of social media posts to back her claims are of people by the beach, people drinking coffee, people asking for online donations and many more.

Gal insisted that while there is suffering in Gaza, she stood by her conclusion that it was “created, used and abused by Hamas”.

Death and destruction

Gal’s “social media trip” pales in comparison to the news coming out of Gaza with most recently, the United Nations (UN) appealed for funds to provide “desperately needed aid” to three million Palestinians.

In an AP report, head of the UN humanitarian office for Gaza and the West Bank Andrea De Domenico said $2.8 billion is needed not only for food, but sanitation, water and health facilities.

Just a few days ago, 10 people including six children were killed following an Israeli airstrike on a house in Rafah with funerals held on Saturday.

Al Jazeera said there was no let-up as Israeli military continued its assault on the city on Saturday, citing their correspondent Tareq Abu Azzoum.

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