I have been thinking of how we can really help instead of just being passive.

We can:

• Be depressed.  This does not do anything for the people who need help.
• Pray.  Helps.
• Blame Egypt.  I really hate this one and think it changes nothing just creates lots of anger and resentment on both sides.
• Demonstrate.  This is one I always have mixed feelings about.  On one hand we have to say something yet on the other it has always proven to be an inneffective method of change in Arab countries.  If you can hold a peaceful demonstration with a list of changes that the government can do then by all means go ahead.  Otherways I think holding donation collection rallies might be a better idea.
• Donate.  Helps.  Just make sure you find a good organization that knows how to get help to the people who need it.
• Understand our politics.  Yes we need to understand who are the stakeholders, how they respond to trouble, what they have done in the past and how we can change it.
• Understand our history.  This might seem like it does not help a lot, but I believe it does because to understand the current situation we can look back at what happened in the forties, the sixties and in the seventies.  The dates are different but the methodologies stay the same.
• Educate our children.  The problem will not go away today even if the bombing stops.  Our children and the younger generations need to understand what is going on.  They need to be politically savvy, they need to understand the history of the whole area and understand how things work and how they can help.  Explaining to a child why you are donating money, clothes or medication builds a long term understanding of what is effective and what isn’t.
• Learn from the enemy.  Lasto Adri posted an interesting link in her shared bookmarks which just shows how the Israeli’s try to help their cause.  I will not post the link because I don’t want to help his SEO but you can see from the screen shot that the ideas are pretty smart.  We are bloggers, users of Facebook, Twitterers and smart people.  Here are some examples of what people are already doing:
  • Qwaider has set up a link so you can follow up on Gaza news from the bloggers.
  • Jad tells you what you can do other than demonstrating.
  • Collecting and blogging about it by Moma Bean.
  • Twitterers are tweeting at #gaza and Gaza
  • Zeinobia says No, we can do something.

Just read what they are doing, stop and think.  Put your anger and intellect into good use.

• If you are a blogger, blog about it.  Stay level and smart, respond to hate comments wisely and smartly.
• If you use Twitter, tweet about it.
• If you live in a country where you can change your politics rally and lobby for the cause.
• If you use Facebook, post articles and blog posts to point your non Arab friends to fairer information.
• If you are a cartoonist or an artist, express yourself and post on deviantart, facebook, blogs or wherever you can.
• If you are a teacher teach our younger generations.
• If you are part of Global Voices then translate articles and educate the rest of the world.

Be positive and active.

No matter what you do or who you are do the right thing.  This problem will not go away in a day or even a week, the problem stays as long as Palestine is occupied.  This problem stays as long as we are negative and passive.  This problem stays as long as we do nothing and only moan and blame others for our misfortunes.  We are not all Ghazzeh, we go back to our warm homes, turn on our electricity, put loads of laundry in the washing machine with lovely smelling softener, curse if someone cuts us off in the street in our shiny cars, pick up our kids from their fancy schools and have no idea what they are going through.  We do not know what it is like living in constant everyday hell.  We do not mourn family members in the dozens and we do not.  We are not immune, we live in countries that have borders with the occupation and we can be victims when they choose.

If you can do nothing then pray silently and remember the civillians who are being killed every day.