(We Are the Owners of the Story) .. A Call to Redefine the Role of the Palestinian Influencer Dr. Walaa Al-Hamdiat

(We Are the Owners of the Story) .. A Call to Redefine the Role of the Palestinian Influencer Dr. Walaa Saeed Al-Hamdiat PhD researcher at the Faculty of Economics and Political Science, Cairo University. On the sidelines of a film directed by Israeli filmmakers, an old conviction that I have always repeated returned to me: The most dangerous thing we lose when our pain is narrated by the voices of others is not only the accuracy of the story but also our right to be its owners. That is why I have always said that we need Palestinian electronic armies; not armies whose mission is to chase donations and elicit pity, but armies that know how to carry the Palestinian narrative to the world, with the voices of those who lived the experience, who were burned by its fire, and whose lives were paid as a price for a war they did not choose. We need those who lived the genocide, not those who explain it from afar. We need those who saw the destruction with their own eyes, lost their homes, loved ones, and memories, and then managed, despite everything, to sit in front of the world and say: We do not want war. We do not want death. We want to live. From my experience, every time I sat in front of a foreign figure, the same questions would crowd around me: How did you live through the war? How are the people in Gaza? Do the people want war? What do they feel? Do they still believe in peace? How could people endure all this? And each time I felt that there was something much bigger than just political questions. I felt that the world wanted to know the Palestinian human. It wanted to know who these people are that it hears about every day? How did they live before the war? How did they love? How did they laugh? What did they eat? What did they listen to? How did they celebrate? What did they inherit from their mothers and grandmothers? What are the names of their neighborhoods and streets? What song echoed at their weddings? What did the Palestinian child dream of becoming when they grew up? These small details are what make a human. And they are also, in my opinion, one of the most important battlefields we must enter. Because we made a mistake when we allowed the image of the Palestinian to be reduced, often, to that of a victim. A child under the rubble. A mother crying. A demolished house. An injured person in a hospital. A queue for aid. A call for donations. Yes, all of these are painful realities, and the world must see them. But this is not all of Palestine. Palestine is not just the rubble. Palestine was a home before it became rubble. And it was a mother before it became an image of a crying woman. And it was a child running in the street before it became a number in a statistic. And it was a family gathering around a table before it became a story of loss. And it was a city with a smell, a voice, a dialect, memory, and history. And here lies the responsibility of the Palestinian influencer. I do not believe that their primary mission is to be a fundraiser. Nor to turn every appearance into a call for help. Nor to make every Palestinian story end with the phrase: “Help us.” Donations are important, humanitarian aid is important, and it is our duty to stand with people in disasters, but there is another battle that is no less important, and perhaps its results are more far-reaching: The battle of awareness. The battle for the world to know the Palestinian before sympathizing with them. To understand them before grieving for them. To know their culture before seeing images of their blood. To hear their voice before hearing from those who speak in their name. Because a person who knows you does not see you as just a passing news story. And a person who understands your story does not need a new image of tragedy every time to remember that you exist. We need Palestinians who can enter the rooms of the world, into universities, into the media, into digital platforms, into every place their voices can reach, and say: Come, let us tell you who we are. We do not want to talk to you about death all the time. We will talk about life. We will talk about Gaza before the war. About the sea that was the breath of its people. About its streets. About its food. About its dialect. About its camps. About its universities. About its families. About its joys. About the dabke. About Ramadan. About the coffee that used to bring people together. About the grandmothers who carried the memory from generation to generation. About the Palestinian who loves, gets angry, laughs, dreams, and plans for their future like any human on this earth. And then we tell them what happened. And only then will destruction take on a different meaning. Because when you know the life that existed before the destruction, you will understand the extent of the destruction. And when you know the human before they become a victim, you will realize the magnitude of the crime. We need storytellers, not beggars for the narrative. And this is a point I see as extremely important. There is a huge difference between standing in front of the world and telling your story because you want to be understood, and telling your story just to open their wallet. The first creates awareness. And the second may create a donation that ends when the broadcast ends. We need people who can talk about Palestine without extending their hands at the end of every sentence. People who, when their story ends, do not say: “And now donate.” But leave the listener with another question: Why didn’t I know this before? We want someone who talks about Palestine so that Europeans, Americans, Asians, and Arabs listen to them, discovering that the Palestinian is not an image created by the news. We want someone who makes those who have not visited Palestine feel, even for a few minutes, that they have entered one of its homes. Sat at its table. Heard its dialect. Knew its people. Laughed with its people. And then suddenly, when they know all that, they realize what it means for a whole life to be uprooted from its place. And here the narrative becomes stronger than a thousand images. That is why I believe we must redefine the role of the Palestinian influencer. The influencer is not just someone with followers. The influencer is someone with the ability to shape an image. And the image we create of ourselves today may live on after us for years. If we present ourselves to the world as a broken people waiting for help, then that is the image that will remain. But if we present ourselves as a people who resisted erasure by clinging to their lives, culture, and memory, then that is the narrative that will remain. We do not want to erase the image of tragedy. We want to place it in its proper context. We want to tell the world: Yes, we have seen death. But we are not death. Yes, our homes were destroyed. But we are not rubble. Yes, we lost loved ones. But we are not numbers. Yes, we lived through the war. But we do not want war to be our only definition. We are a people with a history before the war, a life before the war, a culture before the war, dreams before the war, and we will have a future after the war. And this message must be carried by the Palestinian influencer. It is not required of them to be a politician all the time. Nor to be a military analyst. Nor to memorize slogans. Sometimes, perhaps the strongest thing they can do is to talk about their grandmother. About a Palestinian dish. About a song. About a city. About an olive tree. About a street. About a childhood memory. About a simple dream they had. Because when you preserve the details of a human, you preserve them from reduction. And the occupation does not only try to demolish stone; the narrative is also a battlefield. And those who have the ability to define people by us hold part of the battle. That is why I say: Do not underestimate the Palestinian influencer. Do not look at their phone as if it is just a screen. Behind every follower is an opportunity to know Palestine in a way they have never known before. Every video can correct an image. Every story can break a stereotype. Every interview can open a question. Every foreign person whose understanding of Palestine changes is a new space taken from ignorance. This is not a luxury. This is a responsibility. We need a generation of influencers who know that Palestine is not a seasonal material, appearing when the war starts and disappearing when the news fades. We need those who talk about it in peace as they talk about it in war. In life as in death. In culture as in politics. In food as in history. In music as in tragedy. Because the Palestine that we do not know, others will come to define for us. And the Palestine that we do not narrate, others will come to write its ending on our behalf. That is why I do not want electronic armies whose mission is to scream to the world: “Save us.” I want armies that say: “Listen to us.” Listen to how we speak. Listen to how we laugh. Listen to how we talk about our mothers. Listen to the names of our villages and cities. Listen to our history. Listen to our poetry and music. Listen to testimonies from those who lived through the genocide. Listen to those who lost everything and still say they want peace. Listen to the Palestinian before you judge them. This, in my opinion, is one of the most important battles we must fight today. Not because we want to elicit the world’s sympathy. But because we want to give it the truth. And because we do not want the Palestinian to remain present in the world’s consciousness only when they are dead, injured, or in need. We want the world to know them alive. And here the narrative begins. And here begins the true role of the influencer. To make the world know the Palestinian before they cry for them, and to understand Palestine before they sympathize with it. For we do not need someone to talk about Palestine instead of us. We need to hold the microphone ourselves. And to narrate the whole story. Not to summarize it. Not the version that serves others. Nor the version that starts with death and ends with a donation. But the story that simply says: There was a people here. There is still a people here. And there will always be a people here. And it has a name, a memory, a culture, land, and a story. And we are the owners of this story.