(Is Fatah Phil the Fed from Abbotsford in the pic on the page? He might be. These are the Palestinians he serves.)
from Mondoweiss
On April 12, a new shopping mall was inaugurated in Ramallah under the name “Icon” — a deliberate choice that seeks not only to name but to consecrate, to frame the exemplary as sacred. The opening was marked by a full-blown spectacle: choreographed dancers, celebratory music, a festive crowd, and a ribbon-cutting ceremony attended by officials and Palestinian elites. It was an aesthetic of pomp and circumstance, a carefully staged performance of normalcy. But as images and videos of the event circulated online, they collided with the reality of the ongoing massacre in Gaza. Social media erupted — especially from Gazans and Palestinians everywhere — in a wave of anger, grief, and disbelief. How could there be dancing while bodies are still being pulled from the rubble? How could such a display unfold at a time when whole families were being erased daily?
No official apology or explanation was offered by the mall’s management. There was, instead, a studied silence — or worse, the implicit message that no apology was necessary. In the refusal to acknowledge the dissonance, a deeper affective condition begins to show itself: not simply indifference, but shamelessness — a disavowal of the political moment that is so complete that even genocide cannot interrupt the rhythm of consumer desire. This is not merely the opening of a commercial space; it is the staging of a new ritual and the sanctification of the commodity form as the central object of contemporary worship for a Palestinian middle class...
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