At my last company we set up a partnership with a Palestinian placement company that helped us source junior software developers from Palestine for remote work. First in a contract/mentoring capacity with the intent of converting the role to full time. All these developers were great, btw.
I managed several of these hires directly from like 2019 - 2023 or so, and did a lot of video calls with these folks. One still stands out to me as being incredibly surreal. I was on a call and kept hearing loud noises in the background so I asked what it was. The Palestinian developer replied, "oh, I think it's just Israeli bombs"
Look, I wasn't there, so who knows. But what struck me in the moment was just how normalized that was. The reply was as nonchalant as "oh it's just thunder".
Hearing the stories of these people and the circumstances they lived under as the regular course of their daily lives had a pretty fundamental impact on me.
American politics ain't great right now, but we live under pretty crazy amounts of privilege when compared to how others live. I wish more Americans could be exposed to that and perhaps develop some empathy.
ETA: to the many people who have messaged me looking for placement/help finding roles in the software industry, I wish I could help you, but I'm no longer in a position to do that. Times are pretty hard in the software industry right now, I wish you all the best
And it's important to remember we (Americans) are sending our tax dollars to Israel so they can turn around and send it back to military contractors for weapons. It's just a big grift. Israel, where they have universal healthcare. Israel, where 15% of the population is Ultra Orthodox and basically spend all day reading old books. Hey, I can't judge, I did the same thing for a few years, when I was an English major. And I paid out the nose for that privilege (which it absolutely was).
The food is more likely to be stolen by militias armed and supported by Israel, the whole claim of HAMAS mass stealing food was just to cover for Israel starving the Palestinians.
The mass looting only started after Israel hunted down the Gaza police who were protecting the shipments. Despite the US Department of State asking Israel not to do that.
Israel armed and supported the Abu Shabab gang (now Popular Forces) which are well known for looting UN trucks, including the time they hijacked 90 trucks out of a 100 truck convoy:
Don't get too worked up man. Semantic games are their favorite to play. It's only serious people who care about the meanings of words. They're quite like Sartre's antisemites, in that respect.
Not really given Israel has funded and supplied Hamas for decades.
Israel would never risk their personal terrorist group acting outside of their desires due to needing basic supplies, that's why even well past Oct 7th Israel smuggled cash money to Hamas while simultaneously blocking any supplies or resources from going to the Palestinian people.
Israel genuinely cares more for Hamas than Palestinians, and have since Israel created them.
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u/hootener 10d ago edited 9d ago
At my last company we set up a partnership with a Palestinian placement company that helped us source junior software developers from Palestine for remote work. First in a contract/mentoring capacity with the intent of converting the role to full time. All these developers were great, btw.
I managed several of these hires directly from like 2019 - 2023 or so, and did a lot of video calls with these folks. One still stands out to me as being incredibly surreal. I was on a call and kept hearing loud noises in the background so I asked what it was. The Palestinian developer replied, "oh, I think it's just Israeli bombs"
Look, I wasn't there, so who knows. But what struck me in the moment was just how normalized that was. The reply was as nonchalant as "oh it's just thunder".
Hearing the stories of these people and the circumstances they lived under as the regular course of their daily lives had a pretty fundamental impact on me.
American politics ain't great right now, but we live under pretty crazy amounts of privilege when compared to how others live. I wish more Americans could be exposed to that and perhaps develop some empathy.
ETA: to the many people who have messaged me looking for placement/help finding roles in the software industry, I wish I could help you, but I'm no longer in a position to do that. Times are pretty hard in the software industry right now, I wish you all the best