A group of young people carried out the first stage of flash-mob meant to attract the Ukrainian public attention to the Middle East, there the population of Gaza is subject to genocide by Israeli army, which kills them for their nationality and religion. 25 young men, dressed in T-shirts with issue-related prints, entered the subway and made a tour over the most busy stations, such as “Lukyanivska” — “Zoloti Vorota” — “Teatralna” — “Khreshchatyk” — “Maydan Nezalezhnosti” — “Geroiv Dnipra” — “L’va Tolstogo” — “Palats Sportu” — “Lukyanivska”. Elated with success, they decided to repeat this flashmob several times during the following week.
As Mr.Ismail Al-Bekhesi, the project initiator and coordinator, told, they were agreeably surprised to see people relieving vivid interest towards their flashmob. “People took pictures of us and filmed videos, smiled friendly, took us positively. Frankly speaking, we had some doubts whether passers-by will understand our initiative, as there’s a type of people that take any critics for Israel as anti semitism for some reason. At the same time, there’s been a broad campaign in the media and the social media when Russia started attacking our Homeland, where people compared Ukraine with Israel and Palestine (Gaza in particular) was always linked to the DPR and LPR (self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk Peoples Republics — editor’s note).”
“My father is a Palestinian, but I was born and raised in Ukraine, this is my Homeland. My Mother is a Crimean Tatar. I love my homeland, and it’s really painful for me to see some people trying to advertise Israel and justify its murders of civil population in Gaza, using our country's tragedy as a plot. Moreover, it’s Russia who acts like Israel in this particular situation in Ukraine: territories are occupied, patriots are driven out, people are being kidnapped and tortured just because they love their Fatherland and don’t want to leave it in benefit for the greedy neighbours”.
Ismail’s initiative was supported by other young people of different ethnic origin, and this is how this flashmob was born.
Every participant had a hashtag “#геноцид_в_ГАЗЕ” (RUS. “#genocide_in_GAZA”) on his back. This hashtag is used by unindifferent Russian-speaking people in the social media in their posts on Israeli aggression and destructions. Anyone can not only take a picture of the young people, but also ask them to tell about the history of Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and, in particular, history of Gaza — the young people are open for communication.
