Kind of important post?
There's this cracker that's apparently really hellbent on accusing most Palestinian gofundmes of being scams, especially the ones verified on my and nabulsi's list, while also shading me implying I expect people to believe me wholeheartedly, which I've made several posts about the contrary. I ask every one of you to exercise critical thinking, and my list is a tool for that critical thinking, not a replacement for it. We have also always made it clear we are not infallible. This is a lot of work for 2 people to do and sometimes miscommunication or misunderstandings happen, which I admit did happen when we discussed Basel Ayyad's blog being suspicious! But this person's accusations go far beyond making mistakes.
You almost absolutely cannot set your fundraiser location to 'Gaza', it's very rare and only happens in instances where the Ghazzan in question has some kind of U.S. bank account based in Ghazzah for some reasons like being an exchange student or something like that. Shahed, the girl whose fundraiser is being mocked below, was verified by my friend nabulsi by verifying her national ID and photographic proof of current presence in Ghazzah, which was cross verified with her personal Instagram having a presence in Ghazzah long before Oct 7, 2023. Nearly every Palestinian in Ghazzah that has a legitimate fundraiser needs a beneficiary external to Ghazzah because GFM doesn't operate there, and everyone except this racist piece of shit understands that. Oftentimes, the fundraiser holders are diaspora Palestinians themselves, hence Arab names located in Europe or the U.S. or Canada. I've verified fundraisers for 2 Palestinian families that were being held by the same American individual, because people who do this are few and far in between and the people who do it end up being referred to from one Ghazzan to another. This is something I discussed with my friend Mohammed El Shaer as well, who has a fundraiser for his family organized by a woman whose name I saw under another fundraiser I helped verify.
In the end, I agree with this person on one thing. Do what you want with your money. But we are taking the effort to help you figure out where you can send it, what your options are, and they are a more direct means to help the people who need it. That doesn't mean you're under obligation to.
To be clear this is one of their followers, not the person in question:
And here's the person in question:
Apparently they believe Ashraf and Heba Alanqar are the same person, you know, a man and a woman, located in two different cities. Your racism is making you ignorant enough to think you know more than Palestinians do about our own conditions and the conditions of the people we speak to in Arabic it seems.
Anyways, if you have any questions or concerns about specific fundraisers - which I expect you to be cordial in your communication about - I'll be opening my inbox back up soon after I setup something with my on-the-ground fundraiser verifier.