Fake Chaos: “Fauda” - the so-called organization of Palestinian anarchists
Hier kun je discussieren over Fake Chaos: “Fauda” - the so-called organization of Palestinian anarchists.
Recently, an alleged Palestinian anarchist organization ““Fauda”” (“Chaos” – a name coinciding with Netflix’s popular series) has gained popularity among Western leftist activists. This happened thanks to “Fauda’s” intense activity on Internet. They have a telegram channel, they’re on Instagram etc. After October 7th Palestinian attack on Israel, members of “Fauda” were interviewed by the US-based Anarchist Federation Black Rose. Excerpts from interviews with other members of “Fauda” were published by the site Anarchist Agency.
We carefully examined the content of their media channels. Doubts were raised by the fact that we failed to find any actual proofs of the existence of “Fauda”. No photos of any actions in Palestine – even in masks or with blurred faces - no leaflets pasted on walls.
There are only some videos featuring their speaker Abu al Roba. The last one - and the only in which the voice is not as heavily distorted – was published on October 26th. In that video he expressed his support of October 7th attack and stated that “Fauda”, alongside other Palestinian organizations is fighting against Israel.
We asked our Arab comrades if it’s possible to verify the authenticity of the video based on “Abu al Roba’s” accent.
And received the following answer: “This is a non-native speaker, who tries his best to imitate Levantine accent (Shami / شامي) while reciting written speech, as he wants people to believe that the person speaking is Palestinian. This is 10000% fake. Even the phonetics of non-complex words is mispronounced. It’s obvious that the speaker is not Palestinian. Apart from that, some letters during the speech sound terrible.”
Israeli comrades said that they have seen “Faud’s” activity on the internet but they don’t trust it and came out with a number of versions – from the fact that video’s sound was produced with AI, that reads the text, to protect the identity of the guy who wrote it, to them being refugees living abroad who forgot the language.
But native Arab speakers rejected those versions as well. As they informed us, in the video one can hear different intonations of the same words, as well as shortening/lengthening of syllables. Therefore, it’s definitely a real (live?) speaker. Meanwhile the Arabic language is so bad that it’s unlikely that he’s a refugee, even if he has left the country long ago:
“If you are a Palestinian, you properly learn the vocabulary, what we can’t really see from the pronunciation. A more plausible explanation is that this is an attempt to portray a local person by a non-local person. This man can’t pronounce the sound ح [h], no matter where it’s located in each word. And the fact that he always pronounces it softer/harsher, in reality is a good cue to suggest that he never spoke Arabic as a native speaker.”
A more plausible version of the Israeli comrades is that the label “Fauda” was coined by Israeli special services, in order to “catch on bait” - namely, to monitor the sentiments of trusting Western and Russian leftists who contact them (“Fauda” has recourses in Russian language) and surveil them. A possible motive is fraud - crowdfunding from western leftist – as in the picture of this post.
In short, it looks like “Fauda” doesn’t really exist. We can only guess whether it was created by special services or it’s just some impostors of non-Palestinian background, playing this game for dubious purposes.
Abu Ilyas al Bibi
From the editor: This text is published as a personal opinion, not a shared position of Autonomous Action. We want to emphasize we don't have direct proofs that Fauda is a project of state-run secret services. However, we have a wide network of anarchist contacts in various countries, but we were not able to find anyone who knows Fauda activists personally: it seems it's always limited to online communication only.
This post first appeared on a
This post first appeared on a Russian anarchist website, and has bin highly debated. It's mostly bad-jacketing a already highly suppressed anarchist group with as only argument "our Arab friend told us the speaker is not Arabic".
I've also asked my anarchist Arab friend and he could not hear anything weird accept for one word that's bin spoken in more like a Yemen accent. So these accusations are bullshit.
For the but there is no posters or physical prove they exist. There is actually, and their telegram channel has bin up since 2021 and they posted photos of their stickers and posters. Of course they are not going to put their faces out there. They are up against one of worlds super power, on technology and surveillance.
The article is highly problematic a piece of anti solidarity that is not being backed up seriously. Before you decide to bad-jacket comrades make sure your evidence it airtight or you might to let people up to die with out any support.
They made it clear they mostly want people to know about their fight, and all aid money wise is a bonus.
I leave here a letter from a comrade close to them:
As someone who has cultivated a deep relationship with Fauda comrades, I barely
have the emotional strength to address the reactive, un-investigated, unsubstantiated
bad-jacketing of Fauda on the latest It's Going Down episode. Rather than bringing
drama to the internet i am instead addressing it directly with Scott, with the support of
so many amazing Black, Brown, Indigenous, and international comrades who also
have deep relationships with and love for our Fauda comrades, as well as with the
support of my anarchist mentors & comrades with other large, respected anarchist
media outlets.
Yes, Fauda has been properly vetted and vouched for. Yes, they do have relationships
with the ISM. Yes, we have comrades who have IRL relationships with Fauda. Yes, it is
acceptable for people on the ground in Palestine to ask for donations of e-SIMS and
money to buy supplies without having to go through massive nonprofits.
And no, support for Fauda isn't just a bunch of white westerners donating money and
wiping their hands clean. Anarchists all over Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Latin
America, outside of the fucking so-called USA are showing up hard for Fauda.
Anarchists in support of Fauda are also on the frontlines of autonomous direct actions,
blockades, and protests.
Vetting and vouching are skills all wise anarchists must cultivate. Bad-jacketing has
detrimental consequences. It is important to share our concerns, critiques, and
reactions and not silence ourselves, ever, but it is wise to balance that with clear
framing of when things are opinions, strong opinions, facts, when things have been
confirmed or not. As a journalistic account, I value these things deeply.
A month and a half ago I shared many of the concerns and bad-jacketing themes with
Fauda comrades, and while they wanted to address it publicly, they ultimately realized
they didn't have enough fucking time admist war conditions to assure English speakers
of their legitimacy. They repeated so much, "Palestine has always been alone and
forgotten, this isn't new to us." Maybe they will address it someday, but for now I am
praying each night for their safety, and emotionally and materially supporting them
along with comrades internationally.
And a final note on our Fauda comrades, no, they don't have "broken Arabic." Most of
them only speak Ameyeh, or the Palestinian spoken dialect of Arabic. One of them has
broken English.
Of course they are not going
Of course they are not going to put their faces out there. because Hamas killed them all.
Hamas is fighting back
Hamas is fighting back against the fascist, apartheid and colonial state Israel so in that sense they are on the same side. It's a stupid remark to say Hamas killed them, there is no single reason why Hamas would kill.
The autoritairian
The autoritairian islamo-fascist Hamas is the opposite of anarchism.
Re: Fake Chaos: “Fauda” - the so-called organization of Palestin
It is naive to support everyone who wipes their face with anarchism. I'm not at all surprised by the Russian thread in this case. no one knows them, no one has heard of them...
they’re on Instagram
they’re on Instagram etc.
This should already ring a little bell, no?
"anarchists" being
"anarchists" being sympathetic towards fascist Hamas? who believes this is an idiot.
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