TORONTO -- In an attempt to reclaim the narrative and move their cause toward the mainstream, pro-Palestinian voices have aligned themselves with popular movements for minority rights such as Black Lives Matter, which have helped propel more conversations about power imbalances into the mainstream, scholars say.

But while some analysts say pro-Palestinian sentiment is evolving online, amid social movements such as the BLM, others dismiss comparisons to other conflicts as “incomplete.”

In 2020, Indigenous land rights were front and centre in Canada, as people protested a pipeline being built on unceded Wetʼsuwetʼen First Nation territory; while George Floyd’s murder by a police officer saw Black Lives Matter protesters around the world demanding an end to systemic anti-Black racism.

Palestinian activists say they're taking back control of the conversation from those they claim have stifled their voices, declaring policies in Israel as tantamount to "colonization"" and "apartheid" and the proposed eviction of families from as ethnic cleansing.

Scholars say these conversations taking place in the mainstream wouldn’t have happened without the groundwork of other social justice movements.

“They have led to a significant shift in the discourse,” Middle East scholar Nader Hashemi told CTVNews.ca in a phone interview. Mira Sucharov, who researches Jewish politics, social media and Israeli-Palestinian relations echoed that.

“Terms like settler colonialism are definitely being used much more now than they were 10 or 20 years ago by activists,” the Carleton University political science professor told CTVNews.ca over the phone. “I think we are seeing a tipping point in world sympathy towards Palestinians.”

Syrus Marcus Ware, a co-founder of Black Lives Matter Canada agreed, calling it “a tidal wave.” He said decades of struggle and activism are finally paying off and “we are seeing the fruit.”

And on a recent episode of his podcast “The Breakdown,” BLM activist Shaun King said that Palestinians “experience a brutality from police and the military very much akin to what African Americans experience in the United States.”

In what’s believed to be the first time, Human Rights Watch issued a report last month using the word “apartheid” to describe Israel’s policies, which followed other Israeli-based NGOs in January. Although, Israel has vehemently rejected these characterizations. Over the past several years, Amnesty International has used the words “systemic discrimination” with increasing frequency in its reports on Israel.

COMPARISONS TO OTHER CONFLICTS ARE 'UNHELPFUL': CIJA

The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, headquartered in Toronto, was asked whether they’ve seen more discourse surrounding Palestinians and Israelis than in recent years, and a spokesperson said, “we have noticed a significant increase in discussion online and, understandably, that discussion is passionate and emotional.”

“While we understand the desire to make sense of the troubling developments in the Middle East, comparisons to other conflicts are incomplete and unhelpful,” Martin Sampson, vice president of communications and marketing for the CIJA said, when asked about the connections between the struggles of Palestinians to Black and Indigenous peoples’.

“For example, the return of the Jewish people to their ancestral homeland, Israel, cannot, by any fair observer of history, be characterized as colonialism. Someone attempting to advance that narrative clearly does not understand Israel or colonialism.” He also said that “Jewish Canadians are heartbroken by the death and destruction on both sides of the border.”

At least 230 Palestinians have been killed during the airstrikes, including 65 children and 39 women, with some 1,620 people wounded, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not break the numbers down into fighters and civilians.

Twelve Israelis have also been killed, including a five-year-old boy, according to The Associated Press. The United Nations also stated that 58,000 Palestinians have been displaced by Israeli airstrikes, including 2,500 people who have become homeless.

Ware noted there’s now a “broader conversation” about Gaza, Israel and the West Bank that draws upon issues such as history, systemic discrimination, and marginalization – all topics BLM and Indigenous people hammered home this past year.

Sucharov added that there’s now more of a common language connecting struggles from different parts of the world.

“I think the discourse right now in North America is about anti-racism [and] anti-oppression… and those discourses are much more available now to Palestine solidarity activists.”

HOW ADVOCACY GROUPS SPREAD MESSAGE

With footage of Sheikh Jarrah being shared online, and amplified on platforms such as Instagram, Twitter and TikTok, where popular accounts have millions of rapt followers, a new generation has become aware of issues in the region.

All of those CTVNews.ca spoke to noted social media has played a role in amplifying many voices today.

Still, while social media amplifies the voices of protesters, it also serves as a loudspeaker for hate-filled speech, in a forum that's neither moderated nor held up to any checks-and-balances system.

Jeffrey Dvorkin, a senior fellow at Massey College at the University of Toronto, said social media has allowed for more of a public exchange of ideas previously shut out of mainstream news outlets, or which were considered fringe, such as the Palestinian perspective.

“Now, you can get advocacy groups to spread their message and to put pressure on all media organizations to tell the story the way they think it should be told,” Dvorkin, a former director of the University of Toronto’s journalism program, told CTVNews.ca on in a phone interview.

Dvorkin, who has worked in Canadian and American newsrooms, said he’s seen journalists, particularly those who are non-white, also seem more emboldened to cover marginalized voices because of movements led by BLM and Miꞌkmaq fishers.

“And I think this is an entirely normal and logical and good thing to happen," he said, but wondered whether managers will allow for newsrooms to pivot in a similar way they did to better cover systemic and anti-Black racism.

PRESSURE NOT TO ONLY PUT OUT PROPAGANDA

Like BLM and Indigenous activists before them, memes, shareable infographics and Tiktoks and Instagram lives are the language of choice for many Palestinian supporters. But those same avenues are being used by the Israeli government itself and its supporters to marshal support to their own side.

In Canada, Sampson from the Israeli advocacy group, CIJA, also pointed out, “what we are seeing is a troubling and growing number of Jewish children and Jewish business owners being relentlessly harassed online because of the conflict between Israel and Hamas.”

Earlier this week, Human Rights Watch outlined alarming incidents of recent anti-Semitic attacks witnessed in Europe, “some of which took place during or after pro-Palestinian protests in European capitals – are a reminder that antisemitism is also found among some who claim to support the Palestinian cause.”

Sampson said: “Canadians of goodwill should not, indeed cannot, allow the conflict to be imported into this country.”

And it should be noted that unfiltered social media, which sometimes contains violent imagery or hate speech, has led to taking videos out of context, or deliberately spreading misinformation.

So Dvorkin stressed that this puts an even stronger pressure on “the advocates for Indigenous rights, or Palestinian rights or the Israeli position, to preserve information that is not seen as just propaganda for that side, but that it is contextual and reliable.”

With files from The Associated Press. Edited by Mary Nersessian and Ryan Flanagan