Warning: ‘All eyes on Rafah’

If you have social networks, you have surely seen the image of the Rafah refugee camp generated by artificial intelligence with the slogan ALL EYES ON RAFAH (all eyes on Rafah) in the center, as if it were the poster for a long-awaited movie. The photo, which has already been shared by more than 46 million accounts on Instagram alone, is an explicit warning to the Government of Israel and all those who support the bombings of Rafah. We are watching you, he assures. He doesn’t say anything else. And nothing less. But what exactly does it mean to set eyes on Rafah?

First we must underline the fact that the image has been generated by artificial intelligence. If a photograph that is not real has been deliberately chosen, it is to highlight that it is not about denouncing a specific crime (about which there could be discussion or different versions), but rather its objective is to announce a fact: citizen surveillance. The message is directed at those who bomb and does not issue a judgment or complaint but rather a covert threat. But what could a viral photo threaten the Government of Israel with? By keeping memory of what happened. The punishment that it announces is therefore as important and lasting as the word memory is.

“Neither forgive nor forget,” is the sentence engraved on stone in the Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem. Memory is, sometimes, a definitive punishment, because it crosses time. And at the moment there are 46 million citizens – the number increases every hour – who warn the Government of Israel that they are witnessing its decisions and each of its actions. Netanyahu should think about these looks and what they are seeing.

There was something about feeling watched (about being surrounded by cameras everywhere) that scared us all, but we had not thought that this hypervigilance would also serve to control power. The world has become a permanently updated fresco of images where we are all looking at each other in real time. And although it is true that many images can be manipulated or outright false, the volume is so immense that the truth ends up being overwhelming and univocal. This means that the unilateral exercise of power will be reduced by the imprint of the image. And since images create ideas, it happens that certain political rhetoric is capable of feeding more on images than on words themselves. It is not that words no longer serve, but that rhetoric has gained a new field in social networks, essential for the generations that were born with the Internet.

Nor do I, who am a child of the printing press, have words left to name or denounce what is happening. 46 million of us do not have words nor do we want to denounce or point out a specific fact. We just want to configure ourselves as a new political community, that of those who watch. The community of those who will remember. And this new community is a political tool in a sense that power did not expect: because it is a political community that does not serve to generate power but to denounce its abuses.

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