AJ+ Arabi is a digital channel dedicated to holding power to account and amplifying the voices of marginalized communities seeking to make their stories seen and heard.
Through our content on Palestine, we seek to bridge the gap that we have identified between some Arabic-speaking audiences with regard to information and perceptions about the situation of and in Palestine. Our objective is to reach an Arabic-speaking Millennial generation, which is partly composed by passionate people that demand verified information and people that have not witnessed first-hand much of the events that keep consistently happening in Palestine, but that uphold human rights and social justice.
We introduce the topics in a simplified, smooth Palestinian colloquial dialect. We craft our content thinking about different geographies, in order to amplify and personalize the stories that we tell, always being careful to keep the story and topic relatable for a diverse Arabic-speaking audience.
In the videos that we are submitting as examples of our coverage on Palestine, we seek to explain pivotal topics by raising questions whose answers provide an expanded and deeper understanding of the current reality in Palestine. Our ultimate objective is to provide our audience with useful, accurate and up-to-date information, that comes mainly from ordinary people but also from experts and historical sources, so they can have a better understanding of the situation, both past and present, and form an opinion.
AJ+ Arabi wants to retell the stories of Palestine in a deeply meaningful and impactful way. To accomplish this, we experiment with innovative storytelling approaches, combining our robust journalism with creative writing, music and visuals, in order to present complex information in a concise, rich and shareable way.
With extensive research and discussions, the team built the sequence of the most important historical events that must be understood to have a clearer picture and an informed opinion. We create content using reliable and verified historical sources, and then connect historical events to the current reality and context. We provide a clear chronological story of Palestine, attached to numbers, facts and archival maps, showing the geographical, demographic and political change throughout the years, that allow a better understanding of the present situation.
Our videos highlight rarely discussed topics in the media, such as the detention of Palestinians fighting for their freedom, before and after their death, or our “cemeteries of numbers” story, which sheds light on the existence of mass graves of Palestinian and Arabs, referred to as “casualties” of the occupation, that have been anonymously buried with numbers imprinted onto metal placards attached to graves.
According to the Jerusalem Legal Aid and Human Rights Center (JLAC), Israel withholds 254 Palestinians that have been killed under various circumstances since 1967 in these "cemeteries of numbers".
Grounded in the principles of co-creation and collaboration, our editorial approach always aims to include the voices of people that have been directly affected by conflict and inequality into our storytelling process. We aim to give them the opportunity to tell their story, and to see that as a powerful tool to fight against misinformation, disinformation, misguided perspectives, prejudices, and stereotypes.
We have sent our team to meet families of Palestinians who lost their beloved ones and couldn’t say goodbye and retell their stories by interviewing them and accompanying them while they are waiting for their sons and the opportunity to say a final farewell.
We have worked closely with The Jerusalem Legal Aid and Human Rights Center- JLAC, one of the pioneering human rights organizations in Palestine that documents and follows up on the retrieval of the bodies that are in these “cemeteries of numbers”.
Another video submitted as an example of our coverage, tells the story of 5 years old Nasser, which is the story of hundreds of children in Jerusalem.
The normalization of arresting children’s family members or even arresting children by Israeli soldiers is a topic that we also highlight on our coverage. “There is no safe place in Jerusalem, not even your home”, Nasser’s father said. “Israeli soldiers attack our houses on a daily basis. Nasser used to be afraid of Israeli soldiers and guns at first, but now the scene is normal for him, he’s not afraid anymore”.
Recognized for their creativity and community-focused storytelling, our videos have received significant attention from media and other civil society organizations. Our content on Palestine has been screened in universities and used as a reliable source to document and understand the stories of Palestinians.
“I used this video of Nakba to explain a very complicated issue to my students” Saleh Masharqa, Professor of Journalism and Creative Writing at Birzeit University, said. “More often, Palestinians tell the story in an emotional way, lacking information or provide a huge amount of information making you feel overwhelmed. AJ+ videos are a great example of creativity and humanity with a strong informative base.”
When it comes to Palestine, AJ+ Arabi is identified as a channel that covers the ongoing situation in a creative manner, keeping up with the events, while always providing background and context. This is in parallel with publishing content according to a thoughtful schedule-based strategy.
As part of our Palestinian coverage, only in May and June 2021, we produced more than 500 posts across social media platforms. This output resulted in more than 121 million total video views during that period and in almost 9 million interactions. Around 93% of the interactions and views came from Instagram and Facebook.
The median interaction per post that is related to Palestine in May 2021 was higher than the average of the rest of the months of 2021 by 2.3X times. We had the highest median interaction per post related to Palestine in May 2021 among 18 publishers in the market.
