Fake Chaos: “Fauda”

From Avtonom

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 , they’re on  etc.  After October 7th Palestinian attack on Israel, members of “Fauda” were  by the US-based Anarchist Federation Black Rose. Excerpts from interviews with other members of “Fauda” were  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  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.

There are 14 Comments

"A possible motive is fraud"

It's almost like the anonymous author would prefer for us to donate to fully-confirmed state actors, such as the soldiers in the ranks of the Ukrainian army hierarchy who also happen to self-identify as anarchists, rather than donate to a group who their "Israeli comrades" merely want to share their speculations about. This itself would also just be speculation though.

where was this original claim made a month ago?

Huh? Avtonom publishes writings critical not only of the Russian military campaign but also from the Kharkiv (Ukraine) based group Assembly who has been advocating and documenting desertion of the conscripts in Ukrainian Army since the start of the war.

It is the Fauda group which has done far far less to denounce all of the military-state actors in the warzone they are living in (why have they said nothing of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, etc.?). I think here lies the real critique of the Fauda group. Whether or not it exists, I do not know. But regardless, what they are saying, or not saying, clearly raises some warning flags.

I said the anonymous author, not Avtonom (the publisher). I also don't think things generally work in the way that publishing or republishing one or two or however many anti-militarist texts gives a publisher a pass to then (re)publish however many pro-militarist posts (or posts that are deceptive about the fact that Petrov, for example, was a solider following orders in a state hierarchy, as well as someone who publicly advocated collaboration with the State by anarchists, in certain circumstances at least). I also think it can possibly be ok for anarchist aggregators to repost stuff they don't necessarily agree with themselves.

In my view, your personal critique of Fauda is distinct from whatever the anonymous author was trying to say, or whatever suspicions they were trying to cast upon them.

Personally, I think celebrating and advocating for actual anarchist participation in the State is worse than simply not denouncing the sub-state actors you mention, however not fantastic that may also be.

Hamas is the governing body of Gaza. They are not a “sub-state actor.” Most, if not all, sectors of Gazan society from public works to the military are administered by Hamas. A state that is under a military threat and an economic stranglehold, is still a state.

I don't deny they are a governing body, but Gaza is just one part of Palestine, not a nation, state, or nation-state unto itself, is completely blockaded and militarily overseen by the State of Israel, therefore does not have the monopoly on violent territorial control that Israel practices instead, and is not recognized internationally on par with the other nation-states in the world system. Not every hierarchy, governing body or oppressive institution is a state just because it may be bad in one or many ways. If someone randomly says something mean to me, I can just say that's not very nice, I don't have to call it a state for it to really not be nice.

Before the start of this war, the territory of Gaza was entirely run by Hamas. To live in Gaza meant your day-to-day life was governed by Hamas. Israeli troops wouldn’t patrol the streets, raid your house, repress your demonstrations, etc. For taxes, disputes, schools, civic affairs you dealt with Hamas or NGOs. The State is not just a heavily militarized recognized “nation-state.” It is a relationship between people, just as capitalism is. It can look all different ways throughout the world and have nothing to do with (aside from always looming threat of invasion- like every inch of land on the planet) China, US, Russia, Iran, France, Israel, Turkey, etc. To live under cartel control in northern Mexico, Al-Shabab in Somalia, Hamas in Gaza, etc. does not mean you are stateless, or your state is simply an abstract political entity you never see, who threatens and sanctions the faces in front of you who are “not very nice.”

I never said the people in Gaza were stateless or living outside of a state. I said the state they live under is Israel. I also granted that they are/were also governed by a Palestinian organization. I never said the one and only reason they are not themselves a state is because of the lack of international recognition, you are simply choosing arbitrarily to ignore my other points (Gaza being a prison overseen by Israel, the West Bank also being Palestine and also being occupied). I don't doubt organizations in Gaza want to have their own state, but this in itself doesn't make the Israeli state disappear. I never claimed Israel had uniform wearing feet on the ground in Gaza in recent years, but this in itself does not erase the total military blockade and encirclement they excercise over it (along with their occupation of the West Bank). You can call anything you want a state. But to me it doesn't seem like a useful category to apply to any oppressive or hierarchical organization. Not calling such an organization a state doesn't require saying that they also are not oppressive or hierarchical. Maybe they are.

becuz the "fraud" allegation is (probably) false. See above comments.

Fauda is indeed real and this post should be deleted for the spread of misinformation. I would like it if comrades in avtonom would retract this statement as it is counter to international solidarity.

If we don’t know there is a misinformation campaign against them then we lose sight of the difficulties many anarchists face. Maybe it would be better for a header with the response to be added to the post or something.

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