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Ramy Abdu (@RamAbdu) has finally responded after publicly accusing two fully verified Gaza fundraising appeals of being illegitimate. We contacted him privately at the time, explained that both appeals were legitimate and that we are in direct contact with the people involved, and told him we would take further steps - including legal ones - if the posts were not removed. He read the messages and replied “Go ahead.” He has now chosen to frame basic protection of these families as “intimidation and blackmail.” Here is our reply: > Who gave you the legitimacy or authority to engage in intimidation and blackmail, or to appoint yourselves as judges of who is eligible for support? Demanding that you remove a post in which you accused two fully verified Gaza appeals of being fraudulent - and warning you that we would take further steps, including legal ones, if the post wasn’t removed - is not intimidation or blackmail. It is protecting vulnerable people in Gaza who are already enduring extreme hardship from further harm. That harm was caused by you telling your 200k+ followers that these appeals were not legitimate and therefore should not receive the support they actually need. Furthermore, we are not acting as judges of who from Gaza is eligible for support. Anyone from Gaza (or their friends) is free and invited to apply to list their appeals on our website. Once we have confirmed that a submitted appeal is genuine, we list it. There is no “judging” involved. Even asking this question shows a lack of understanding of how this works and makes your claimed concern about “illegitimate” fundraising appeals even less credible. > I have countless concerns and reservations about your methods, yet I still assume you have good intentions. You should have raised these “concerns and reservations” with us *before* publicly calling two legitimate fundraising appeals fraudulent and thereby harming their ability to receive the support they need. Our intentions are fully public. Yours are now legitimately open to question. > Being in Gaza does not automatically make someone more deserving of support than others in Gaza. This does not make sense as written. But if the intent was to accuse us of favoritism: anyone from Gaza is free to submit their appeal for listing on the site. The sorting mechanism is automated, fully explained to the public, and completely open to inspection (it runs in each user’s browser, with the source code fully readable). As for the goals we run: here too, anyone is free to submit them via an open form. They are promoted on our social media accounts only after we have confirmed that the requests are accurate and in need of prompt support. > When I called for an account to be verified and warned about it because there was no evidence that the person was actually from Gaza, I acknowledged my mistake and apologized once it was confirmed. Not everyone in Gaza with a support campaign wants their identity revealed to the wider public. They deserve the same respect and right to privacy as anyone else. You had no right to publicly question their appeals simply because *you* did not know their identity. You did not even bother to contact groups like us beforehand. You also only apologized - after the fact - to one person, while the harm you caused affected two people/families. The second has still received no apology from you at all. > But even that does not mean I believe this person has any greater entitlement to financial support than anyone else. Our previous answer covers this as well.