Dear Reader, As the Catholic world awaits a new Pope, and Pakistan and India brace for a new war, 290,000 children in Gaza face starvation because of a two-month blockade that Western governments are supporting. It is not accidental that “hostilities” are erupting in South Asia at the same moment the Russia-Ukraine war is coming to an end. Weapons manufacturers, who nowadays include big tech and big media, need to keep the business going. The narrative is written in favor of war because the...
about 2 months ago • 2 min read
Dear Reader, … and February has run into March … where is the newsletter? In the interest of getting my upcoming book on Gaza ready for launch (soon), I’ve been taking a hiatus. Further, when I returned from Palestine in Oct. 2023, I emptied miscellaneous items in my suitcase into a laundry basket that has remained untouched since. The hiatus is also giving me time to unpack that figurative laundry basket and resume everything I have suspended for the last 16 months, including my grief (see...
4 months ago • 2 min read
Dear Reader, “Spring is our proof that radical, revolutionary change is possible, and very quickly.” This comes from my opening remarks at a “Poetry for Palestine” event, two nights before New Years’ Eve: “I invite you to look at Spring. Trees lay bare for what seems like forever, then buds sprout, and again it seems like forever, but you wake up one morning and you see flowers of every color, and the next week it’s green all over, and bird-songs fill the air. Yet it happens in the most...
6 months ago • 2 min read
Dear Reader, This second Christmas under genocide, Moses comes to mind—not the wrathful old man, but the helpless infant in a papyrus basket floating downriver. The child was destined to perish were it not for the compassion of one person, the daughter of the very Pharaoh who condemned a generation of infants to death. Like Moses, Jesus was a survivor of a mass-infanticide. Jesus was saved by the compassionate intervention of his adoptive father, Joseph. Their journey to Egypt was a mirror...
7 months ago • 2 min read
Dear Reader, Thank you for sticking with me during this difficult year. I appreciate all your interactions and notes of support. Reflecting on a poem I wrote last year from Palestine on October 7, it occurred to me that everyone killed in Gaza during the past year – estimates range from 43,000 to 200,000 or more – were alive at the moment I wrote that poem. This sad truth points to a starker fact: that the loss of life since Oct. 7 was entirely preventable. By the evening of October 7, the...
9 months ago • 3 min read
Dear Reader, As of this morning, I finished a half-marathon to raise funds for scholarships for Palestinian students. I am so grateful to all who contributed to my campaign with United Palestinian Appeal. If you are thinking about donating, this is the time–please do! I share this photo from one of my training runs with the Iqraa-DC running club, and hope to share one from the race next time. ‘Running for a Brighter Palestine’: On mile 9 of an 11-mile training run, in my new Iqraa team shirt....
10 months ago • 1 min read
Dear Reader, Librarians and educators are at the forefront of defending marginalized voices. Yet a climate of fear prohibits many of them from featuring the most silenced and marginalized voices of our times: Palestinian American and Palestinian voices. “Books on Palestine are sort of pre-banned, because who wants to get into so much trouble?,” says Dr. Alice Rothchild in an interview I conducted with her recently. “It’s important to face [anti-Palestinian censorship and marginalization],...
11 months ago • 2 min read
Dear Reader, My mother was 16 when she lost her home, and everything she owned, during the Palestinian Nakba of 1948. Only one thing kept her and her elderly parents out of the refugee camp: her education. With her matriculation certificate, the equivalent of a high school diploma, she was able to get a job with the Red Cross, providing medical care to refugee children. At 16, she became the breadwinner of the family. For decades, education was the Palestinian’s ticket back to life. It...
12 months ago • 2 min read
Ramsey Hanhan'sUpdate Dear Reader, I have exciting news. Distressed as we all are by the horrific situation in Gaza, I decided to break the chains of helplessness by training with the Iqraa Running Club in DC to run a race in the fall. 100% of the donations to my campaign will go to United Palestinian Appeal’s Mahmoud Darwish Scholarship Fund. For no added cost, your donation inspires my team at Iqraa and I to keep going and support each other through these difficult times. Your help is...
about 1 year ago • 1 min read