“The wounds Israel inflicted in the hearts of Palestinians are not irreparable. We have no choice but to recover, stand up again, and continue the struggle. Submitting to the occupation is a betrayal to humanity and to all struggles around the world.” — Dr. Refaat Alareer (1979-2023), a Palestinian a poet, writer, youth mentor, and professor who was killed yesterday by a targeted Israeli strike
“There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.” — Vladimir Lenin
It’s been 10 days since my left eye started twitching uncontrollably. One possible cause may be my screen time, which has rapidly increased since October 7th. I fall asleep scrolling, checking in on all of the Palestinian news sources, Twitter accounts, and Instagram pages I can. I have nightmares about being trapped under rubble. I wake up every morning with the people of Gaza on my mind.
I have no choice but to continue connecting dots between Palestine’s struggle for freedom from the illegal Israeli occupation, to every struggle for freedom that has ever been and will ever be,
to the ongoing genocide of millions in Congo fueled by the West’s desire for coltan,
to Apple’s yearly promotion of a new iPhone that you do not need,
to the Hindutva-driven occupation of Jammu and Kashmir,
to the ever-so-silent Global Ambassador to UNICEF, Priyanka Chopra,
to the potential creation of Cop City — a massive police training compound in Atlanta, GA,
to the American police officers who were trained by the Israeli Occupation Forces,
to the giant gasoline companies extracting oil off the coast of Guyana,
to the U.S. military’s desire to set up bases in Essequibo,
to the escalated disappearance of the Amazon rainforest,
to the Christian missionary who was killed by a no-contact tribe on a remote Indian island last year,
to the legacy of Crazy Horse — a Lakota warrior who took up arms against white settlers,
to sweetgrass — which grows stronger and lives longer when braided by indigenous hands,
to the $314,695,855 in tax dollars that New York sends to Israel,
to the ridiculous amounts of money I paid in taxes this year trying to maintain a small zine-making collective,
to the silence every single industry is scaring you into if you dare condemn genocide,
to the silence required for sexual abusers to continue conquering body after body,
to my eye and its continuous twitching that makes me look like I am on the brink of a psychotic breakdown (I am).
By the time I wash my face, my mind is painfully etched with a million lines of connection.
I light my incense and kneel at my altar. I say a prayer for the souls of over 20,000 martyrs in Palestine. I pray for their easy and pleasant journey to highest levels of heaven. I pray as fervently as I have seen them do . I pray for Bisan, Motaz, Plestia, Prince Kouta, Hind, and all of the journalists and truth tellers in Gaza who are using what may at any moment be their last words to tell us what is happening, so we can do something about it. Who make mainstream Western journalism look exactly like what it is, Zionist propaganda.
I walk my dog and tap through Instagram stories. I see so many body parts, connected to nothing. Among images of death, there’s a smiling young boy in Gaza collecting rain water for people to drink. Then a grandfather, carrying his martyred granddaughter Reem, reminding her spirit, “You are the soul of my soul.” The Hamas fighter who reminds us that if he wasn’t resisting, maybe he would “be at the beach.”
I make my coffee and swipe on Twitter. Under a woman in Gaza’s last tweet from yesterday, I read replies that are actually prayers for the safe journey of her soul.
My morning routine is unrecognizable to what it was two months ago. I will never be the same, and I never want to be. The death of over 20,000 Palestinians will not be in vain. Because of the steadfast revolutionary spirit of the Palestinian people, my critiques of Western imperialism, militarism, capitalism, and white supremacy have sharpened. I have continued to see the lies of Zionism unravel before my eyes. They like to say it is the most vague, complex, layered, confusing “conflict,” and it is anything but. My studying continues, but as El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz said, “Truth is on the side of the oppressed.” Although I would like to, I don’t and will never need to read 100 books to stand with Palestine. Nobody does.
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I didn’t plan to write this week. Despite my belief that we must make art that “reflects the times” as Nina Simone said, in the last two months between integrating yet resisting genocide, spending a very long week with family, end-of-year-fundraising at my 9-5, organizing a teach-in and art build for Palestine with SPICY (hold the date - Sunday, December 17 in Bed-Stuy!), maintaining the other roles in organizations I overcommit to, and just generally doing the basic tasks I struggle with on the best of days, I decided that it is okay if I don’t feel like I can write right now.
But yesterday, Dr. Refaat Alareer, a Palestinian poet, writer, youth mentor, and professor, was targeted by Israeli forces at his sister’s house where he was martyred with his brother, sister, and her four children. A poet. Was targeted. On October 10th he was interviewed by Democracy Now, and he urged us to mobilize and take to the streets. Holding back tears, he said:
“I am an academic, probably the toughest thing I have at home is an Expo marker, but if Israelis invade, if they charge at us, open door to door to massacre us, I’m going to use that marker to throw it at the Israeli soldiers, even if that is the last thing that I will be able to do.”
In a recent tweet, he shared this poem, “If I must die”:
I had made a note to download some free e-books on Palestine while they are available, and one of them was titled Light in Gaza: Writings Born In Fire. I remembered he had an essay in it, so yesterday as soon as I could I downloaded and read it. It was absolutely heart shattering to read his essay “Gaza Asks: When Shall This Pass?” In it, he describes the weight of living under occupation his whole life, from hearing stories of resistance from elders who barely evaded death, to the stories about the tens of family members who didn’t. From once being a young boy throwing rocks at Israeli soldiers, to teaching young people at Islamic University of Gaza (which now lies in rubble) about the power of writing and storytelling. He told his students, “Writing is a testimony, a memory that outlives any human experience, and an obligation to communicate with ourselves and the world. We lived for a reason, to tell the tales of loss, of survival, and of hope.” And together, he and his students made a book titled Gaza Writes Back, they traveled across America and Europe and they told their stories of life under occupation. Refaat felt this could make a difference for his people.
Heartbreakingly, he then questioned his own beliefs, beliefs I too share: “But can a story or a poem change the mind or the heart of the occupiers? Can a book make a difference? Will this calamity, this occupation, this apartheid pass? It seems it won’t.” He follows, “A few months later, in July 2014, Israel waged its most barbaric campaign of terror and destruction in decades, killing over 2,400 Palestinians and destroying over twenty thousand homes in fifty-one days.”
His revolutionary work changed the lives of his students, and shifted the ways they saw themselves in the world through the use of Shakespeare and other literature. He reflects that while “poetry and stories and literature did not help us or protect us against death and destruction,” there was also a reason why Israel began targeting the university:
“Some say Israel attacked IUG just to punish its twenty thousand students or to push Palestinians to despair. While that is true, to me IUG’s only danger to the Israeli occupation and its apartheid regime is that it is the most important place in Gaza to develop students’ minds as indestructible weapons. Knowledge is Israel’s worst enemy. Awareness is Israel’s most hated and feared foe. That’s why Israel bombs a university: it wants to kill openness and determination to refuse living under injustice and racism.”
The pen doesn’t hold literal bullets, but the knowledge that Refaat exchanged with his students, and is now exchanging with me, with us, will prevent us from ever allowing a world to exist where Palestine does not. I recently learned the term “memoricide” which is the destruction and extermination of the past of a targeted people, a tool in ethnic cleansing. In destroying libraries, mosques, universities, churches, archives, and by specifically targeting journalists, poets, and professors, Israel is making it clear that they want to erase all evidence that Palestinian people ever existed. But because of people like Dr. Refaat Alareer, they will never succeed. If knowledge is Israel’s worst enemy, it is our best weapon.
I wish Refaat was still alive. I wish the stories and books he created with his students prevented this genocide. I feel him deeply because I have also wished and wished that stories, that simple truth would shift our material conditions. But it is more clear than ever that without mass mobilization, organizing, dedication, and discipline for the long haul, we can’t free Palestine. We can’t free anything. And we are already too late, we cannot delay further. Palestine has already been waiting too long to be free.
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I was gifted a ticket by two people I love to see Aja Monet and Mohammed el-Kurd in Brooklyn this past Wednesday. It was a packed and beautiful crowd, keffiyehs sprinkled everywhere. I’ve seen videos of both of them speak online, but seeing them live was a spiritual and cathartic experience. I was moved by their friendship and mentorship as poets; I learned that Aja met Mohammed when he was much younger and she was on a trip to Palestine with the Dream Defenders. She saw him nervously read a poem, she saw a spark in him, and she nurtured it. Seeing them renewed my belief, just as Refaat has, in the power of our words and the need to be fearless and resolute in our convictions. Seeing them reminded me, just as Refaat has, of the care and nurturing we have to offer our revolutionary truth-tellers and artists. While I’m divesting from celebrity culture, I am reinvesting in artists who aren’t afraid to be blacklisted by the Art World.
Towards the end of the show we stepped outside for a cigarette and met a Palestinian woman who told us that she had lost fifty of her family members. I cannot imagine what she was feeling, and I also couldn’t tell from her voice or facial expressions, which were relatively neutral. It reminded me of a video I recently saw of young children playing in Gaza. An Israeli bomb exploded in the background and the two older children continued playing without pause, but the youngest one, not yet accustomed to the sound and shakes of bombardment, jumped. He was quickly comforted by the women in the room with him, and life continued.
But life cannot continue this way. I implore you to sit with these words from Dr. Refaat Alareer, written a year ago:
“Reader, as you peruse these chapters, what can or will you do, knowing that what you do can save lives and can change the course of history? Reader, will you make this matter? Gaza is not and should not be a priority only when Israel is shedding Palestinian blood en masse. Gaza, as the epitome of the Palestinian Nakba, is suffocating and being butchered right in front of our eyes and often live on TV or on social media.”
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Before I end this newsletter, I want send love to everyone doing what they can, publicly and privately, to be in solidarity with the interconnected struggles of Palestine, Congo, Tigray, Sudan, Haiti, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Kashmir, Atlanta and all those around the world who are struggling for freedom from oppression. We are in America, the place where so many strings are pulled that impact life all across the globe. We have a responsibility to not blind ourselves with the perceived comforts of life. With a closer look, you’ll see it isn’t so comfortable here at all (as Mohammed el-Kurd said on Wednesday, we live in a country where the park benches have teeth). Despite our privileges, our government is much closer to fascism than a democracy. If you look even closer, you’ll see the American cities that still don’t have clean water, cities that are divesting heavily from public libraries and preschools, cities that can become flooded to deadly levels in a matter of minutes. You’ll see McCarthyism in full gear as people are getting fired, doxxed, and banned for speaking out against genocide. And if you look a little closer you will see our entire country for what it really is, a settler colony just like Israel.
The grief is never ending but so is the love. I was reminded by Aja’s poem, “unhurt” that I will love, and it will unhurt the world. Will you?
Journal Prompts As You Connect The Dots Between Our Struggles (Playlist Below!)
What did you know about Palestine and Israel before October 7? How does this differ from what you know now?
Your pain isn’t yours alone. How can you connect your pain to the pain of others across the world?
How willing are you to accept new information? In all scenarios, including but not limited to political ones, how easy is it for you to expand your mind?
Business cannot continue as usual. How will you disrupt it?
What are the gaps in your political education that you hope to fill?
What knowledge do you need to confidently defend Palestinian freedom?
There is a myth going around in mainstream media that the young, leftist kiddos are just in a “pro-Palestine phase.” How will you prove them wrong by committing to liberation for the long haul?
In your day to day life, what are ways you could see yourself supporting a liberatory organization? You can reflect on the Social Change Ecosystem Map by Deepa Iyer with roles for movements. I would also urge you to be more creative in how you see your skills: Are you a fearless agitator? Maybe you want to get involved in direct, disruptive actions. Are you an amazing cook? Maybe get involved in a mutual aid food serve. Are you a tech genius? Maybe you can teach others about digital safety.
If you’re able to do the journal prompts, please let me know how it goes and do share any feedback! You can email me at pfdadlani@gmail.com or DM me on Instagram at @priya.florence.
This is a slow and meditative read. I’ve read it twice and am now back a third time to revisit and grasp the meanings I may have missed, to soothe my heart, and deepen my understanding. I know I will back a fourth and fifth time and for each time I come to revisit, I thank you, and I thank Refaat again, and again.