It's Free Palestine in this house

It appalls me that we are in the fifth month of the genocide in Palestine. I am so fucking tired of the powers that be — including the US! — bankrolling and approving of this genocide. I am sickened every time I come to write these newsletters and have to type out that this is still happening, because this should have never happened, should never have been allowed to continue for over four months1.

I find that as the days continue and bombing persists, as the Israeli PM demands evacuations from Rafah (to where???), as we hear stories like that of Hind, I grow less capable of carrying on.

Because we are bearing witness to a genocide that is unfathomable, we are seeing it streamed live on Twitter and Instagram, we are hearing the stories of it direct from the mouths of the victims, and yet there are still those who would deny it, those who would shrug and mutter “self-determination” and “self-defense,” those who would turn the tables and villainize the victims.

So let me be clear: I am team Free Palestine. I do not believe that Israel has the right to exist on land that it has ripped from the Indigenous population2 that has cared for it for centuries. This is not to say that I do not believe in safety for Jewish people; it is simply to say that no one has the right to enter another person’s land and rip it from them and oppress them3. And make no mistake: Israel is oppressing Palestinians, and has been for decades. Even if the past 75 years had not happened, the past 127 days of ethnic cleansing constitute oppression. But the past 75 years have happened. To be clear.

Today’s newsletter is not supposed to be just an angry tirade, I had a purpose when I started it, but as I’ve been writing this I’ve re-read the story of Hind, and I have felt my heart crack open and my mind splinter and explain to me how we are carrying on when a six-year-old girl spent the last hours of her life surrounded by her martyred family members, saw salvation on its way only to then die and have her rescuers be killed as well. How is this normal! How is this okay!

It is not normal, it is not okay. I wish the world would come to a stop. I wish that the powers that be — governments and corporations, presidents and CEOs, the people who could convince Israel to stop (or at least stop SENDING WEAPONS THEIR WAY, GEEZ) or who could halt the engines of industry, would wake up and see the horror that is unfolding and act to stop it.

The world has not ground to a stop. Bills have not ceased to flood my email. So I continue to go to work. I continue to function, because I cannot afford not to, and because ultimately, I can do no good to anyone if I am not here to fight. I do not delude myself into believing that I am a big part of this fight. But I am a part of it. I will speak. I will yell. I will holler. I will demand. I will believe.

I will believe in a future where Palestine is free. I will believe in a future where there is peace and the olive trees can be replanted and the sea will be renewed and freedom will ring across the land. I will believe, because faith is powerful.

And if the people of Palestine continue to fight, I will continue to fight as well, with the means I have. I will use my words to spread their stories, to agitate for their freedom. I will use my voice to call upon the powers of my country to free Palestine. I will do what I can, when I can, how I can, with what I have.

And someday, we will celebrate together. A celebration tinged with mourning, because tens of thousands of lives that should celebrate have been snuffed out. It is unfathomable. It is horrendous. It is enough to break a person.

But we will not be broken.

Free Palestine 🇵🇸