Dear friends (read, disseminate, and act),

It is hard to sleep these days especially in besieged bloodied Palestine…the scenes of horrors in the Gaza Strip (and increasingly spreading in the West Bank) are far too graphic, too disturbing. 

Friends are mistreated in jails of colonizers, the few released look physically wasted (skeletons traumatized physically and psychologically). I cannot take their images out of my head (e.g. Basem Tamimi from Nebi Saleh).  Others, like Issa Amro, are beaten by colonial thugs. 

We living under the boots of the Zionazi regime try to be active and productive as best as possible within our capacities and “wiggle room”. The people of the Gaza strip are in dire non-survival mode: seeing their families wiped out, finding no medical care for injured or sick, starving and having no drinkable water, and knowing that hundreds of millions of people around the world are apathetic and that politicians are bought or blackmailed by the evil doers. Is 76 years of colonization and ethnic cleansing enough? Eight million Palestinian made refugees or displaced people. Is that enough? 160,000 Palestinians killed and over a million injured since 1948! Is that enough? 

What more can this colonization project lead to? Maybe an “Australian” or “American” outcome for us indigenous Palestinians? But if more people do not look away but stay human and act human…then maybe just maybe there is hope for what is left of humanity. 

PLEASE give of your time and energy and organize and resist. We must overcome…someday.

Links and updates:

• Israel guilty of ‘extermination, torture, sexual violence‘ in Gaza: UN probe […] comes just days after the UN secretary-general announced plans to include Israel in a blacklist of nations and extremist armed groups harming children in conflict zones.
• The carnage, genocide, and massacres continue.
• UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese wrote on the UN Security Council Resolution:
  “I welcome the #UNSC’s ceasefire resolution of June 10. Pending a full assessment, here are some critical observations: 

1. UNSC cannot infringe people’s right to self determination. UNSC lacks authority to determine “who” will or should rule over Gaza or the rest of the Palestinians (everywhere, starting with the whole occupied Palestinian territory) will have to choose in free and democratic elections, not piloted, controlled or vetoed by outsiders, all the more by those who have committed or supported crimes against them in 8 months of genocidal war. The fear of ideologically “extremist” parties cannot justify interfering with the free will of the people (in Palestine, Israel, Europe or elsewhere). 

2. East Jerusalem is part of the occupied Palestinian territory, with or without mention by the ceasefire resolution, and Israel must withdraw from there as well: #annexation remains unlawful. 

4. Israel, NOT the international community, should pay for the #reconstruction of Gaza. There is something pedagogical in being held accountable for its own crimes, including domicide, scholasticide, and the destruction of the health system. 
5. Healing the wounds of this genocide should remain top priority for the body mandated to ensure peace & security for present and future generations. Now may the UNSC ensure compliance from all concerned parties.’ #ceasefirenow”
   
   

• The US is no longer complicit in genocide. The US is actually committing genocide!
• On June 8, an estimated 100,000 people formed a two-mile “people’s red line” surrounding the White House in Washington, D.C. to protest the genocide in Gaza and the U.S. role in the mass murder of Palestinians.
• This Week in Palestine, themed “Humanitarian Aid to Gaza,” is now accessible online at www.thisweekinpalestine.com.
• Open Letter to Anthony Albanese: ‘Why collusion with this grotesque Israeli government?’

 

If I Must Die, by Refaat Alareer

“If I must die,

you must live

to tell my story

to sell my things

to buy a piece of cloth

and some strings,

(make it white with a long tail)

so that a child, somewhere in Gaza

while looking heaven in the eye

awaiting his dad who left in a blaze—

and bid no one farewell

not even to his flesh

not even to himself—

sees the kite, my kite you made, flying up

above

and thinks for a moment an angel is there

bringing back love

If I must die

let it bring hope

let it be a tale.”

PLEASE Stay Human and keep Palestine alive

 

Mazin Qumsiyeh

A bedouin in cyberspace, a villager at home
Professor, Founder, and (volunteer) Director, Palestine Museum of Natural History
Palestine Institute of Biodiversity and Sustainability, Bethlehem University
Occupied Palestine

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