I was honored to be in Paris with 40,000 attendees at this amazing summit of changemakers towards a livable planet: https://www.changenow.world/ I spoke to 300+ attendees on “War, Climate, and Power: Decolonizing Crisis”  followed by book signing for my book “Popular Resistance in Palestine: A
history of Hope and Empowerment.” (the french version) While in Paris I gave other talks and interviews. Only hitch is my phone was stolen but I met and interacted with hundreds of people in one week who are trying to live life as it should be lived: caring for others, loving, and acting against the ongoing genocide and ecocide.

I get daily messages from friends in Iran. The messages from Habib are especially poignant. Here are samples worth reading:

“Salam Mazin: The thirty-second night of the war. Iran has threatened that if even one assassination is carried out in Iran and a family is killed, it will target these companies in the region starting tomorrow night, due to the Pentagon and Mossad’s misuse of American IT companies for widespread assassinations in Iran. It has asked all employees of these companies to stay one kilometer away from these centers. Israel and the United States have destroyed a pharmaceutical company in Iran that manufactures anti-cancer drugs…. When I looked at the name of the company, I saw that I had been purchasing cancer drugs from this company for about a year for my wife, who died a few years ago. The morale here is getting higher and higher every day. Last night, I saw a woman whose eight people, including her children, husband, and son-in-law, had all been killed in an airstrike. She was holding a flag on her shoulder and walking firmly in the street, chanting slogans. This afternoon, I went to a large municipal grocery store with my two grandchildren to buy some chips and biscuits for them, but I saw that the street was closed and they said that it had been bombed and destroyed earlier in the morning. We had no choice but to buy from a smaller store. When idiots start a war that has no strategy and they are only fooled by propaganda that they paid for themselves, this is the result. Killing civilians and destroying infrastructure. The arrogance of dictators in history has always backfired. Neither Napoleon nor Hitler cared about the cold and frost in Moscow. Saddam, like Trump, wanted to take over Iran in a week. For those who do not seek material things and nightclubs, death with dignity is more important than stock market and oil indices. The power of Western materialism comes from scaring other nations, which does not work for our nation. If I were Trump, I would take the expenses of this futile war from Pahlavi and Netanyahu until the last day. Now I’m posting a short video at the bottom of this page of the countless people on the street that I just saw. And when I return home from the street late at night, I’ll try to find and buy two different fruit-flavored candies for my grandchildren to make them happy when they wake up in the morning. Believe me, these are the greatest joys of a grandfather these days. Seeing the sparkle of joy in the eyes of my grandchildren, of course, if the brutal bombings of those who were supposed to liberate us don’t prevent me and my family from seeing the morning. Peace Habib”

“The 33rd day of the war, Thursday. Today is Nature Day in our Iranian calendar, and on the 13th of Farvardin every year, all people leave their homes with their families and go to the deserts and mountains. Some plant trees and plants. And it is considered a day of celebration. For the sake
of my two little grandchildren, I and my two daughters decided to go to Jamshidieh Park with all the risks and spend today with the children. We had just spread a carpet when the news came that in Karaj, on Trump’s orders, two new bridges in Iran were destroyed and people who had come to the nature ceremony on the sides of the bridge were killed and injured. Lunch became bitter in our mouths. For three days, ordinary people have been registering on a site to defend the threatened islands, and the number has so far reached more than six million men and women. Yesterday and today, Iran’s Pasteur Institute, after more than a hundred years of work to produce vaccines, was completely destroyed by American bombs. During the Corona period, this institute’s Iranian vaccines saved our people, including me and my family, despite the sanctions imposed by the United States and Europe. I really don’t know what the definition of a war crime is from the perspective of Western governments anymore. Before sunset, when I was returning from Jamshidieh Park with my grandchildren, we ate a zart over the fire together. How much in times of war and facing death, the taste of everything changes, even a simple zart” Peace Habib

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