From the West Bank to the Midwest, four authors detail the devastating impacts of the ongoing genocide in Gaza and articulate the heartbreaking and complicated experience of bearing witness to the brutalization of the Palestinian people.
From Jordan
Watching Our Genocide from the East Bank: Absurd Borders and the New Hope of Return
read here
Said Boulos writes, “We might be a nation of mankubin, but the people of the Arab kingdom as old as the Nakba are showing the Arabs and the rest of the world what popular mobilization for Palestine should look like in a global order defined by spheres of influence that render states impotent in the face of genocide and ethnic cleansing. For all the sadness and existential angst that comes with not being able to stop the genocide of our people a walkable distance away in the most violently fragmented place in the world, we stand proud in our inherited resilience.”
From Jerusalem
Taking Up Space, Holding Ground: Jerusalem in a Time of Genocide
read here
R. Isa writes, “Like many, I felt helpless. I cannot stop the US government from supplying the Israeli military with the weapons that are killing my people. I cannot take back my vote for US President Joe Biden, a primary enabler of the genocide of my people. I cannot protect the children and babies being slaughtered, injured, starved, and traumatized in Gaza. All I can do is return to Palestine, return to Jerusalem, and insist on the ineradicable presence of Palestinians.”
From Ramallah
“Whatever Hell Is, This Is Worse”: Digital Exchanges with My Family in Gaza during the Genocide
read here
Bushra K. writes, “In the midst of genocide, WhatsApp has become an unexpected lifeline for me in the West Bank, connecting me with my family and their daily suffering in Gaza. Through the digital whispers of my family’s messages, a story of struggle and human spirit unfolds.”
From Chicago
The Psychic Life of Liberation: From the Shatat
read here
Nadine Naber writes, “This is what I call the psychic life of liberation—those communal forms of knowledge and practice that activate and sustain us. This unspoken psychic life grounds us in the collective power of knowing that we are not alone and that we can—we must—depend on one another to survive.”
