genocide

Climate Movement Monday: deadly heat in Gaza

/ Tracy Abell / 10 Comments

Welcome back to another Movement Monday in which we talk about the climate crisis and the communities already getting hit the hardest. Today’s post focuses on the people of Gaza who have not only been under attack since October–thousands and thousands of bombs raining down on them no matter where they go–but have also been under siege in terms of deprivation of food, water, medical supplies, and humanitarian aid.  On top of all that, displaced Palestinians faced a record-breaking heatwave that pushed temperatures over 100 degrees as they huddled in tents that became deathly hot. This article from Climate Home News points out the disparity between how the Israelis’ in Tel Aviv and Gazans living in refugee camps handle high temperatures. Spoiler alert:  people in Tel Aviv stay in their air-conditioned homes or travel to the sea to sit under beach umbrellas while Gazans forced to live in nylon tents are losing their children to heat stroke. This week, the temperatures will “only” be in the upper 80s and low 90s, but if you’ve ever slept in a tent not shaded by trees, you know how unbearably hot it gets inside.

Boys carry water bottles in Gaza on May 28, 2024. (Photo: Naaman Omar)

Here’s an excerpt from the Climate Home News article:
The predicament of Gazans forced to endure sweltering conditions in ill-equipped tents is not an isolated problem. Across the world, climate change and war are forcing more and more people out of their homes and into makeshift camps. More than 75 million people are currently displaced inside their own countries – 50% more than five years ago.

Read that last line again: More than 75 million people are currently displaced inside their own countries – 50% more than five years ago. 

If you’re like me, reading something like that can tip you precariously close to despair. But we can also have a different response. We can read something that feels overwhelmingly bad and ask ourselves “what can I do here and now to effect change?” Today I’m going to share some links for ways in which we can help Gazans.

  • MUNICIPALITY OF GAZA is working toward the restoration of sewage treatment, waste management, and access to clean water which will cut down on waterborne illnesses.  You can donate HERE (any amount helps!) If you appreciated Refaat Alareer’s work I shared here (including “If I must die, let it be a tale”), please note that he also ran the social media account for the Municipality of Gaza (@munigaza).
  • GAZA FUNDS is a project that connects people to crowdfunding campaigns for individuals and families from Gaza. Each time the page is reloaded, a different campaign appears. While the rotation is randomized, campaigns for the sick/injured and campaigns close to meeting their goals are prioritized. We never want any of these campaigns to go stagnant, so we make sure to also prioritize fundraisers that haven’t had a donation in a while. As existing fundraisers meet their goals, they will be replaced with other fundraisers that need your help. You can donate HERE. I’ve seen people on Twitter highlighting their $5 donations to several campaigns with the knowledge that those contributions add up as well as give Palestinians the much-needed boost of knowing they haven’t been forgotten by the rest of the world. (more info re the Gaza Funds volunteers here). Also, I’m including the below graphics that offer additional ideas on how to help plus social media account info.

One last note to help make the connection between the United States and what’s happening in Gaza: On May 31, multiple water mains in Atlanta burst and people were/are under a boil water advisory. Many parts of the city are still without water. As I write this, it appears there’s still no clear communication on the water situation and many Atlanta residents are calling out Mayor Andre Dickens for attending a fundraiser on Friday AFTER THE FIRST PIPE BURST. The water infrastructure failure further highlights that the push to build Cop City in Atlanta to the tune of $100 million is the absolute wrong “public safety” initiative needed when the city can’t even provide citizens clean, safe water.

If you’ve read this far, thank you for being here! We’re facing incredibly difficult realities, but we’re much stronger together. Solidarity!✊🏽

“Pocketful of Warding Stones” by Rasha Abdulhadi

/ Tracy Abell / 2 Comments
The following poem and image were published at Poetry Online (a nonprofit organization dedicated to sharing literature and art accessibly) on October 21, 2023.
Pocketful of Warding Stones by Rasha Abdulhadi
…
how much of the weight of time we carry
is the burden the murderers gave us,
and whose ends do we serve to hate
ourselves for not dying as easy as they wanted?
…
what firekeeper can scrape
the char of guilt from this burnt offering,
pull air over embers of grief & longing,
find some flint in the heart left to light?
…
how can we untie living grief from the longing
to have done more, and find instead what
more could yet by our breath be done?
…
we can hold ourselves, responsible yes,
refuse a rebellion captive or complicit
confess instead a broader bravery
on which to spend the coin of our lives.
…
we who untangle loss from creation by blowing it to bits—
why obscure grief, why hoard it or hide its face,
as if a siphon could drain an ocean, no—
let them hear the holes when we sing.
…
every death in war is a casualty, no matter the speed
or how exhausted, how unscaffolded the rebuilding.
i know a hurricane who reached through years and state lines
into lungs hearts and bowels, and snatched souls back to flood.
when the disaster of war or the war of disaster steals homes it steals lives,
and though it may take time to cash them, we know where the blame lies.
…
we ward against the guilt of war
the blistered blessing of surviving our kin, and
around the undefused bombs our bodies hide,
we build a larger house to live in.
…
though the house of sorrow be vast,
give grief her rooms to stalk through
let living longing paint the walls.
can we then deny guilt, that rent-free tenant,
the lease it seeks in the house of grief?
…
refuse them victory on this field at least:
our breathing belongs to us
and is not some shame we owe or stole,
or failed to lose like they wanted us to—
our bellows blow to break knees bent over any neck.
…
i won’t devolve the monument of my body
to the keeping of the state, won’t donate
the corpse of my dreaming
to service the desires of murderers
or their gracious paperwork proctors.
i won’t do the blamework for them.
…
our mothers have been here before, they know
there’s no antidote for the poisons sown in the fields of war
but i will refuse the death machine of the imagination any morsel more
…
at least in my heart, the war can’t have you, my friend—
and wherever the last domino of my body falls,
let me land as a gear-breaking wedge—
the murder wheel won’t win my shame.
i won’t let them kill me before i die
and i offer you the same.
——————————-
Rasha Abdulhadi is calling on you, dear reader, to join them in refusing and resisting the genocide of the Palestinian people. Wherever you are, whatever sand you can throw on the gears of genocide, do it now. If it’s a handful, throw it. If it’s a fingernail full, scrape it out and throw. Get in the way however you can. The elimination of the Palestinian people is not inevitable. We can refuse with our every breath and action. We must.

On this Memorial Day

/ Tracy Abell / 6 Comments

Today, as neighbors fly their red-white-and-blue flags and the U.S. government-sponsored slaughter of Palestinians in Rafah reaches new levels of horror, my thoughts are on Aaron Bushnell who was a 25-year-old active serviceman (U.S. Air Force). On February 25, Bushnell self-immolated in front of the Israeli Embassy in Washington. D.C.

Before setting himself on fire, Bushnell said this: “I will no longer be complicit in genocide. I’m about to engage in an extreme act of protest, but compared to what people have been experiencing in Palestine at the hands of their colonizers it’s not extreme at all. This is what our ruling class has decided will be normal.”  His final words were “Free Palestine.”

I wanted to highlight Aaron Bushnell today, in part, because I also want to highlight the reality of the U.S. military that recruits desperate people who see no other way to build a future for themselves. Levi Pierpont went through basic training with Aaron Bushnell and the two became friends. After a year-long process, Pierpont was released from the military as a conscientious objector in 2023. In this opinion piece published after Bushnell’s death, Pierpont wrote of the talks he’d had with fellow service-people about wanting to get out of the military before their contracts expired:

During the process, I had so many conversations with fellow military members, a great many of whom could relate to the way I felt. One member spoke frankly with me, admitting that she had serious concerns with supporting the military. However, faced with the high costs of medical care outside the military, she commented: “If I have to sell my soul to the devil to get my children healthcare, that’s what I have to do.” [emphasis mine].

Think about that: because the elites have decided we in the U.S. can’t have universal healthcare, young people are forced to make the excruciating decision to inflict violence on strangers around the world–literally blowing up men, women, and children–so that their own children will get the medical care they need.

According to Pierpont, there are also those in the military who are unable to carry the burden of their role in violence and destruction. The above paragraph ends with this:  “Others were considering taking their lives as the only way to escape, and had no hope that they could make it to the end of their contract.”

I wonder how many of those flying flags today think about the despair felt by military personnel. How many of those flag-wavers would support service members who’ve served this country and now want out after realizing that what they’re being forced to do is an affront to their consciences and souls? What exactly does it mean to “support our troops”?

Today I honor Aaron Bushnell who made his own excruciating decision to very publicly protest the U.S.’s role in the genocide in Gaza. To be very clear, that’s not a death I wanted for him or for any of us who feel so much anger and despair about the slaughter and destruction being carried out in our names. Instead, I want an end to U.S. imperialism and the military industrial complex so that corporations no longer get rich off death and destruction. I want an end to people being forced to commit violence because their own country treats them violently via not providing for their material needs such as food, housing, healthcare, and clean air/water. In the meanwhile, I made a donation in honor of Bushnell and Pierpont to the non-profit Center on Conscience & War that “advocates for the rights of conscience, opposes military conscription, and serves all conscientious objectors to war.”

Aaron Bushnell’s final Facebook post (since removed) said this:
“Many of us like to ask ourselves, “What would I do if I was alive during slavery? Or the Jim Crow South? Or apartheid? What would I do if my country was committing genocide?”

The answer is, you’re doing it. Right now.”

Rest in power, Aaron Bushnell.

********

Final note: In reading more about Aaron Bushnell, I learned about an earlier act of self-immolation in December 2023 by an unidentified woman holding a Palestinian flag in New York City. At the time of the article’s publication, the woman remained hospitalized in stable condition.

On this Nakba Day

/ Tracy Abell / 10 Comments

Today is Nakba Day. What is Nakba Day? A Brief History 

There are many, many heartbreaking stories of what Palestinians endured as a result of that ethnic cleansing and displacement. One of the faculty members who spoke at the Auraria Campus encampment commencement ceremony on Sunday told us of their father and grandparents’ Nakba experience in which they walked to Syria, only to be told they weren’t welcome, then walked to Lebanon where they were forbidden entrance, and finally ended up in Nazareth. According to the speaker, their father refused to accept life as a “refugee” and later came to the U.S.

Image from Wikimedia Commons

These stories are painful and filled with heartache and injustice, but we cannot pretend Nakba didn’t happen (or that it isn’t playing out again right now). Many in the Jewish community refuse to stay silent and are in solidarity with Palestinians. The following email came this morning from If Not Now and, in the final paragraph, has links to further resources about the Nakba, along with a link for Gaza donations:

Today we mark 76 years since the Nakba, or catastrophe, when over 750,000 Palestinians were ethnically cleansed from their homes and countless villages were wiped off the map during the establishment of the State of Israel. The Israeli government has continued the Nakba by carrying out a policy of land expropriation and deprivation of Palestinians’ fundamental rights from 1948 through today.

As we bear witness to the continuation of the Nakba over the decades, we recognize the chilling parallels between 1948 and today’s catastrophe in Gaza, as the Israeli military slaughters tens of thousands of Palestinians and forces over a million people from their homes – the largest displacement of Palestinians since 1948. 

This history — together with our history as Jews of facing ethnic cleansing and mass slaughter — compels us to call for an end to the Israeli military’s genocidal assault on Gaza and to work towards an equal, just, and thriving future for all Palestinians and Israelis, free from ethnic cleansing, violence, apartheid, and oppression that reckons with and addresses the Nakba and other injustices.

You can listen to the stories of Palestinians who lived through the Nakba at the Nakba Archive. Learn more about the history and its consequences at Zochrot. Follow, amplify, and contribute to @gazafunds on Twitter/X.

In Solidarity,
Em, IfNotNow

It’s Tracy again. If you’ve read this far, thank you.
Free Palestine!

Day 192 of the genocidal war on Palestinians

/ Tracy Abell / 12 Comments

Nobody but the military industrial complex, the Zionists, and AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) recipients in the House and Senate want this slaughter to continue. I don’t want it and I’m guessing you don’t want it, either.

Billions and billions of dollars are being handed over to Israel, without condition, so that it may continue to destroy the people and infrastructure of Gaza. This would NOT be  possible without full-throated support from the United States. Biden could make one phone call to put an immediate stop to the carnage. Instead? Israel has been emboldened by U.S. support and is now opening slaughtering Palestinian children at a refugee camp playground.

Know what would be cool?  Sanctions against Israel. Instead, today the U.S. announced sanctions against Iran. Because, yanno, Iran’s drone program has killed over 34,000 people, mostly women and children, disabled thousands more, destroyed every hospital and university, and used mass starvation as a weapon . Oh, wait! It’s Israel (“the only democracy in the Middle East”) that’s killed over 34,000 people by dropping 70,000 tons of Made-in-the-U.S. explosives on the Palestinians.

There are so many grotesque layers to all this. For instance, Israeli Firms Are Working Overtime to Sell Stolen Palestinian Land to US Jews. And the suppression of pro-Palestinian voices continues as USC refuses to allow its Valedictorian to speak at graduation because she linked to a pro-Palestinian page on her Instagram account. You may read Valedictorian Asna Tabassum’s statement HERE. EDITED TO ADD: Right after posting, I saw that the House just passed a Resolution: Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that the slogan, “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” is antisemitic and its use must be condemned. Truly pathetic.

I know many are tired of reading about Gaza, tired of thinking about the horrors, and tired of not being heard. When I made calls this morning to the the White House comment line and my Representative and two Senators, my blood pressure went into overdrive with the knowledge that my supposed representatives in this supposed democracy do not care one iota about my opinions. While that may be true, they still must hear from us. These genocide-enablers do not get a free pass! They need to know we are watching and understanding that this brutal assault on Palestinians could happen to any of us, anywhere around the world. They need to know we object.

Please don’t look away. Please don’t stop making noise and disrupting “business as usual.” Please remember our shared humanity and don’t allow your heart to harden. Palestine will be free.

Solidarity!

Palestinian poetry and artwork

/ Tracy Abell / 4 Comments

The following poem by Palestinian-American Fady Joudah and artwork by children’s book illustrator Sohila Khaled come from the recently published Poems for Palestine which was created by Publishers for Palestine. They’ve provided a PDF of the chapbook and we are encouraged to share the work widely. (click to enlarge images)

 

I also wanted to share this TIME article (by Armani Syed)  from early January: How Poetry Became a Tool of Resistance for Palestinians which ends with this from  George Abraham, a Palestinian-American poet: “. . . it’s imperative that poetry is just one tool in the process for Palestinian liberation and resistance against ethnic cleansing. 

“Poetry can’t stop a bullet. Poetry won’t free a prisoner. And that’s why we need to do the political organizing work as well,” they say. “But if we can’t imagine a free liberated world in language, how can we build one?”

Free Palestine!

Day 155 of the genocidal war on Palestinians

/ Tracy Abell / 9 Comments

Today is Day 155 of the brutal assault on Gaza. Over 30,000 have been killed, 70% of them women and children.  Sunset tomorrow marks the beginning of Ramadan, the Muslim holy month. Currently, 1.5 million Palestinians are crowded into Rafah, the southernmost city in Gaza, the region they fled to because the Israelis kept telling them to move south to “safe zones.” Every so-called safe zone has been bombed and destroyed and now those traumatized, starving, desperate people are facing the imminent Israeli ground invasion of Rafah, an invasion fully sponsored by the United States. (Genocide Joe is an ardent Zionist and in 1982 revealed to then-Prime Minister, Menachem Begin, Biden’s willingness to slaughter Palestinian women and children, a statement so callous it stunned the militant Zionist PM.)

The situation is horrifying on every single level. PLEASE continue to contact your reps (to make them uncomfortable, if nothing else), demanding an immediate and permanent ceasefire + an end to aid to Israel. Food and supplies must be allowed in!  The performative airdrops are literally killing Palestinians, as they are either targeted by Israel while trying to retrieve the food or are crushed by a pallet.

The following artwork and poem come from POEMS FOR PALESTINE. I shared another poem and illustration from this collection here and you may go here for a free download of the entire chapbook. Publishers for Palestine encourages us to read and share widely!

Artwork: Hassan Manasrah
@hassan.manasrah.illustrations

NOTE: The poem is a screenshot because I wanted to preserve the poet’s spacing. Click on it for an easier read.

In our thousands, in our millions

/ Tracy Abell / 12 Comments

Note: I’m still feeling the affects of general anesthesia and pain medication, and ask that you excuse any typos and/or poorly stated thoughts in the following.

On Tuesday, I had some major dental work done. I’d known it was needed for a couple months and experienced quite a bit of anxiety in advance. However, that anxiety was greatly lessened by the knowledge that I’d be under general anesthesia. I recognize my privilege in all this, which boils down to: (A) me being able to afford that additional expense and (B) anesthesia being widely available in my community which isn’t under siege from an occupying power.

I cannot imagine having that work done without all that medication. As the nurse anesthesiologist prepped me Tuesday morning, I thought about Palestinians in Gaza forced to have limbs amputated without pain medication as the neighborhood around them is blown up by bombs the U.S. sends to Israel. I thought about Palestinian women giving birth while buried beneath rubble and others delivering their babies via cesarean without pain medication. I thought about how frightened I was to have my procedure, despite the calm circumstances

I won’t go into specific horrors inflicted on Gaza and the West Bank right now.  What I will say is that none of us are separate from what’s happening. The genocide, ethnic cleansing, displacement, starvation, rampant diseases, the Israeli settlers who devote their days to blocking humanitarian aid (some setting up a bouncy castle and others throwing a dance party), the plundering of Palestinian homes and possessions, etc. None of us are insulated against that brutality.

In our thousands, in our millions, we are all Palestinians!

Ehab of DIRECT AID FOR GAZA

The powerful elites aren’t listening to our calls for an immediate and permanent ceasefire, but we can still alleviate a little pain and trauma. PLEASE, as you can:

  • UNRWA donation
  • Donate esims which allow people in Gaza to communicate with family, friends, and the outside world. Go to gazaesims.com to learn how to purchase and donate esims OR donate money HERE for the purchase and distribution of esims. NOTE: there are discount codes at both links.
  • Direct Aid to Gaza: donate via PayPal for mutual aid efforts in Gaza

I’ll stop here as I need to apply ice to my swollen face, but I thank you if you’ve read this far. Solidarity!

Sunday Confessional: on feeling powerless

/ Tracy Abell / 7 Comments

I haven’t been here much lately because reality feels so very hard. Don’t think anyone would argue with that sentiment, but I do know that many would argue against giving up. And they’re right. Despite the fact that these are incredibly dark days in which we’re facing multiple crises funded and enabled by the powerful elite–people who live insulated lives and truly do not care what the rest of us think and want–that doesn’t mean we can drop out of the struggle. There’s so much to fight for–people and planet.

So, today I’m dipping back in on a small scale. Here is a wee mouse that was hanging out below one of our bird feeders.

January 16, 2024

It was brutally cold that day and this little mouse was out doing what needed doing in order to survive. They weren’t giving up without a fight.

I won’t, either.

Excerpt from “From the River to the Sea: Essays for a Free Palestine”

/ Tracy Abell / 4 Comments

As mentioned before, Haymarket Books is offering a free ebook of “From the River to the Sea: Essays for a Free Palestine.”

I’m going to share an excerpt from the essay “No human being can exist” by Saree Makdisi (25 October 2023) which focuses on the treatment Palestinians receive when interviewed by Western journalists and the impossible task of a “[making] up for seven decades of misrepresentation and willful distortion in the time allotted to a sound bite.” 

What we are not allowed to say, as Palestinians speaking to the Western media, is that all life is equally valuable. That no event takes place in a vacuum. That history didn’t start on 7 October, 2023, and if you place what’s happening in the wider historical context of colonialism and anticolonial resistance, what’s most remarkable is that anyone in 2023 should be still surprised that conditions of absolute violence, domination, suffocation, and control produce appalling violence in turn. During the Haitian revolution in the early nineteenth century, formerly enslaved people massacred white settler men, women, and children. During Nat Turner’s revolt in 1831, insurgent enslaved people massacred white men, women, and children. During the Indian uprising of 1857, Indian rebels massacred English men, women, and children. During the Mau Mau uprising of the 1950s, Kenyan rebels massacred settler men, women, and children. At Oran in 1962, Algerian revolutionaries massacred French men, women, and children. Why should anyone expect Palestinians–or anyone else–to be different? To point these things out is not to justify them; it is to understand them. Every single one of these massacres was the result of decades or centuries of colonial violence and oppression, a structure of violence Frantz Fanon explained decades ago in The Wretched of the Earth.

What we are not allowed to say, in other words, is that if you want the violence to stop, you must stop the conditions that produced it. You must stop the hideous system of racial segregation, dispossession, occupation, and apartheid that has disfigured and tormented Palestine since 1948, consequent upon the violent project to transform a land that has always been home to many cultures, faiths, and languages into a state with a monolithic identity that requires the marginalization or outright removal of anyone who doesn’t fit. And that while what’s happening in Gaza today is a consequence of decades of settler-colonial violence and must be placed in the broader history of that violence to be understood, it has taken us to places to which the entire history of colonialism has never taken us before.

I highly recommend reading this essay in its entirety, along with the rest of the book. It’s not easy reading, but it’s vital that we acknowledge what’s happening. We must never stop talking about Palestine.

PLEASE: Take action on behalf of UNRWA

/ Tracy Abell / 10 Comments

I’ve reached my limit with those who either cheer on or can’t be bothered by genocide, starvation, and collective punishment in Gaza and the West Bank.  Unfortunately, it’s not only the unhinged person from Tel Aviv who leaves comments here (which, fortunately, are treated as spam by WordPress), but the Biden administration and the vast majority of the House and Senate who are proudly showing the world that they are soulless ghouls. I cry a lot these days.

I’m going to put background info below, but here’s my ask: please personalize the Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) letter HERE to pressure your electeds to demand that the Biden administration reverse its heinous decision to stop funding the UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees). Bonus points if you also call their offices to demand that UNRWA be funded again! Also, if you’re able to donate to UNRWA, do that HERE. (More on the dire funding situation below)

Image copied from JVP/The Wire article

Basically, UNRWA was established in 1949 for the welfare of Palestinian refugees who were removed from their land. This “who we are” from UNRWA explains more.

Go HERE for JVP’s piece yesterday about how Israel’s unsubstantiated claims that UNRWA workers were involved on October 7 has resulted in sixteen (!) countries cutting funding to UNRWA.

Go HERE to read today’s statement from UNRWA titled “THE GAZA STRIP: HUMANITARIAN CRISIS DEEPENS AT A TIME FUNDING SUSPENSIONS PUT UNRWA AID OPERATIONS IN PERIL”
Spoiler alert: if funding isn’t reinstated, they will most likely have to stop operations at the end of February.

Thank you so very much if you’ve read this far and taken action. Really and truly, I appreciate you and your compassion. ❤️

Edited to add: YouTube video interview between Owen Jones and Chris Gunness, the former chief spokesperson for UNRWA.

#KidLit4Ceasefire: collecting signatures

/ Tracy Abell / 1 Comment

I write for young readers, otherwise known as children, and am grateful for those in the kidlit community who’ve used their considerable platforms to lead after crafting a powerful letter to Biden and other electeds regarding the ongoing genocide in Gaza where there are one million children. Shout-out to Sandra Proudman, Sara Solara, Agnes Monodaze, Tiffany Liu, Rhonda Roumani, Emma Ilene, NoNieqa Ramos, Beth Phelan, and the team at Books for Palestine!

PLEASE read the letter below (citations in link) and add your voice to the global chorus calling for an end to this genocidal madness. As of an hour ago, the letter has nearly 5,000 signatures! We’re at the halfway point of this campaign which ends at the end of day on January 28 AND halfway to the goal of 10,000 signatures. Add your name to increase the impacts of this effort.

Who can sign? Writers, illustrators, agents, editors, other publishing talent, readers, reviewers, librarians, and teachers. If you’ve ever read and enjoyed a children’s book, you are part of the kidlit community. 🙂  

Here’s the powerful letter:

Dear President Biden, We’ve come together as children’s authors, illustrators, agents, editors, and other publishing professionals across the U.S. and beyond who have witnessed the indiscriminate bombing and ground invasions of Gaza by Israeli forces over the last 100+ days. These attacks have resulted in more than 31,000 Palestinians killed. 12,000 of these victims are children of a median reported age of five years old (1). Thousands more Palestinian children still remain buried in rubble and are unaccounted for. This is an impossible number to comprehend for anyone who honors the sanctity of life.

It is estimated that Israeli forces have destroyed 70% of homes (2) and displaced 85% of the population in Gaza (1). Approximately one million children are without shelter, food, and safety as a result of Israel’s military dropping over 65,000 tons of bombs in Gaza (3), targeting civilian homes, hospitals, holy places, and educational facilities. The U.S. government has provided 15,000 bombs to Israel, along with $3.8 billion a year in military funding paid with our tax dollars (4).

Thousands of Palestinian children have been permanently disfigured, with over 1,000 suffering the amputation of one or more limbs, in an area half the size of Austin (5). It is estimated that 10 more children undergo amputations without anesthesia with every passing day (6). In addition, Israeli forces have used white phosphorus (7), an internationally banned chemical weapon, to inflict burns so severe that doctors have not been able to treat them properly given the scarcity of medicine under the Israeli blockade on Gaza. As a group of Palestinian kids shared in their own press conference held outside Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City on Nov. 7, 2023, “The occupation is starving us. We don’t find water, food, and we drink from the unusable water. We come now to shout and invite you to protect us … We want to live as the other children live.” It is likely that at least some of these children pleading for their lives have been killed in the attacks since, as the Israeli military kills a Palestinian child every 10 minutes (8).

At the time of this writing, journalists in Gaza, more than 110 of whom have been killed by targeted sniper attacks and bombings, have risked their lives to report that Gaza’s last functioning hospital is under attack. All in the middle of a telecommunications blackout that has left Palestinians unable to even call for first responders. Social reports have shown that Palestinian children are dying not only from their injuries, but also from cardiac arrest and seizures due to traumatic stress and exhaustion as bombs rain down on them all day and night long. They are dying of hunger, thirst, cold, cancer, and other pre-existing illnesses (9). Furthermore, premature babies relying on incubators and other vulnerable patients are dying because the Israeli government has cut off Gaza’s electricity and fuel supply (10). The children of Gaza are in desperate need of humanitarian and medical aid to survive. So many children have lost their entire families that a horrific new designation “Wounded Child, No Surviving Family (WCNSF)” has officially been coined by the UN as a result of this unprecedented violence in Gaza.

UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell has clearly stated: “Children at high risk of dying from malnutrition and disease desperately need medical treatment, clean water and sanitation services, but the conditions on the ground do not allow us to safely reach children and families in need . . . Some of the material we desperately need to repair and increase water supply remain restricted from entering Gaza. The lives of children and their families are hanging in the balance. Every minute counts.”

As children’s publishing professionals, we create our work for the sake of all the children in the world–without exception. Our collective conscience compels us to call for our leaders to protect the most vulnerable and precious members of our global society. We oppose Israel’s mass killings, with the vastly documented intent to destroy all Palestinian people (11). These actions clearly constitute acts of genocide, as reported in the irrefutable case brought by South Africa at the International Court of Justice, and must be treated as such. We are deeply alarmed that you’ve blocked a ceasefire that would have stopped these killings at the UN, bypassed Congress twice to send Israel $253.5 million in additional weapons last month (12), and requested another $14.3 billion in weapons to be used in these mass killings.

We are adding our voices to the widespread call from U.S. Congressmembers, UN General Assembly, WHO, UNICEF, Jewish Voice for Peace, Doctors Without Borders, Amnesty International, The International Committee of the Red Cross, and many other organizations—along with millions of U.S. citizens. As advocates for children, we demand that you, the President of the United States, along with the U.S. Congress, immediately join the leaders worldwide who are calling for a permanent ceasefire in order to safeguard the future of every Palestinian child still living in Gaza and the West Bank, as children in Gaza have grown up trapped under siege all their lives—to give them a chance at the joy and freedom that every child around the world deserves.

There is undoubtedly an immensely long road of healing for the one million children in Gaza and their families who have been reduced to human collateral since the tragedies of October 7th, ones that we also grieve. Our deepest desire now is that the children and all civilians affected are immediately allowed the chance to start healing. Every minute counts.

President Biden, we call for a PERMANENT CEASEFIRE NOW and an end to the siege on Gaza.

Here’s the link to the full document, including the letter, citations, signatures gathered thus far (there is an option to sign without displaying your name), graphics and text to share, plus further actions you can take on behalf of Palestine during this week of the Global Strike. PLEASE share with your networks!

Thank you for speaking out on behalf of Palestinian children and their families! Solidarity! 🇵🇸 ✊🏽

From the River to the Sea: Essays for a Free Palestine

/ Tracy Abell / 5 Comments

Haymarket Books is offering an additional FREE ebook related to Palestine, a title that is very appropriate in light of today’s declaration of genocidal intent from Netanyahu: “And therefore I clarify that in any other arrangement, in the future, the state of Israel has to control the entire area from the river to the sea.”

Perhaps you’ve heard about college students losing their housing, scholarships, internships, jobs, and being doxxed for using the phrase “from the river to the sea [Palestine shall be free]”?  That’s because when that phrase is used in relation to Palestinian liberation, people have clutched their pearls and insisted they feel threatened, which has resulted in a whole lot of discriminatory actions leveled at those speaking out for Palestine. (My thoughts on that here.) But when the Israeli Prime Minister announces to the world that Palestinians will be wiped out from the river to the sea, nothing happens to him. He gets more funding, more weaponry, more intel from the U.S.

Anyway, the new FREE ebook (although you’re free to make a donation to Haymarket Books 🙂 ) is From the River to the Sea: Essays for a Free Palestine edited by Sai Englert, Michal Schatz, et al.

Here’s the info from Haymarket Books:
“From the River to the Sea: Essays for a Free Palestine collects personal testimonies from within Gaza and the West Bank, along with essays and interviews that collectively provide crucial histories and analyses to help us understand how we got to the nightmarish present. They place Israel’s genocidal campaign within the longer history of settler colonialism in Palestine, and Hamas within the longer histories of Palestinian resistance and the so-called “peace process.” They explore the complex history of Palestine’s relationship to Jordan, Egypt, and the broader Middle East, the eruption of unprecedented anti-Zionist Jewish protest in the US, the alarming escalation in state repression of Palestine solidarity in Britain and Europe, and more. Taken together, the essays comprising this collection provide important grounding for the urgent discussions taking place across the Palestine solidarity movement.”

Also, there are three other free ebooks available (scroll down to the bottom of page). One of them, LIGHT IN GAZA, I’ve highlighted here, here, and here. It’s an incredible collection of essays and poems about life in occupied Gaza, and I highly recommend it.

Thank you for caring enough about Palestinian people to learn about their lives, hopes, and dreams. Please continue making those calls and sending emails demanding a permanent ceasefire and end to all aid to Israel. Solidarity!

From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!

Climate Movement Monday: MLK and mutuality

/ Tracy Abell / 8 Comments

Welcome back to Movement Mondays as we honor the formidable Martin Luther King, Jr. He was a trailblazer in terms of justice and equality, and clearly articulated the threats of racism, capitalism, materialism, and militarism, so it’s sometimes hard to believe he was only 39 years old when murdered. Fortunately, he left us the legacy of his words and actions.

World Telegram & Sun photo by Dick DeMarsico.    November 6, 1964

Today, I want to focus on this passage from MLK’s final Christmas sermon delivered in 1967: “It really boils down to this: that all life is interrelated. We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied into a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. … We aren’t going to have peace on Earth until we recognize this basic fact of the interrelated structure of all reality.”

Those words can be applied to justice and equality, the environment, and the current genocide in Gaza. While it might feel tempting to avert our gaze from the many, many bad things currently being done to people and planet, that’s not a viable path forward because violence against one is violence against all. All life is interrelated.

In that spirit, I’d like to offer some info, starting with a way to help Palestinians communicate (note: yesterday was Day 100 of Israel’s campaign of annihilation). Israel has imposed a blackout on communication and internet access, but eSIMs allow Palestinians to stay connected to friends, family, and the outside world.
The donation process is easy:
1) go to esim.holafly.com
2) select either Israel or Egypt as country (you can buy for 5 days up to 20 days)
3) use promocode HOLACNG for 5% discount
4) Screenshot the QR code (you will receive an email after making purchase)
5) Send that screenshot to gazaesims@gmail.com
6) know that you are helping fellow humans who are enduring terrifying circumstances (here is the full exchange)

And now I’ll share a bit of info about the fight to force the Department of Energy (DOE) to pause the permits for new Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) terminals. In case you need an LNG refresher, I wrote about them in early November 2023. The next facility up for approval is CP2 on the Gulf Coast in Louisiana. Per Bill McKibben, if approved, CP2 “will produce 20 times more emissions than the controversial Willow oil complex over its lifetime. If the industry gets everything they’ve asked for, US LNG exports will produce more greenhouse gas emissions than…Europe. All of it. This is the biggest fossil fuel expansion project currently underway on planet earth.” (Highly recommend reading his entire piece here.)

A huge coalition of environmental and climate justice groups will stage a sit-in outside the DOE building in Washington, D.C., on February 6-8th. 

Go here to sign a petition that tells Biden and Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm to Stop New LNG exports AND sign-up for the sit-in AND read the full invitation from the coalition. I’m guessing many of us won’t be able to travel to D.C., but we’re still invited to attend virtual trainings on nonviolent protest because it’s good information to have as we face intensified climate collapse.  Go here for info on trainings (January 18; January 25; February 1). NOTE: There are supposedly other actions around the country in support of the big D.C. sit-in and I will share info on those when I find it. 🙂

There are two bits of good news about these LNG terminals.
One, per Healthy Gulf: “The Louisiana Department of Natural Resources (LDNR) has announced that it will not grant a Coastal Use Permit to Venture Global for its CP Express pipeline, associated with the proposed Calcasieu Pass 2 (CP2) methane gas export facility, until the company responds to comments submitted by Healthy Gulf and partners. Read the decision letter from LDNR here.”
Two, per Politico on January 8: The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is “reviewing whether it is properly accounting for the climate impacts from a proposed project as well as the national security and the domestic economic consequences.”

And this is precisely why the big February action in D.C. is so important: to keep putting pressure on Biden to live up to his promises to transition off fossil fuels.

If you’ve read this far, thank you for being here! I appreciate your friendship and engagement in these very dark days. I’ll end with one last quote from MLK: “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”

May we all continue showing up and speaking out. Solidarity! ✊🏽

Quick action on behalf of Palestinians!

/ Tracy Abell / 6 Comments

On Thursday, I wrote about courageous South Africa filing genocide charges against Israel in the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Today, Truthout published this excellent piece that alerted me to a letter-writing campaign in support of South Africa’s efforts. So, I’m back to ask you to PLEASE use this template to write one letter that will be automatically sent to the United Nations Consulates of Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Jordan, Turkey, Ireland, Honduras, Bolivia, Belize, Algeria, and Pakistan. Because those countries are parties to the Genocide Convention, they can file a Declaration of Intervention with the IJC in support of South Africa’s efforts.

We in the U.S. are NOT being represented by our government. The majority of people want a permanent ceasefire and do not support the genocide being funded by the U.S. government. Our only hope is to put pressure on other countries to follow through on their declarations of outrage regarding Israel’s campaign of collective punishment. Unless they do so, Israel will continue to act with impunity.

PLEASE, take a few minutes to personalize this letter (I wrote about the frustration of my so-called representatives’ lack of response to my phone calls, emails, protests, etc., and also shortened the template message). It’s also good to personalize the Subject line. Our letters carry more weight when we write in our own words because it shows we really and truly care about what’s happening. RootsAction and World Beyond War created the template and so far, nearly 180,000 letters have been sent. PLEASE, add your voice to the global chorus calling out in support of Palestinians!

Thank you in advance. ❤️ Solidarity! ✊🏽

Thankful Thursday: South Africa charges Israel with genocide

/ Tracy Abell / 6 Comments

It’s very fitting that South Africa, a former apartheid state, is the country that recently filed charges against Israel in the International Court of Justice.

South Africa asserts that Israel is in violation of the Geneva Convention. From the 84-page document‘s Introduction:
The acts and omissions by Israel complained of by South Africa are genocidal in character because they are intended to bring about the destruction of a substantial part of the Palestinian national, racial and ethnical group, that being the part of the Palestinian group in the Gaza Strip (‘Palestinians in Gaza’). The acts in question include killing Palestinians in Gaza, causing them serious bodily and mental harm, and inflicting on them conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction. The acts are all attributable to Israel, which has failed to prevent genocide and is committing genocide in manifest violation of the Genocide Convention, and which has also violated and is continuing to violate its other fundamental obligations under the Genocide Convention, including by failing to prevent or punish the direct and public incitement to genocide by senior Israeli officials and others.

I have not read the entire document (not even close), but here is video of British newspaper columnist, Owen Jones, breaking down the contents. Confession: it was difficult getting through the entire video due to the sheer volume of horrifying details about Israel’s genocidal campaign, but it felt important to bear witness to what’s happening in my name. (Note: the video link also allows you to “show transcript” if you’d rather read or want to read along. OR, you can watch with subtitles via Twitter)

This from the end of Owen Jones’s video (~ 32:00 mark):
This is why South Africa’s case is so important. A ruling by the court could take years but we don’t have years so South Africa has asked for something else as well for the court to order in the meantime: for Israel to cease its operations in Gaza, to desist from the forced displacement of Palestinians, and allow Gazans to get access to humanitarian aid. That would mean foreign States who then facilitate Israel’s current action would find themselves criminally liable.

Predictably, White House National Security Council spokesperson, John Kirby, referred to the filing as “meritless, counterproductive, and completely without any basis in fact whatsoever.” (Um, the filing contains 574 footnotes, not to mention that the entire world is watching this genocide!)

I haven’t watched it yet, but Owen Jones made another video on South Africa’s filing, this one with human rights lawyer Daniel Machover. (Fun fact: In 1967, after Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Daniel Machover’s father, who was born to a Jewish family in Tel Aviv, plus 11 others, signed this statement:

If only Israel had aligned itself with that statement which saw far into the country’s future.

As for South Africa’s filing, since the U.S. is the bully of the planet, I’m not holding my breath. But I will watch the video with Daniel Machover and see what he thinks could happen. Either way, we should all be grateful to South Africa for stepping up in this moment.  It’s increasingly difficult to maintain my civility when placing calls to Biden and my so-called representatives who continue to insist Israel is merely defending itself (via mass starvation?!), and I would love for all of them to someday be held complicit in this genocide. A woman can dream, right?

No matter what happens, I remain in steadfast support of a Free Palestine.

Let’s talk about “from the river to the sea”

/ Tracy Abell / 4 Comments

Yesterday,  I read and commented on a blog I’ve followed and interacted with for years. The poster is Jewish and wrote about, among other things, their fear at the way people on social media and college campuses are voicing solidarity with Palestinian people. There was much in the blog post that made me shake my head, but my comment focused on what is meant when we say “from the river to the sea.” Here’s what I wrote:

If I may, [name redacted], “from the river to the sea” does not call for the eradication of Jewish people. Rather, it is a call for Palestinian people who are now living under apartheid to live with the equality, freedom, and dignity accorded others. It is a call for Palestinians to have free movement from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. I don’t believe anyone should feel threated by the liberation of an oppressed people. 

A protester holds a placard reading ‘From the river to the sea, we demand equality’, during a protest in solidarity with Palestinians, in Berlin, Germany, Nov. 4 2023.      Clemens Bilan

They pushed back on my comment which started all sorts of thoughts swirling in my head, but because I didn’t want to step further into their space to examine this issue, I’m putting those thoughts here.

I kept waking last night, my thoughts immediately on the reactions to those six words–from the river to the sea–and how it’s deeply racist and Islamophobic to believe that freeing Palestinians from apartheid would result in the slaughter of Jewish people. Also, I couldn’t stop thinking about how those six words are being used to silence opposition to this genocide happening before our very eyes. When I woke, I found an eloquent piece on this very issue written in 2018  by an associate professor in the School of Middle Eastern and North African Studies  at the University of Arizona.  Dismissing or ignoring what this phrase means to the Palestinians is yet another means by which to silence Palestinian perspectives. Citing only Hamas leaders’ use of the phrase, while disregarding the liberationist context in which other Palestinians understand it, shows a disturbing level of ignorance about Palestinians’ views at best, and a deliberate attempt to smear their legitimate aspirations at worst. You may read the entire piece HERE.

As I struggled to fall back asleep, I also couldn’t stop thinking about the 13 year-old boy in southern California who last week was suspended for three days for saying “Free Palestine” after another kid called him a terrorist. As you can see HERE, the principal’s reason for suspension: “Said threatening remarks to a young lady in class. He said, ‘Free Palestine.'” Suspending a child for voicing support for the liberation of an oppressed population?! This suppression of free speech isn’t only happening in the U.S. An Israeli high school teacher was assaulted and arrested by the IDF after making a Facebook post sympathetic to dead Palestinian civilians.

Meanwhile, Israeli officials who brazenly announce their intent to commit genocide in Gaza are given platforms to spew their genocidal rhetoric AND continue to receive the unwavering support of the U.S. government despite the majority of voters supporting a ceasefire.

I don’t know about you, but I find the specific violence of those words much more alarming than calls for “from the river to the sea.”

How are they allowed to come right out and state their murderous intent? For one, there’s a full-blown propaganda and normalization effort happening. “Embedded journalists” from the U.S. must allow the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) to okay their materials. CNN interviewed Netanyahu today as if he’s just some regular guy rather than a far-right, genocidal maniac. If you’re watching mainstream media, you’re getting a very slanted take on what’s happening. For instance, they don’t want you knowing that millions upon millions of people around the globe have been and continue to march in solidarity with Palestine (see ceasfiretoday.com for the huge list of protests around the world). Also? Israel is targeting journalists.

Per the Committee to Protect Journalists, as of November 12:

  • 40 journalists and media workers were confirmed dead: 35 Palestinian, 4 Israeli, and 1 Lebanese.
  • 8 journalists were reported injured.
  • 3 journalists were reported missing.
  • 13 journalists were reported arrested.
  • Multiple assaults, threats, cyberattacks, censorship, and killings of family members.

But the real threat here is people chanting “from the river to the sea”????

There’s so much more to say about all this, so many horrifying aspects: Fascism. Settler colonialism. Another Nakba. Bombing refugee camps. Bombing hospitals. Shooting people in ICU. Bombing solar panels off a hospital roof. Dead infants as a result of no electricity. White phosphorous melting skin to bone. Targeting UN workers. Deliberately withholding food, water, electricity, and fuel. Bodies decaying in the rubble. 900+ entire Palestinian families killed. Doctors Without Borders’ new acronym: WCNSF which stands for Wounded Child No Surviving Family.

From the BBC: “Most of the children in my family photo are dead”

To be honest, this whole endeavor has been overwhelming and I’m going to stop here. If you’ve read this far, thank you thank you thank you. And please remember: the college students and the rest of us protesting our government for funding and enabling this genocide are NOT the problem.

Until we are all free, none of us are free. 

I refuse to be desensitized

/ Tracy Abell / 7 Comments

It’s another Monday which, in the past, meant a Climate Movement Monday post about a frontline community suffering the worst effects of climate change plus a suggested action or two to take on their behalf. I’ve got nothing to offer.

Confession: I can’t stop thinking about Palestinian people and have spent much of today in tears. Over 5,000 Palestinians dead since October 7, including 2,000 children. That equals 128 dead children per day. This is genocide and the U.S. government is sponsoring it. The military industrial complex is getting richer off the slaughter of Palestinians and my two Senators and one Representative can’t be swayed to step down from their “I stand with Israel ” stances. Nonetheless, I continue to call them daily to demand a ceasefire and today felt a slight shift in the tones of the two staffers who took my calls (I left a voicemail for the other). One said that all calls received at that office were demanding a ceasefire. The other was someone I’ve spoken with multiple times, someone who has exhibited clear disdain for my position, but who today listened to me speak through my tears and then sincerely thanked me for calling. It’s not much, but I’m clinging to those shifts in tone.

PLEASE call your representatives to demand a #CeaseFireNOW.
U.S. Capitol switchboard: (202) 224-3121

Millions of people around the globe have taken to the streets demanding a #CeasefireNOW!

Boston march for Palestine this past weekend. (found on Twitter along with this video of the march)

This is reminiscent of the millions of us taking to the streets in 2003 to demand the U.S. not invade Iraq. We were ignored then and know how that turned out. And same as twenty years ago, Islamophobia is now on the rise due to those fanning the flames. In case you missed it, a six year-old Palestinian-American boy (Wadea Al-Fayoume) in Chicago was fatally stabbed 26 times by his landlord who also stabbed the boy’s mother a dozen times. She survived and was released from the hospital today.

What is the point of me sharing all this? I cannot remain silent during an ongoing genocide because silence normalizes the policy. Just as I refuse to “return to normal” during the ongoing Covid-19 epidemic, I refuse to look the other way while an occupied people are being bombed out of existence. One of the most important acts of resistance is the refusal to be desensitized to the suffering of others.

It would make me very happy to engage with people here on what’s happening, so please let me know how you’re doing and whether you’ve made headway with your representatives or attended a march. Basically, any and all comments are welcome!

In the meanwhile . . . solidarity! ✊🏽

Solidarity with the people of Gaza

/ Tracy Abell / 5 Comments

Once again, I’m pivoting from my usual Climate Movement Monday posts because of the ongoing and worsening humanitarian crisis in Gaza (although, technically speaking, it’s important to remember that militaries use vast amounts of fossil fuels and greatly accelerate global warming) in order to offer some resources in the face of the U.S.-supported genocide of the Palestinian people.

Al-Rimal, a neighborhood in the heart of Gaza City, has been repeatedly targeted by Israel over recent days. Atia Darwish APA images

More than 1,000 Palestinian children have been killed since October 7 which equals one child killed every 15 minutes by Israeli forces. As I write this, American Jews and allies of IfNotNow.org and Jewish Voice for Peace are blocking all entrances to the White House as they demand a ceasefire now.

Those folks in D.C. are incredibly courageous and, in solidarity with them, here are some actions we can all take at home:

Make phone calls/send emails via the Stop Gaza Genocide Action Toolkit
(Click HERE to access the Jewish Voice for Peace link which makes it VERY easy to call your 2 Senators & 1 Rep . . . and we can call over and over!)
** a Ceasefire NOW resolution has just been introduced in the House so please ask your reps to sign on to this resolution!** (If your member of Congress is Cori Bush, Andre Carson, Summer Lee, Delia Ramirez, Rashida Tlaib, Jamaal Bowman, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley, Jonathan Jackson, Chuy Garcia, Nydia Velazquez, or Bonnie Watson-Coleman — then please call to thank them!)

Donate to humanitarian aid organizations:

Educate yourself
Click HERE to access three free Haymarket Books ebooks about Palestine
Click HERE to read “Gaza Is a Prison Under Siege. This Is My Letter to the World Outside.” by Ahmed Abu Artema, a founder of the Great March of Return
Click HERE to read “Yavne: A Jewish Case for Equality in Israel-Palestine” written/published by Peter Beinart in 2020

These are incredibly difficult days and it’s easy to be overcome by grief and exhaustion. Please, if you can, find opportunities to experience joy each day. I spent a chunk of time this morning watching a squirrel sitting on the deck railing as it devoured a sunflower seed-head, and it felt very good to laugh.

Thank you for reading and taking action on behalf of an oppressed people. Until next time, Solidarity! ✊🏽