It was the summer the Israelis withdrew, leaving
behind
a landmined no-man’s-land of phosphorus orange groves,
blighted with white like the kingdom of the Snow Queen.
In her latest collection of poems, an award-winning poet explores resistance and hope among the Palestinian people.
How lightly we learn to hold hope,
as if it were an animal that could turn around
and bite your hand.
How, in this tangle of wire and garbage and the noise of Babylon with its million horns can I talk to the moon like a Bedouin leaning into the cold … Continue reading →
Ahed protesting with her father, mother and aunt. Photo by 2 Suns Shamsaan/Facebook . Having evidently “gone out of its mind” in its thirst for vengeance, Israeli forces just undertook … Continue reading →
This month, the Israeli government announced that activists affiliated with 20 organizations, including my organization Codepink, would be banned from entering Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories because of our … Continue reading →
Sabra is Hebrew for cactus flower, prickly on the outside, sweet in the middle. In Arabic, the word, saber: the virtue of patience & tenacity. I leave a … Continue reading →
Sign of the enraged times. Twitter photo. . It took only hours after Trump’s heedless “act of diplomatic arson” against Palestinian rights and hopes for furious protests to break out … Continue reading →
In 1966, the NAACP of Claiborne County, Mississippi launched a boycott of several white-owned local businesses on the basis of racial discrimination. It was so impactful that the local hardware … Continue reading →
After the catastrophic attacks of September 11 2001 monumental sorrow and a feeling of desperate and understandable anger began to permeate the American psyche. A few people at that time … Continue reading →
What she called home was a jar of olives shaken from the tree by hand sorted and stabbed then pressed one against the other doused in lemon and salt. What … Continue reading →
1. In Aliquippa The mill loomed large and after dark, nightmarishly glowing red on the river road we would take before I was five to my grandmother’s sweet, warm and yeasty … Continue reading →
Even Walt Whitman was confused. Who has rights and who doesn’t? Are white people superior to others? How did we miss this news in grade school, holding Whitman’s words on … Continue reading →
The Palestinians are poor. They are powerless. They have no voice or influence in the halls of power. They are demonized. They do not have well-heeled lobbyists doling out campaign … Continue reading →