the hypocrisy of a “benevolent” empire (on bushama’s cairo speech)

i do not have a satellite dish in my new apartment and my internet connection is a bit slow here so i watched barack obama’s speech to the so-called muslim world on al jazeera’s website. as he began his speech today the zionist entity was busy flying american-made f-16s in the sky above palestine in [...]

65 years in jail for providing charity (to palestinians that is)

this week five men from the holy land foundation were sentenced to prison terms. here are the details from democracy now!’s coverage, and if you click the link below you can watch goodman and gonzalez’s report:
JUAN GONZALEZ: Five founders of a Muslim charity have been sentenced to lengthy prison terms in a controversial case that [...]

a nakba in the making

it is unreal. it is deja-vu. i cannot believe what i am watching and reading about the massive flight of half a million pakistanis because of the united states project of state terrorism and upheaval in in the region. just take a look at this raw footage from al jazeera of pakistanis fleeing their homes [...]

there are good tunnels and then there are bad tunnels

more and more i have come to believe that one reason for the savagery targeting gaza for 23 days in december-january by israeli terrorists was to distract us from the creeping ethnic cleansing in al quds and elsewhere in the west bank and naqab. while israeli terrorists continue to bomb palestinian tunnels–now with the help [...]

on arab nationalism

the other night sayyed hassan nasrallah gave a televised speech in response to charges from the egyptian regime and arrests of palestinians and lebanese in egypt. the speech is an important one as it reminds us a a key ideology that has its roots in egypt–that of arab nationalism–but one that the united states and [...]

on nuclear weapons, or when words are empty

there are certain journalists i want to clone: jonathan cook is one. nora barrows-friedman is another. jeremy scahill is another. i have been ketir frustrated by the reports on barack obama’s visit to turkey and the way in which people in this region are so easily duped again. what is it about hungry people who [...]

on knowledge

there are so many challenges here on a daily basis. this is, of course, in addition to the challenges of living in a place that is invaded daily by israeli terrorists and increasingly by their collaborating partners in the palestinian authority. some of the challenges are good. for instance, in my postcolonial literature class this [...]

never before

rania sent me these videos from a new lebanon-based group called the “never before campaign.” the videos are very powerful. i don’t know any other details about this new group, but it looks promising.

and rami sent me this the other day from beirut, which also seems [...]

on racism and prisons

i just finished composing a letter for a friend in gaza who is applying for a visa to speak in the united kingdom about besieged gaza. he had been invited last month, too, but the british consulate in al quds denied him a visa because they didn’t believe he’d return home after his lecture tour. [...]

gazing gaza

i’m taking a break from finishing up my review of suheir hammad’s breaking poems, a book that i feel is more important to carry in my purse than my wallet and my passport. i feel like i cannot breathe without her words. when i feel like i am suffocating from the barbarity that is israeli [...]