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I Stand with Palestine

October 28, 2023
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“I wish children didn’t die. I wish they would be temporarily elevated to the skies until the war ends. Then they would return home safe, and when their parents would ask them: “where were you?”, they would say: “we were playing in the clouds”.

– Ghassan Kanafani, Palestinian poet

“[Ghassan Kanafani], the poet who wrote this was assassinated by Israeli agents at the age of 36. His 17 year old niece was killed alongside him. Kanafani’s obituary said: “He was a commando who never fired a gun, whose weapon was a ball-point pen, and his arena the newspaper pages.” Born in Acre in 1936, Kanafani was exiled at age 12 during the Nakba. He was assassinated 50 years ago and never got to return home. It’s reported that thirty thousand people attended his funeral, held in the exile from which he never returned. I hope more people discover Kanafani’s poetry and discover how deep rooted and long the struggle of Palestinian people has been. If you read in history books about horrible things happening and wondered how the world let them get away with it – well now you know. If you haven’t yet, I urge you to speak out. It’s the least we can do. Kanafani’s obituary is a reminder of the power of words and how they can be more powerful than guns.” (Saman Shad, November 2, 2023)

“When traced back to its roots, the Palestinian question is a remarkably simple story of settler-colonialism and resistance to it. Naturally, it is just as complex and worthy of study as any other anti-colonial struggle, however, the claims of exceptional complexity are often employed in an effort to obfuscate the reality on the ground and limit discussion. The question of Palestine is not exceptional in its complexity, we can trace its origins, chronicle its events and trajectories and analyze its politics all quite well. There are decades of scholarship on the matter for reference. The appeals to complexity often arise when attempting to justify actions or policies that would be deemed unjustifiable in another context, for example, arguing against the right of refugees to return home.” – Decolonize Palestine

Guiding resources for topics – Advocacy, Palestinian Resistance, Settler-colonialism, Imperialism, Zionism: (Thanks to Millennials Are Killing Capitalism & The Red Nation for having some of these resources on their website, you can see more here; join the Red Nation Patreon here and the Millennials Are Killing Capitalism here)

Cover artwork: Free Palestine (Watermelon), 2023, by Chicago artist David Bernie, Ihanktonwan Dakota Oyate (“People of the End Village”).

Significance of watermelon: After the Six-Day War in 1967, the Israeli government banned all public displays of the Palestinian flag and its colors. Any outward show of the flag, from publications to advertisements and even old photographs, could result in imprisonment or worse. Watermelon — with its red, green, black, and white coloring — became a subtle method for Palestinians to display national pride. Even holding a slice of fresh watermelon outside became an act of protest.

Note: I am updating this weekly; towards the bottom of the list is a list of restaurants from a resource created by Students for Justice in Palestine at UIC, I also included links to the restaurants. And remember: Free Palestine. – Analú (last update: 4/21/24)

Actions & statements: 

  • Donate: UNRWA – The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) is a relief and human development agency.
  • Donate: Palestine Children’s Relief Fund is the primary humanitarian organization in Palestine. They deliver crucial, life-saving medical relief and humanitarian aid on the ground. 
  • Donate: Palestinian Youth Movement is a transnational, independent, grassroots movement of young Palestinians in Palestine and in exile worldwide as a result of the ongoing Zionist colonization and occupation of our homeland. Our belonging to Palestine and our aspirations for justice and liberation motivate us to assume an active role as a young generation in our national struggle for the liberation of our homeland and people. Irrespective of our different political, cultural and social backgrounds, we strive to revive a tradition of pluralistic commitment toward our cause to ensure a better future, characterized by freedom and justice on a social and political level, for ourselves and subsequent generations.  
  • Statement of Solidarity from Sixty Inches from Center: A Statement of Solidarity
  • Statement of Solidarity from the Red Nation: Indigenous Solidarity with Palestine, The Red Nation (Spanish version); Sign the letter at Indigenous for Palestine.
  • Sign on: People of Chicago Resolution for Palestine. CHICAGO: STAND UP FOR PALESTINE! So much of how genocide works isn’t just by erasing a people while masses stay quiet and complicit. But genocide also seeks to make itself seem as inevitable and erases the record of people calling that shit out. So, in light of City Council passing a bullshit resolution enabling and valorizing genocide, we created a permanent website with a resolution we authored.
  • Sign on: Demand an IMMEDIATE Ceasefire in Gaza, Call on President Biden and Congress to Demand an immediate cease fire now!

Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement works to end international support for Israel’s oppression of Palestinians and pressure Israel to comply

  • Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel: The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) was initiated in 2004 to contribute to the struggle for Palestinian freedom, justice and equality. It advocates for a boycott of Israeli academic and cultural institutions for their deep and persistent complicity in Israel’s denial of Palestinian rights that are stipulated in international law.
  • Cultural Boycott of Israel: Israel’s cultural institutions are part and parcel of the ideological and institutional scaffolding of Israel’s regime of occupation, settler-colonialism and apartheid against the Palestinian people. These institutions are clearly implicated, through their silence or active participation, in supporting, justifying and whitewashing Israel’s occupation and systematic denial of Palestinian rights.
  • BDS Movement website 
  • BDS movement – check companies 

Articles & interviews

Government reports

Podcasts

Introductions to Palestine (videos/websites)

News outlets:

Palestinian Resistance

“The events of Oct. 7 must be put in its broader context, and that all cases of struggle against colonialism and occupation in our contemporary time be evoked. These experiences of struggle show that in the same level of oppression committed by the occupier; there would be an equivalent response by the people under occupation.” 

– The Islamic Resistance Movement “Hamas”

We continually connect with and provide resources to a broad spectrum of researchers at the library. I collaborate with scholars, students, and historians. Working with the students is something I really enjoy, especially the freshmen and high schoolers. I am asked by my students, “What did the occupied think or say? Is there anything to consider from their viewpoint?” Although there are some exceptions to this rule and Indigenous perspectives are present in the archive, some can be found easily, others require some deciphering from context or must be sifted through; occasionally, the Indigenous perspective is absent altogether. A colonial collection such as the one I work with offers majority perspectives from colonizers. This 17-page book (shown below), published on January 21st by the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), details what actually happened on October 7th. If you study Indigenous resistance movements against settler colonialism (and really everyone should just read this) I highly recommend reading their statement. It is very illuminating and provides significant context from the resistances’ perspective, something which doesn’t get highlighted in mainstream media outlets. Especially biased af Western media outlets, which are trash.

Resources for Children/Speaking with Children

Spanish resources:

Reading Topics (adapted from Palestine Digital Action Toolkit, Palestinian Feminist Collective):

Settler Colonialism & Decolonization

Apartheid

Joint Struggle

History

  • Before Their Diaspora: A Photographic History of the Palestinians 1876-1948 W.Khalidi (1984)
  • All That Remains: The Palestinian Villages Occupied and Depopulated by Israel in 1984, W.Khalidi (1992)
  • The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917–2017, R. Khalidi (2020)
  • Zionist Colonialism in Palestine, F.Sayegh (1965)
  • The Question of Palestine, E. Said (1979)
  • Video: Edward Said on Orientalism
  • An Oral History of the Palestinian Nabka, N. Abdo & N. Masalha (2018)
  • The Sabra and Shatila Massacres: Eye- Witness Reports L.Shahid (2002)
  • Brothers Apart, M. Nassar (2017)
  • Men of Capital: Scarcity and Economy in Mandate Palestine, S. Seikaly (2015)

Literature, Poetry, Fiction & Digital Humanties

  • Country of Words A Transnational Atlas for Palestinian Literature: Country of Words: A Transnational Atlas for Palestinian Literature is a digital-born project that retraces and remaps the global story of Palestinian literature in the twentieth century, starting from the Arab world and going through Europe, North America, and Latin America. Sitting at the intersection of literary history, periodical studies, and digital humanities, Country of Words creates a digitally networked and multilocational literary history—a literary atlas enhanced. The virtual realm acts as the meeting place for the data and narrative fragments of this literature-in-motion, bringing together porous, interrupted, disconnected, and discontinuous fragments into an elastic, interconnected, and entangled literary history.
  • ‘A Place Without a Door’ and ‘Uncle Give me a Cigarette’—Two Essays by Palestinian Political Prisoner, Walid Daqqah

Film festival

Reading lists: 

Teaching Resources:

Toolkits:

A List of Journalists on-ground in Gaza diligently providing hourly updates to follow:  

Mental Health Resources 

Shopping – From the Loop to Gaza: Chicago Guide to Ethical Shopping, resource created by Students for Justice in Palestine at UIC

Restaurants (in Chicago) – listed businesses are either Palestinian-owned or support the Palestinian cause.

CAFES:

RESTAURANTS:

FAQ: there’s a really good one on the Decolonize Palestine website.

Here are some highlights:

What is the Palestinian question? The Palestinian question refers to the Palestinian people’s struggle against Zionist and Israeli settler-colonialism, which has been intent on erasing Palestinians and claiming their lands for over a century. [You can read more about this here]

Isn’t this an ancient struggle, going back thousands of years? Not at all. The beginning of the question of Palestine is rooted in the Zionist movement, and its goal of colonizing Palestine to establish a Zionist settler state there. The first Zionist conference took place at the very end of the 19th century (1897). [You can read more about this here]

Do Palestinians have the right to resist Israeli colonialism? According to international law, it is legitimate for an occupied people to resist occupation by any means available to them. United Nations resolution 37/43 “Reaffirms the legitimacy of the struggle of people for independence, territorial integrity, national unity and liberation from colonial and foreign domination and foreign occupation by all available means, including armed struggle.” 

It further specifically mentions the Palestinian people as possessing this right: “Reaffirms the inalienable right of the Namibian people, the Palestinian people and all peoples under foreign and colonial domination to self-determination, national independence, territorial integrity, national unity and sovereignty without outside interference”. But even if such a right was not enshrined in international law, it is natural for humans to want to rid themselves from the domination of others.

 
 

Further Reading...

Demystifying Special Collections

August 5, 2023
Analú María López Post Blog Language

Languages and Capitalism

February 13, 2020

Nixtamalizado

July 3, 2020

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