Birthright
a poem from my new collection, "God of Fruit."
I have been so sad these last few days. The escalation of what’s happening in Gaza is splitting me in half. I don’t know what to do most of the time. I feel frustrated and confused by how the Zionist propaganda is so strong because so often I feel like everyday people have no idea what’s going on. It’s maddening, it’s terrifying. I want to scream and collapse, but I know I can’t give up. I know that the people of Gaza rely on us to do the work. I know liberation is awaiting us all. But there’s so much work to do.
Let’s not forget that major news publications announced that 14,000 Palestinian babies would die of starvation (this was more than 48 hours ago) … do we understand this scale? Do you condemn this? UN envoys are pleading with international media to let their aid into Gaza… all while Israeli politicians keep telling us that food is being let in, that Palestinian children aren’t dying, but a) we know they keep lying, like the brutal murders of 15 emergency aid workers by the IOF recently, or like every hospital they’ve bombed and have vehemently insisted they haven’t bombed, we know that the track record of the occupying state is to lie b) the highest organizations of human rights (most recently Amnesty International gave a very direct appeal to the general public) have declared we have reached the point of no return. “Israel is committing genocide in Palestine with chilling impunity,” they tell us, and yet there are still people in my IG DMs fighting me about anti Semitism.
It’s astonishing!
Even the recent shooting of two Israeli diplomats (one of whom wasn’t even Jewish, he was a German Christian Zionist) are being labelled as anti Semitic attacks when they were very clearly politically motivated and yet children being obliterated in Gaza is of no concern. What happened when Wadea al-Fayoume was stabbed TWENTY SIX times by his neighbor in 2023, because he was Palestinian? He was six years old. Was there the same kind of outrage from the international media? I don’t think so, and that was a clear instance of both Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian hatred.
Muslims and Arabs are supposed to be murdered, and the media class incessantly normalizes violence against us.
So the fact that over 200 journalists have been murdered in Gaza since 2023, is, apparently, not a fact worth sharing by major news organizations like the NYT. Even though: “more journalists have been killed in Gaza than in both world wars, the Vietnam War, the wars in Yugoslavia and the United States war in Afghanistan combined.” Hassan Eslaiah, a Palestinian photojournalist, was murdered in his hospital bed last week after the occupation had already tried to kill him once. Why? Ask yourself: why would anyone want to kill journalists during a genocide?
This is from CNN: “The target of the strike was Hassan Eslaiah, a prominent Gaza photojournalist who Israel accuses of being a terrorist. He was being treated at the hospital after being wounded in an earlier targeted Israeli airstrike in April.
The IDF has accused Eslaiah of taking part in the attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023, and of belonging to Hamas’ Khan Younis Brigade, although it has not provided evidence to support those claims.”
The but Hamas bit is really getting old. It’s sickening that the Zionists are allowed to do whatever they want, but any retaliation is seen as acts of terrorism.
Isn’t this maddening to you?!?!?!?!?!
I keep thinking of the title of Egyptian-Canadian writer, Omar El Akkad:
“One day, everyone will have all been against this.”
I’ve been feeling so useless. No matter what I write, it’s not enough. No matter how much I share things, it’s not enough. Yet… we keep going. We have to. We have to. I know we do. But today I feel shattered. I feel so fucking sad. For the babies, for the mothers, for the fathers, for the young boys who have lost their families. I feel rage for Western complicity, but all I have are my fucking words.
So, I share a poem I wrote last year during a day I was at the UCLA encampments.
Power to the people, to the students, to everyone who is fighting and not giving up.
Bless you.
Last note, today is the 77th anniversary of the Tantura massacre. What the Zionists did and have done for decades is just allowed, forgotten, and not known. The rape, the grotqseuely violent murders. This didn’t start on October 7th. All we can do at this time is resist with all our might. Keep learning, teaching others, and speaking out. Keep protesting for a military embargo.
This is about the future of our planet. This is about liberation. For all people.
Free Palestine. Free Sudan. Free Congo.
Thanks for reading.
f
Birthright
A Zionist screams at my
face, takes the megaphone
out and tells me I’m a terrorist
for wearing a kuffiyeh.
I wonder what she thinks of
IOF soldiers bulldozing
Palestinian bodies
in half and the
mass graves found at
Al Shifa & Al Nasser Hospitals
& how they
use crying sounds
to lure Palestinians
so they may execute
them more precisely,
at closer range
with a smile.
Or what does she think of
Jerry Seinfeld’s,
“Shoot to kill”
fantasy tours, where
targets are designed
to look like Palestinians
with simulated armed combat
in faux Palestinian villages.
So you can get
allllllllllllll your
settler rage out!
As she keeps screaming
and I walk away
I want to ask her
what she thinks
of Tantura and the murder
of Hind Rajab along with
her aunt
& uncle & cousins
death by IOF
or what does she think
about
the story of Ahmad Manasra
the beautiful boy
ruined, poisoned by
Zionist prisons,
for a crime
(he) did not
commit. I think of
the men sodomized
to death
at the israeli
Sde Teiman
“detention facility”
so when you scream
“the only place to be
safe to be LGBQTIA
as a Palestinian
is in Isr@3l”
we reply
“unless, that is,
You’re Palestinian.”
Nobody knows
anything about Islam
so you don’t
question how racist
you sound when you
say “Go back to your
own country,” while
this very country
is not your own.
You are absconded by
light, you are
only terror
& fright.
A society that
imprisons children
without trial
is called the
“only democracy
in the Middle East…”
I gag at the
hysterics, while
a war crimes
investigator
from Israel
sits front & center
at a comedy show
& declares, “He’s
investigating
war crimes
in Ukraine.”
Comedian,
without a beat:
“I think the
call might be coming
from
inside the house…”
Tell free
Black people
that came
from rich empires
cultural epicenters
of knowledge
& esteem
who the whites
stole, forcing them
over, renaming them
“slaves”
about
birthright.
Tell the people
whose lands you
gamble and sell,
(these settler lands)
prime real estate
you can’t even
protect
about birthright.
While the billionaire
family
that owns
California waterways
gives money to Israel.
The empire this
the empire that.
Who should
own water?
Can you
riddle me that?
There is no right
to birth.
Zionists & white
supremacists tell you
that because they only
get things through
stolen artifact
by bullying
the colonized bloody
brain-whipped
into believing
in our projected
inferiority.
Nothing is sacred
to you because
life is not sacred
to you.
You stay meaningless
without chant
or chorus,
only EDM
to thrash around
your dislocation.
IOF soldiers
high on dissociation.
The ones
that come out
of the trance
can work their way
toward absolution,
but only through
accountability
& honoring fact.
A narcissist
loves their own story,
but the way to
pull them out of
their loop is to
stop engaging.
They’ll come seeking
their own karma
or they’ll keep spinning.
Every Zionist accusation
is a confession.
Even the Nazis once
were deemed mighty.