Global

PLEASE READ THIS (critical new reports, urgent action needed)

Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) global partnership 21
December report on: .."the entire population in the Gaza Strip (about 2.2
million people) is classified in IPC Phase 3 or above (Crisis or worse).
This is the highest share of people facing high levels of acute food
insecurity that the IPC initiative has ever classified for any given area
or country.... at least one in four households (more than half a million
people) is facing catastrophic conditions - IPC Phase 5 (Catastrophe).
These are characterized by households experiencing an extreme lack of food,
starvation and exhaustion of coping capacities."
https://www.ipcinfo.org/ipc-country-analysis/details-map/en/c/1156749

We meet again tonight in about one hour (7 PM Palestine time Sunday) to
talk about Gaza genocide. Email if you want a link

While Palestinian church leaders wrote good position papers on Gaza (thank
you) and we circulated those before, 500 people signed signed a petition
over just a few hours today demanding boycott of those church leaders who
met with the Israeli genocidal regime president  (a president who said
there are no civilians in the Gaza strip and we act accordingly), whose
father participated in the ethnic cleansing in 1948, and who want another
Nakba. The petition is in Arabic (you can use google translate) and is open
to people who live in our region and Palestinians/Arabs (especially
Christians) who live in exile. Please sign and pass along this link:
وقع 500 شخص على عريضة تطالب بمقاطعة قادة الكنيسة الذين التقوا برئيس نظام
الإبادة الجماعية الإسرائيلي (الرئيس الذي قال إنه لا يوجد مدنيون في قطاع
غزة)، والذي شارك والده في التطهير العرقي عام 1948، والذين يريد نكبة أخرى.
العريضة باللغة العربية ومفتوحة للأشخاص الذين يعيشون في منطقتنا والفلسطينيين
(وخاصة المسيحيين الذين يعيشون في المنفى).

When Zionist militias, using advanced Western arms, conquered historic Palestine in 1947-48, they expressed their victory through the deliberate humiliation of Palestinians.   

 Much of that humiliation targeted women, in particular, knowing how the dishonor of Palestinian females represents, according to Arab culture, a sense of dishonor to the whole community.

 This strategy remains in use to this day. 

What’s ordinary about life suddenly becomes sacred. This is my definition of poetry — my deepest plunge into being alive.

It seems more relevant than ever, as innocent blood flows in the wars being waged by military-political bureaucracies across the planet. How many more stunned facial expressions will I see on YouTube, of parents who have just lost their children, their spouse, their siblings?

As I have noted, I have recently released an album of spoken-word poetry, plus crazy artwork, thanks to my good friends Andy Mitran and Scott Wills. Much of the poems go back to an earlier period of my life, shortly after the death of my wife from pancreatic cancer. At the time, my daughter was not quite 12 years old. Dad and teenage daughter — those were the days! (We both survived, I’m happy to say.)