“Freedom for the detainee we don’t know”

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“Freedom for the detainee we don’t know”
recommended resources on Lebanese resistance and its context
this has been in my drafts for a long time bc I wanted to find more audio resources but in light of recent events I'm posting as is, and will add more later. pdfs for texts without links can be found on libgen ⭐ = start with these 📺 = video resource 🎧 = audio resource Hizballah ⭐ Lara Deeb, "Hizballah and Its Civilian Constituencies," in The War on Lebanon: A Reader, eds. Nubar Hovsepian and Rashid Khalidi (2007)
⭐🎧 Electronic Intifada Podcast with Rania Khalek, "Why Hizballah would deal Israel a deadly blow" (2024)
⭐🎧 Electronic Intifada Podcast with Amal Saad, "How Hizballah Aims to Deter Israel" (2024)
📺 Rania Khalek, Interview with Hezbollah's Second-in-Command Sheikh Naim Qassem (2023)
🎧 Rania Khalek and Julia Kassem, "The Hybrid War on Lebanon is All About Weakening Hezbollah" (2022)
Hassan Nasrallah, "Voice of Hezbollah: The Statements of Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah," ed. Nicholas Noe (2007)
Judith Harik, "Hizballah's Public and Social Services and Iran," in Distant Relations: Iran and Lebanon in the last 500 years (2006) Sarah Marusek, Faith and Resistance: The Politics of Love and War in Lebanon (2018)
Abed T. Kanaaneh, Understanding Hezbollah: The Hegemony of Resistance (2021)
Karim Makdisi, "The Oct. 8 War: Lebanon's Southern Front" (2024) Political theory ⭐ Ussama Makdisi, "Understanding Sectarianism," in The War on Lebanon: A Reader, eds. Nubar Hovsepian and Rashid Khalidi (2007)
⭐ Rula Juri Abisaab and Malek Abisaab, The Shi'ites of Lebanon: Modernism, Communism, and Hizbullah's Islamists (2014)
Ilham Khuri-Makdisi, The Eastern Mediterranean and the Making of Global Radicalism, 1860-1914 (2010) Tareq Y. Ismael and Jacqueline S. Ismael, The Communist Movement in Syria and Lebanon (1998) 2006 war ⭐ Gilbert Achcar and Michel Warschawski, The 33-Day War: Israel's War on Hezbollah in Lebanon and Its Consequences (2007)
The Electronic Intifada with Dahr Jamail, "The world just sat by" (2006)
The Electronic Intifada with Bilal El-Amine, "Lebanon in Context" (2006) The War on Lebanon: A Reader, eds. Nubar Hovsepian and Rashid Khalidi (2007)
Civil war and 1982 invasion ⭐📺 Up to the South, dir. Jayce Salloum and Walid Ra'ad (1993)
⭐📺 Wild Flowers: Women of South Lebanon, dir. Mai Masri and Jean Khalil Chamoun (1987)
⭐ Souha Bechara, Resistance: My Life for Lebanon (2003)
Jean Said Makdisi, Beirut Fragments: A War Memoir (1990)
Bayan Nuwayhed al-Hout, Sabra and Shatila, September 1982 (2004) Ottoman era Charles Al-Hayek, "How, then, did you try to rebel?"
Lebanon Unsettled, "Lebanon's Popular Uprisings"
Axel Havemann, "The Impact of Peasant Resistance on Nineteenth Century Mount Lebanon," in Peasants and Politics in the Modern Middle East (1991) Ussama Makdisi, The Culture of Sectarianism: Community, History, and Violence in Nineteenth-Century Ottoman Lebanon (2000)
Peter Hill, "How Global was the Age of Revolutions? The Case of Mount Lebanon, 1821" (2020) Mark Farha, "From Anti-imperial Dissent to National Consent: the First World War and the Formation of a Trans-sectarian National Consciousness in Lebanon" (2015) French mandate era ⭐ Kais Firro, Inventing Lebanon: Nationalism and the State Under the Mandate (2002) Sana Tannoury-Karam, "Founding the Lebanese Left: From Colonial Rule to Independence" (2021) Idir Ouahes, Syria and Lebanon Under the French Mandate: Cultural Imperialism and the Workings of Empire (2018)
Malek Abisaab, Militant Women of a Fragile Nation (2009) Misc ⭐📺 Leila and the Wolves, dir. Heiny Srour and Sabah Jabbour (1984)
⭐ Fawwaz Traboulsi, A History of Modern Lebanon (2007)
Karim Makdisi, "Lebanon's October 2019 Uprising" (2021)
i never get used to seeing a picture of a kid and then seeing a picture of their corpse. i don't think there is anything like the chill that goes through you at that moment, a sickness that settles into your body. and if im honest i've lost count of how many i've seen. probably hundreds at this point. i don't really think there is a way to unsee it, and for the most part it is all i think of when i see these arguments, these justifications, the photos of politicians signing bombs and soldiers laughing in tiktoks. i have seen so many dead children that sometimes when i see pictures of my nephews my heart clenches for a second. for the rest of my life i won't forget this.
Bayan Abu Nahla is a Palestinian visual artist born in 2001. Originally from the ethnically cleansed village of Yibna in the Ramla subdistrict of Lydd, Bayan spent her childhood in the Yibna refugee camp in eastern Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. She has been drawing since childhood, and most of her artworks are ink on paper. The Rachel Corrie Children’s Center in Rafah played a major role in fostering an artistic culture in drawing, theater, and singing for her and the other children of Rafah before it closed down. In 2019, she enrolled in a diploma program in graphic design at the UNRWA Vocational College.
Her works function as diary-keeping to process spontaneous ephemeral feelings and thoughts through pen and paper. She does not care much for other mediums, although she has painted on canvas and created video art. Paper scenes in ink and watercolors remain closest to her heart.
[...]
After living through multiple wars, Abu Nahla’s obsession with losing her artwork in the ensuing destruction was one of her biggest fears — a fear that eventually came true. During this genocide, Abu Nahla lost her home, her artworks, and her mementos. Notably, this included the precious childhood photo album so close to her heart from which she drew inspiration for one of her more distinguished art projects, created in the Shababek for Contemporary Art studio.
[...]
It was emotionally fraught for Abu Nahla to talk about Muhammad Sami, her martyred friend and colleague. She shared how they were one team:
“We were young, and getting to know art and the art world together. His soul departed during a ruthless and unfathomable massacre, the Baptist al-Ahli Hospital massacre. No one expected that such a death awaited Muhammad. The video of the bombing is frightening and shocking. Did he feel that he was martyred? On the morning of the massacre, Muhammad posted a video on his Instagram account in the hospital courtyard leading activities for children; by the evening, he and hundreds of other innocent people had become body parts!
Abu Nahla once drew “Welcome to Gaza,” an artwork she made during the best moments of her life before the war. After the war had begun and the accompanying experiences of loss, displacement, fear, and death, and before she was finally able to seek refuge in another country, she modified the drawing and scribbled “Goodbye Gaza” on top of it. A work full of farewells and sorrow, it is something out of the final scene of a movie before the characters part ways. She longs for the beautiful beachside, for the al-Baqa Café that she would visit throughout the year, and where she drew so many of her artworks.
To put it most simply, her works belong to the state of love and longing that we call Palestine.
— This Gaza artist drew portraits depicting a lifetime of wars (Mondoweiss.com)
the gofundme to support her martyred friend muhammad sami that she talks about in the article, the artist who led children's activities in the camps, can be found here:
Rebuilding Hope: Support Mohammed's Family to Rise from the Ashes of War. … Zainab Abbass needs your support for Rebuilding Hope: Support
Casca Berserk 1997
once every month with 20k notes: *person so chronically online they've looped* i think we should consider agreeing with the status quo
the irony is that palestinians also don't enjoy receiving donations and unlike americans, online campaigns and gofundmes are not common or culturally acceptable (egyptians and sudanese people are also similar in this respect, but palestinians even moreso) and i know several younger generations of palestinians (and sudanese) are raising these funds behind their parents' backs because they would not accept this money if they knew it was raised by strangers, and i know others whose families were VERY against it until it became a matter of their children or grandchildren surviving or getting lifesaving medical care.
during the beginning of the genocide as well donations were not recommended because the problem was political, not economic. it couldn't be solved by donating enough to UNRWA or whatever. but once egypt raised the border crossing fees by 500% and israel destroyed everything within gaza, including cutting access to electricity and telecoms, as well as schools and banks and hospitals, the situation quite obviously changed.
What is honor compared to a woman’s love? What is duty against the feel of a newborn son in your arms… or the memory of a brother’s smile? Wind and words. Wind and words. We are only human, and the gods have fashioned us for love. That is our great glory, and our great tragedy.
Jon Snow - and family that haunts him, because sometimes ghosts make for the best love stories.
I want more people to know that while the Palestine Olympic team consists of only 8 athletes, at least 69 Palestinian Olympic athletes have been killed since October 2023. This includes athletes who were going to compete in these games and retired athletes such as Majed Abu Maraheel, the first Palestinian Olympian, who died of kidney failure in a refugee camp product of lack of medical treatment.
Remember them during these games.
how does electing trump lower the gun pointed at palestine?
how does electing kamala? how did electing biden?
you know what. let me answer this in good faith.
this ask is in response to my previous post, where i stated:
"keep your eyes open about what you are voting for, so that your vote does not become another vote in service of genocide, and you are part of a structure of accountability for your government. yes, you are voting in self-preservation. but no, you are not being asked to protect anyone to your own detriment. let me put it more simply: as a nation, you aren't being asked to jump in front of a bullet to save palestine from genocide. you're being asked to lower the gun."
as a matter of fact, the US is a partner in the genocide. through weapons funding, through diplomatic immunity, through the media apparatus and through boots-on-the-ground soldiers. this was only further reinforced by netanyahu's address in congress today, which affirmed (needlessly, as we already knew) that israel and the US are "standing with civilization against barbarism" and other genocidal dogwhistles. but he said that for a reason: he's letting american politicians know they are just as culpable for this genocide. it is their genocide too. under international law, biden is liable for delivering weapons to a nation plausibly accused of genocide, not to mention under american law as well for delivering weapons to a nation preventing humanitarian aid.
this is bipartisan policy. both democrats and republicans support the US war machine. US foreign policy has been uniformly bloodthirsty for the past few decades, with some variation that ultimately led to nothing. democrats might kick up more fuss about human rights, but they will ultimately wage the same wars with the same disregard for international law, and have shifted right on israel in ways that even george bush did not entertain.
because this is so deeply entrenched in US politics for myriad historical, political and financial reasons, there is currently no electoral solution for palestinians within US politics, and more urgently there is no electoral solution for the genocide in gaza within US electoral politics. long-term, there might be. the increase of democrats boycotting netanyahu's speech, the election of democrats like rashida tlaib, and the pressure from constituents are indications of an enormous shift in US policy towards israel. but this is very slow change, and people in gaza are dying very quickly.
prior to 2020, there was a certain belief that democrats had some red lines that republicans don't wrt gaza. however, bidens management of the past nine months have completely disabused everyone of that notion. even someone like rashid khalidi, who believes firmly in the power of persuading americans in the imperial core, has been caught off-guard by biden's management of the war, stating that he will not vote for him.
as you might have realized over the past few years, the way the current system is set up leaves very little avenue for constituents to affect policy in the US right now, especially since democrats are extremely adept at pacifying the masses with nominal acts (notably on items like policing and environmentalism in particular) in service of their donors. mass protests are actually an indication that the political system has failed at providing an avenue for political participation except taking to the streets. it is normally a last resort. for some issues it is a first resort, because there are few other options unless you've got lobbying money. now multiply that x100 for foreign policy, where popular opinion has little sway and there are few democratic pathways for the average american to engage with, especially since it is not considered a priority as american deaths in wars have become negligible.
what does this mean? it means it is very, very difficult to pressure politicians on palestine, even though they are wholly involved in palestine and using your tax dollars to do it. in regular times, it is participation in apartheid and occupation, which is bad enough. but right now, it is participation in one of the worst crimes mankind can commit: genocide. the US is not just dropping bombs, it is also a partner in a starvation policy that is deeply sickening. it is medieval to deprive 2 million people, 50% of them children, trapped in a blockaded area of food and water, but this is a strategy the US has not only endorsed, but also assisted israel in carrying out.
because biden has been so batshit insane, there is functionally no way trump can be worse. biden (and blinken) spoke of red lines, but have gradually walked every single one of them back, because this is what democrats do: they pacify you until you no longer notice the boiling water. there is no more money trump can send, and there are no more weapons trump can send, that would make a difference to what israel is doing. they have enough money and weapons and diplomatic immunity to nuke gaza if they want to. they are not being held back by biden, they are being held back by their own limitations, their own internal disagreements, partially by saudi arabia, partially by egypt, by the palestinian resistance factions, and more significantly by hezbollah, yemen and iran. when people say "trump can do more genocide" they're not wrong that things can get worse, but they are wrong that they need trump to get worse. they can also get worse under the next democrat, just as they got worse under biden, because there is no mechanism in place to stop it.
now unlike biden who was ideologically and fanatically zionist, trump is an unpredictable opportunist. he might have done worse, and he might not have. he is actually far more likely to be influenced in any which way—but not by people, by other countries such as saudi arabia, egypt or russia. it doesn't really matter because again: the genocide didn't happen under trump. it happened under biden. it is an atrocity that the full scope of which has not been truly uncovered, and it is still really, horrifically bad—not just because we've seen kids being ripped apart daily for nine months, but because we've also seen the democratic establishment categorically prevent every international mechanism (including the highest court in the world) from stopping it. so even if trump wants to do More Genocide, the biden admin has conveniently removed all diplomatic obstructions that would stop him from doing so, and set a precedent for ignoring both the ICJ and the ICC, which was already in place since bush and further cemented since by obama and then trump and biden. it has simply been a two decades of Things Getting Worse in the middle east, and electoral politics of voting for the lesser evil have played no small part in that, and intentionally so, but there's no need to confront that right now i guess!
so where does kamala come in? well, as i said, there are few avenues for voters to influence foreign policy. the only window that exists is when a politician requires your votes. democrats are notorious for lack of follow through. they campaign, they lie, they hope you forget. if kamala is elected, she may be better on palestine. but nothing in her track record suggests that, and there would be absolutely no leverage to force her to be. but as long as she needs to be elected, there is still critical time for pressure, and it is also critical because people are dying right now.
this is also the answer to those of you stating joe biden is still president and its unfair to talk about kamala: joe biden is barely sentient, and when he is he's a geriatric genocidal racist who couldn't be moved on gaza even when he did want to be re-elected. but now he no longer needs to be elected, and has even less incentive to answer to his base (but will hopefully someday answer to the hague).
so again, when you tell me about "electing" trump or "electing" kamala—none of this is what affects palestinians right now. we have no evidence either way of what they might do. we don't even have a promise from kamala to be better right now, aside from generic vp statements on humanitarianism. she boycotted netanyahu's speech, but neither she nor pelosi have mentioned palestinians, who are still undergoing a genocide they are knowing participants in, nor have they acknowledged that israel is formally an apartheid state and netanyahu is a war criminal (bc of course, then they'd have to admit so is biden). everyone is hoping that she is better, and that she can be pressured, but as of right now that remains to be seen.
your concern is the election, my concern is the present. kamala, as a partial incumbent, will be affected if she can't change anything within the next four months. she doesn't have joe biden's record on israel yet. but as netanyahu's speech showed, the genocide was not joe biden's alone. it is a bipartisan genocide from the US political establishment that joe biden presided over and allowed to escalate unencumbered. kamala was part of this, and doesn't have anything to the contrary—yet. all we have to force her to lower the gun is the knowledge that she wants to be elected. trump's base does not want him to lower the gun, but presumably you (kamala's base) do.
so to answer your question: the upcoming presidential election is not the solution for palestine right now, but it is one of the tools that can be used to stop a genocide that both parties are responsible for. electing kamala may be beneficial in the long run—or it may not. but pressuring kamala is now, and it is urgent.
there is so much going wrong in the world and most of it has started to flow past me but occasionally some of it sinks in and keeps its teeth in me, like hind rajab, who i thought about day in and day out for weeks (and still do)
for the past day i have also been unable to stop thinking about mohammed bhar, the palestinian man with down's syndrome who was mauled by an israeli combat dog in front of his family, who were then forced to abandon him at gunpoint by the idf, who left him to die
spoke his first words screaming in horror at dogs killing him. 'khalas ya habibi' — words that show how his family spoke to him, the words he knew best. the psychopaths who did this, where will they go? where can we take them?
rhaenyra and alicent consistently just throwing themselves at each other in the middle of the war like the direst possible circumstances with NO fucking plan just being like get me in there and the love will save us it will be enough. and it’s there it really is there and then it does not save them and is not enough. yeah
the complete and total conviction that both of them have that supersedes reality and all signs pointing against it that if they can only reach the other one everything bad will just stop. it will all go away like they are fifteen again. how could it not. they love each other and when they loved each other everything was good and it was all enough. and then they keep meeting and over and over again realizing they were right: they love each other. and they were wrong: it’s not going to stop anything at all.
to be loved means to be consumed.
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so i study decolonization, as in i studied it as part of my degree, and i thought I'd make a list of some readings/films that might offer additional insight about decolonization (it also helps if you're tired of the christian moralistic thinking)
occupation 101 (can be found on youtube i believe, it's about the history between isreal and palestine, it focuses on palestinians and it is quite comprehensive. there's live footage, there's interviews with palestinian children, etc. it's a must watch i think, regarding palestine. it points the finger squarely at the united states.)
the wretched of the earth, franz fanon. fanon is really well known in the decolonization sphere because he writes about it in a very succinct and clear way. to him, decolonization can never occur peacefully, and i think that's a really important key lesson. he also talks about how colonizers don't just take land, they reframe ideas, they take language, art, thoughts.
the battle of algiers, 1966. this is a fascinating film, it's sort of a documentary, they got the actual people to play their parts. it describes and interviews the main individuals involved in the fight for independence within Algiers. i think understanding how a nation can gain independence over its colonial forces is really important in the grand scheme of decolonialism.
unthinking eurocentrism. if you can get your hands on it, i love this text. it's so poignant and it lays everything out so clearly and it really shows how we center our worlds around eurocentrism and westernism.
Occupation 101
The Wretched of the Earth
The Battle of Algiers
Find Unthinking Eurocentrism at a library near you
يا ريتني كنت اتولدت نملة ماتت تحت شبشب فيروز
يا ريتني كنت اتخلقت جرثومة ماتت لما غسلت فيروز ايديها
يا ريتني كنت اتزرعت وردة اتقطفت عشان يقدموها لفيروز
Always a red flag when liberals talk about Palestine but only speak about Netanyahu - “we need to get rid of Netanyahu!” Babe we need to get rid of far more than that. I’m not going from colonialism bold to colonialism lite