Sarah 🦉🍁❄️

Children’s books! Fig leaves! and other things.

[Paolo Mossetti @paolomossetti]

💥 If you read one thing today, make it this story by Italian journalist Lorenzo D’Agostino — captured aboard the Global Sumud Flotilla: beaten, blindfolded, mocked with homophobic slurs, and held half-naked in freezing vans and scorching cells.

According to D’Agostino and multiple accounts, Israeli forces subjected Greta to severe cruelty, forcing her to crawl and kiss the Israeli flag. “They did exactly what the Nazis did,” said Ersin Çelik, a member of the Global Sumud Flotilla. They publicly humiliated her and targeted her specifically because she’s a well-known figure.

It appears that the Italian state, government, and parts of the Church tried to stop the Flotilla not to prevent an armed clash with Netanyahu, but to avoid the media exposure of a country increasingly radicalized and indefensible — except through repressive laws — and to suppress reports of egregious human rights violations.

"We were intercepted at 1:58 a.m. on Thursday. On my boat, the Hio, part of the Global Sumud Flotilla mission, five Israeli soldiers boarded with rifles pointed at us, lasers aimed. Exactly one month after our departure from Barcelona.

On board, the soldiers allowed us to go to the bathroom, eat, drink, and smoke. Then they redirected the boat toward the port of Ashdod. We stayed moored for a couple of hours. Before letting us disembark, one soldier wanted to speak to our captain: “My friend, my friend, listen to me, you’ll like this one: when dwarfs cast long shadows, it means the sun is low.” That was the last thing he said.

As we disembarked, someone from the other boats shouted, “The police will be worse.” As soon as I stepped onto land, an officer grabbed my arm, twisting it behind my back to cause maximum pain. They made us sit on the ground, on a concrete esplanade.

Greta Thunberg was wrapped in the Israeli flag like a war trophy. They sat her in a corner; officers surrounded her, taking selfies.

Then they turned on another girl, Hanan, forcing her to sit in front of the flag so she’d have to look at it. They kicked people, ordered us to lower our heads and look at the ground — anyone who looked up was forced to kneel. An older activist wet himself. Anything associated with Palestine was ripped away, thrown to the ground, and trampled. They tore bracelets off everyone’s wrists; one girl was dragged because hers wouldn’t break. It wasn’t even the Palestinian flag — it was Somali.

We stayed on the concrete for hours. They asked for Italian passports and took us through immigration control. There they opened our bags: anything linked to Palestine was thrown in the trash. When they found a copy of the Quran in my bag, they went berserk — convinced I was Muslim. For two hours, every officer passing by mocked me.

In my toiletry bag they found pink wet wipes and laughed, saying “you’re a woman.” They slapped each other’s backs, amused. After border control, they forced us to strip down to our underwear. We went through two interrogations — only one with a lawyer present. They asked if we wanted to be deported. Then came the announcement: we were going to jail.

That’s when Itamar Ben Gvir, Israel’s Minister of National Security, arrived. He came to Ashdod to make sure we were treated as terrorists. He screamed it at us — that we were terrorists. Right in front of him, the police wanted to show their zeal: they blindfolded us and tightened plastic handcuffs around our wrists until they cut into the skin.

They loaded us into an armored vehicle wearing only light shirts. The air conditioning was blasting; it was freezing. A Scottish boy managed to loosen his cuffs and, with help from an Italian named Marco, released the others. When we saw the others getting off, their hands were purple. Some had been tied since the interception — traveling to prison with their hands bound from 2 a.m. to 4 p.m.

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[Jehad Abusalim @JehadAbusalim]

Did you know that Gaza was once one of the great centers of learning in the Mediterranean world?

In the 5th and 6th centuries, Gaza City became famous for its rhetorical school, where students studied law, philosophy, grammar, and the art of persuasion. Scholars such as Aeneas of Gaza, Procopius of Gaza, and Choricius of Gaza taught and wrote there. They blended classical Greek thought with early Christian ideas.

Gaza also housed a major library, considered important enough to be compared with those of Athens, Alexandria, and Constantinople. Letters and writings from Gaza show that its intellectuals were in dialogue with scholars in Alexandria and beyond.

The rhetorical school of Gaza trained orators, judges, bishops, and poets, and its influence reached across the Byzantine Empire. Historians even note that at its peak, Gaza’s intellectual life rivaled -- and sometimes even surpassed -- that of Athens and Alexandria.

In the next couple of months, the same city that has been alive for nearly five thousand years will most likely be completely leveled and erased by the genocidal death cult of Israel.

[Mohammed El-Kurd @m7mdkurd]

And we fall for it every time, without fail. Whether about Anas Al-Sharif or Shireen Abu Akleh, Israelis don’t spew their lies because they believe them, they do it because they know they can bait us into pointless debates that distract from focal point: their crimes.

[Amnesty International @amnesty]

Month after month, the world has watched as Israel treated Palestinians in Gaza as a subhuman group unworthy of human rights and dignity, demonstrating its intent to physically destroy them.

[Mohammed El-Kurd @m7mdkurd]

Last week, a friend sent me an episode of a progressive Jewish podcast where one of my essays was discussed. At some point, the host and her guests began talking about the "ostracization of Zionists," and they agreed that it was a complex and controversial matter—almost as though it were unreasonable for us to demand that proponents of this racist, genocidal ideology face social consequences. One guest even called it "litmus testing Jews on Israel."

Anyway, while the episode continued, I opened social media to see to see the news: Zionists were burning Palestinians alive. I saw 19-year-old Shaban al-Dalou, connected to an IV drip on a makeshift hospital bed, being engulfed in flames. I couldn't think of a starker juxtaposition to illustrate the chasms that separate us from some of our allies—between their priorities, their concerns, and ours. I could not come up with a better metaphor for this level of detachment from reality.

We know that, rightfully, they would never extend the same grace or nuance to Nazis, but somehow, miraculously, when the conversation is about Zionists, demanding moral and political consistency becomes much more intricate—hesitation masquerades as intellectual complexity. I don't know whether it's incredulity, cognitive dissonance, or willful ignorance, but we are on two completely different planets and only the Palestinians are expected to bridge the gap. It’s depressing to think that, after a year of nonstop televised massacres, the irredeemable, indefensible rot that is Zionism remains "debatable" in public life.

I know these words will be hard to read for some, and for others, they’ll be easy to dismiss. Some will cast me as overly critical and their worldly Palestinian friends will agree. Others will say: “No matter what we do, we’ll be called either Hamas supporters or Zionist apologists,” a refrain I often hear, reminiscent of clichéd biracial slam poetry. Others are waiting for some kind of BDS fatwa to command them to spit in the face of their Zionist uncles, knowing that fatwa will never come.

So can we be honest? What will it take? What is it, if not the systemic rape of political prisoners, that will propel you to have the difficult dinner conversation, to dispel and disown Zionism materially, not only discursively? What is it, if not the carving of the Star of David into the cheeks of our young men, that will propel you to protest the Israeli flags present in every facet of Jewish American life? I ask sincerely—is there a threshold?

[Remi Kanazi @Remroum]

Fuck every last living Zionist. Isolate the shit out of them. Kick them out of your spaces. They are no better than Nazis. They have targeted Palestinians for decades. They are violent abusers. Make them uncomfortable, make them unwelcome. Zionism has no place in a just world.

[Omar Baddar عمر بدّار @OmarBaddar]

"This is not a humanitarian crisis, Kate, and I'm going to say it very clearly for your viewers to hear: This is genocide [...] Media agencies will have reckon with their major role in the genocide." -- Dr. Tanya Haj-Hassan to CNN

[Omar Hamad | عُـمَـرْ 𓂆 @OmarHamadD]

We recite poetry, which is our heritage and history, amid the sounds of war machines and this rubble that we spread with flowers so we can live anew.

[Mohammed El-Kurd @m7mdkurd]

What is Zionism?

[İyad el-Baghdadi | إياد البغدادي @iyad_elbaghdadi]

I really struggle with this recently. Every action of the system is performed by people. As we witness an unfolding genocide, remember that every bomb, ever shell, every bullet is fired by a person. Evil systems persist because of people, many people, contributing to them.

[blkp🔻 @blkpaws]

Came across Dr. Refaat Alareer's poem "If I must die" just a few days ago, I cried and couldn't help but translated it to Chinese without his permission. Now that he's gone.

[sensory homunculette @myfriendcallie]

I do not want to be a woman in the work force!!! I want to be a little creature drinking from a creek!!!!!!

[Sarah 🦉🍁❄️ @aweepingwillow]

5 of 5 stars to Walk with Me by Jairo Buitrago https://t.co/dhcKDDBwws

[Sarah 🦉🍁❄️ @aweepingwillow]

5 of 5 stars to Lizzy and the Cloud by Terry Fan https://t.co/ecMhL48crD

[Sarah 🦉🍁❄️ @aweepingwillow]

@libby_lucy Looking forward to it! 🥰🥹

[B'Tselem בצלם بتسيلم @btselem]

This morning, B’Tselem’s field researcher in Jenin documented the exact locations in which the Palestinian gunman depicted in a video distributed by the Israeli army, fired, as well as the exact location in which Journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was killed.

[Mairav Zonszein מרב זונשיין @MairavZ]

Hard to admit but true https://t.co/fjDFiLDoNb

[Sydney Smith @Sydneydraws]

Napping cat

[Sarah 🦉🍁❄️ @aweepingwillow]

4 of 5 stars to Paradise by Abdulrazak Gurnah https://t.co/Am6rq6t6W0