Leaving

On A Jet Plane

Tomorrow morning !

To San Francisco !

Meet a cousin!

I’ve never met!

Nahed ♥️

Her family too 🤓

South San Francisco became the second city on the Peninsula to call for a ceasefire, following East Palo Alto, which adopted a similar resolution last month.

While a local resolution may not have a direct impact on foreign policy, pro-Palestinian activists believe measures like the one passed Wednesday night in South San Francisco might have a ripple effect on other cities, which could influence the federal government to take a stronger stance against Israel’s military action in Gaza.

Protesters in support of Palestine gather in San Francisco’s Alta Plaza Park as President Joe Biden attends a fundraiser two blocks away, Wednesday, Feb. 21, 2024, in San Francisco, Calif. (Karl Mondon/Bay Area News Group)

Family vacations.. We did that once you know? August 1993. I was 8 years old.

We were going to California baby! Land of Disney & Universal! Venice & Hollywood! I naturally felt cooler just imagining myself there 😎

Plus! It was my first ever time on an airplane! Second time would be when I ‘left’ the UAE for the American dream in 2010! (Where I reside still, minus the dream(s), I don’t sleep well anymore)

Back to 1993! I was so nervous but so eager for the promise of adventure and more family. And once past flight’s initial hiccup, I knew deep in my bones it would be smooth sailing/flying/whatever from there on🤞

The hiccup? Long story short… Got excited about something (no recollection what), attempted to show (‘it’) to Baba next to me on plane, and that’s when his reactive pivot (elbow) caught me square in the mouth. Ouch… I faintly remember the nice flight attendant lady maneuvering me up front to clean and cheer me up. And so, with less crimson in my mouth, I returned to seat and adventure!

My uncle Robin lived in Los Angeles and so I met him, daughter Nada, son Mohamad. Just never Nahed… believe she was in the land of maple syrup 🍁 then… you know what I mean 🇨🇦…

He was a carbon copy of Baba. Physically so alike but deeply so diverged. He seemed nicer, kinder, somehow lighter… (maybe it was how often he smiled and laughed, and how he seemed to mean each gesture aloud). My dad on the other hand was always an angry man. He had a hard life and that rage was his fuel, his light. For as long as I knew him… (and know him). His anger was he…

My uncle passed the summer before I moved to Dallas from Dubai 2010. I never saw my dad cry before (or ever really, come to think of it), but I surely did once he learnt of his passing. My sweet uncle died alone in his apartment, his heart had stopped working. He died alone in his American dream. His wife (I’ve never met) split time between the U.S. and Lebanon. She never cared for America the same, and so he didn’t die under her watch, he did that all alone…

I miss how happy he seemed to be.

As for Nahed and this soon-to-be solo adventure… It’s a convergence of Palestine and WhatsApp really.

You see with all the sadness of 🇵🇸, I started texting her Sunday January 7th. I was off the last 2 weeks in December 2022, primarily spending it watching and reading about Palestine (therefore mostly just crying). I cried every single day, sporadically throughout (private or public), and to sleep each night. I was so sad. I am only ever sad now I suppose. The rest proves to be pretense or distraction.

But it was in the new year (January 2024) that I vowed I would evolve from more than just sad crying lump. I was going to actively (deliberately) help them. Am going to help them all.

And that’s when I wrote my first ever article on LinkedIn, to proclaim that belief, before faking another year. I then took those initial words (and 7 or so proceeding) and brought them to Substack! March 14 2024!

Happy New Shit 🥂

I learnt about platform from Mehdi Hasan, and diligently worked for ~ 1.5 days to build out profile, publication, importing previous work. And since, I have curated new ones, here, first of which, very following day, March 15 2024.

In sharing my article with Nahed (and all humans I believed would be receptive), I realized her heart and mind were already so active for our justice and freedom. She is fighting the fight in San Fran, and I am so immensely proud. I love her heart, and only wish I knew it before now.

But we will make up for it inshallah. Just you wait and see (or read 🤓)

At the United Nations (UN) today…

➊ General Assembly: 49th plenary meeting, Tenth emergency special session (resumed)

Arab and Palestinian sponsored Resolution to expand Palestine’s “rights and privileges”…

➡️ Tenth Emergency Special Session Website

➡️ Resolution A/ES-10/L.30/Rev.1

Was approved by the 193-member world body ! Woot woot 🥂

The General Assembly adopts a resolution that "Determines that the State of Palestine is qualified for membership in the United Nations in accordance with Article 4 of the Charter of the United Nations and should therefore be admitted to membership in the United Nations". The Resolution was adopted by a recorded vote with 143 votes in favour, 9 against and 25 abstentions.

After voting against the resolution, the US criticized the vote for more rights for Palestine at the UN General Assembly.

Israel’s ambassador denounces the UN for “welcoming a terror state into its ranks”.

I appreciate the yankee doodle candor for transcending international justice for the sake of manipulative cardiac exercise (vetoing so much innocent life)

You. Are. Special. 🇺🇸

Just not in any way I actually care to subscribe to…

The world has surely reserved a place for such membership. I believe it’s called Hell. What comes next after all of this…

And I can’t end this section without providing ‘praise’ for their last such action, April 18. They blocked a widely supported Security Council resolution that would have made us 🇵🇸, the 194th member of the United Nations. 

Ambassador Robert A. Wood of the United States votes against the draft resolution on Palestine in the Security Council. UN Photo/Manuel Elías

In other observations, they (🇺🇸) sure possess a flair for the red they spill…

Sexy Wars

➋ Daily Press Briefing by the Spokesperson of the Secretary-General and the Spokesperson for the President of the General Assembly

Transcript ➡️ https://www.un.org/sg/en/content/noon-briefing-highlight

Minor extraction of Palestine’s excerpt below…

Humanitarian partners working on the health response in Gaza warn that with fuel supplies dwindling, five hospitals and five field hospitals, 17 primary health care centres, nearly two dozen medical points and 28 ambulances will only be able to sustain their operations for less than 48 hours.

➌ António Guterres (UN Secretary-General) Press Conference (UNON)

2024 UN Civil Society Conference #2024UNCSC

And you have truly painted us as such…

A recurrent metaphor, going back to a statement by former Prime Minister Ehud Barak in 1996 which pictured Israel, a "vanguard of culture against barbarism" as a flourishing "villa in the jungle", implied that those outside the villa's grounds were wild beasts. Ariel Sharon's son Gilad Sharon stated that the aim of Operation Pillar of Defense in November 2012 was "a Tarzan-like cry that lets the entire jungle know in no uncertain terms just who won, and just who was defeated".According to Neve Gordon, who has spoken about statements which have been made during the recent Israel–Hamas war, Israel's military conflicts with Palestinians are frequently framed in terms of a conflict between civilized Israeli soldiers who are serving in the most moral army on earth and their adversaries, Palestinians, who are perceived as 'human animals' incapable of grasping the rules of war.

Shame of it all, is we are very human, only ever been human. Sublimely (amazingly) human…

But ‘you’ leave less for actual inspiration…

One final note, a new learning for me today ⬇️

#KeffiyehDay

World Keffiyeh Day was started by Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights (SPHR)

SPHR was formed in 1999, via a merger between the Concordia Centre for Palestinian Human Rights (CCPHR) at Concordia University (Concordia) and the Palestinian Solidarity Committee (PSC) at McGill University (McGill). Concordia maintains an SPHR chapter and McGill maintains a separate SPHR chapter.alternative name for Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP).

The global movement brings awareness and solidarity to the Palestinian cause and struggle. Strategically scheduled May 11th ahead of Al Nakba, the day of calamity in 1948, May 15th.

I have one now you know, a keffiyeh.

My beautiful Palestinian friend Reem gifted it to me earlier this year (I wear it ever so proudly, when I feel safe enough to do so of course…)

First such event was for my very first (only ever!) protest! And of course it was one for 🇵🇸! It was a cold day in January 2024 (hence the Rudolph nose)… in Dallas TX (sigh, I know). I was wearing leggings under my pants and still, that double pant strategy did little to give me physical comfort or warmth…

But I’ve never been more proud! More honored!

Viva la 🇵🇸

Today and forever ♥️

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