Which Suffering is Acknowledged

Today was a hard and heavy day. I try to not let myself sit silently beneath the weight of the heaviness for too long, always mindful of those who are suffering and for whom every effort and every moment is a battle for survival, mindful of those to whom I owe everything. 

I have been thinking today about how in Gaza they are running out of room not just for the living, but also for the dead. I have been thinking about the 66 (known) infants and children who have been murdered through forced starvation. About how baby formula has been blocked by Israel and the U.S. from entering into Gaza, how it is even confiscated from the suitcases of medical workers trying to smuggle in just a few cans to share during the limited time they will spend trying to help at the hospitals and clinics, many which are no longer even in buildings but only in makeshift tents. And about how these clinics and hospitals and tents, what few remain, have also become places where people go to die in pain because there is no longer enough medication, no supplies, not even any gauze or saline, and fuel is running out. I've been thinking about how no place is safe, whether it is a place intended for healing that has become a place for dying, or whether it is a place meant to give shelter but cannot offer any protection.

A close friend in Gaza once said to me that this genocidal war is "a war on every front"–there's nothing left unscathed, no part of their lives untouched–it is a war on food and shelter, health and medical treatment, land and agriculture, nature, animals, and pets, babies and children, men and women, the young and the old, and everyone in between. It is a war on their social fabric and institutions, infrastructure and security, routines and stability, the past and the future. It is a war on hearts and minds, on bodies and spirits. It is a war on banks, stores, water, money, computers, phones, communications, schools, libraries, leisure, freedom–and even on time itself. It is a war on everything. Nothing escapes. I challenge you to try and think of a single thing that isn’t under attack in Gaza. I have yet to find one.

And Palestinians in Gaza never get a break, never get to rest, and can’t even find a temporary reprieve in sleep, as Israel continues to massacre entire families every single day and night. Night-time is a time of horror for families who are exhausted and just want rest. While Americans are shooting starving people searching for food every day. And more and more babies and elderly people are dying of malnutrition, all while the U.S. government dangles the elusive possibility of a ceasefire as a distraction from the constant normalized murder that they are enabling and sustaining.

As I listen to people in my physical proximity, at my workplace and elsewhere, complain about mundane things of no real consequence, especially when juxtaposed against the reality of those for whom every moment is one between life and death, I am overcome with weariness, impatience, frustration, and yes, anger. How I long for a future when everyone can be concerned with mundane, ordinary, even petty things. When such things can take our time and attention. But it is hard for me to take much care for what feels self-indulgent and superficial at this time.

Yes, today is a hard and heavy day. Another friend wrote this morning about how this day is the eleven year anniversary of the deaths of half a dozen members of his family, massacred in their home as they were spending time together enjoying each other's company. And I’ve been thinking about this, about how my friend has had to finish growing up without his father, how he took on the responsibilities of becoming a provider for his mother and younger siblings from an early age, and how he is still fighting for their survival even now, while he experiences constant grief and loss, as more loved ones are cruelly murdered every day.

Today is also the anniversary of the death of Ghassan Kanafani, who was assassinated by Israel on July 8, 1972. In her piece “We Knocked Until Our Hands Broke,” originally published in May 2025 but shared again online today, the brilliant Palestinian writer Alaa Alqaisi expresses how “abandonment is not an accident — it is a decision.”

As with anything Alaa Alqaisi writes, after I read it the first time, I kept returning to it, finding and feeling more each time, as there are layers that build upon each other with each new feeling and each added understanding. I have read it six times just today, and I cannot stop thinking about it. I brought her words to work with me, in my heart and in my head. And then I also read an even more recent piece of hers called "The Double Life of a Palestinian Translator,” where she writes:

"The world will always choose familiar narratives that preserve its sense of stability rather than those that unsettle it with the full force of disruption. And so, translation becomes not only a necessity but an ethical battle: to find a language that resists both disappearance and domestication, allowing pain to remain unfiltered while still ensuring it crosses the linguistic checkpoints that decide which suffering is acknowledged, and which is discarded."

Which suffering is acknowledged. And which is discarded. I have been struggling with this myself. Confused by this dynamic, by my inability to understand why there is this disparity. I encounter this discarded suffering daily in academic spaces here in the United States, spaces filled with people who seem more committed to constructing and maintaining the illusion that the genocide in Palestine is somehow not part of us, not something we should be working to stop, let alone acknowledge. 

Perhaps people are afraid to see, to acknowledge, to recognize because then it would mean they would have to act, they would have to take ownership, they would have to accept their personal responsibility. Whereas if they can keep pretending they somehow don't really know or understand, then maybe they believe they are somehow absolved? But they are not. And what a terrible soul-destroying lie this is. There is no absolution to be found in intentional retreat. In feigning ignorance. In masquerading behind self-indulgence as though it is a virtue. Abandonment is not an accident, it is a decision.

I am grateful to the writers, to the translators, to the poets and the teachers. To all my friends in Palestine. To  Alaa Alqaisi who writes: 

"And if the stories I carry are not always welcomed—if they are met with indifference or rejection—I will still carry them, because their very telling is resistance. Because to name the dead is to resist their disappearance. Because to write a sentence about Gaza in English is to defy the architectures of global indifference."

Upcoming Event - "Eight Families in Gaza: Amplifying Their Voices," July 3, 2025

 

"Eight Families in Gaza: Amplifying Their Voices" 

This special presentation, developed in collaboration with eight families in Gaza & presented by a local community member (Clarissa Mansfield) who is personally connected to them, offers a chance to learn about the lives, loves, and challenges of these families as they try to survive the genocide. Join us to learn more about them, and about how you can give meaningful & direct support to Palestinians in Gaza.

DATE / TIME: Thursday, July 3, 2025 / 7pm - 8:30pm

Whatcom Peace & Justice Center - 1220 Bay Street, Bellingham, WA

Combatting Hoplessness with Action

This past week I had the honor of being interviewed by the talented and generous writer Lama Obeid. Lama asked me thoughtful questions, questions that made me think and reflect, questions I am still pondering today. My gratitude to Lama for sharing with me her time, her kindness, and her insightful questions that created the space for this conversation. I appreciate her so much. (You can listen to the complete interview on her Substack site).

One theme that surfaced repeatedly was related to thinking about how people are responding, questioning, communicating, and acting when it comes to Palestine–what I and other people are doing (or not doing), in response to the accelerated genocide. And of course, being based in the United States, my answers generally included my personal reflections upon the influence of our dominant culture and institutional structures.

Today I’ve been thinking a lot about the people I meet in my local community, the ones I encounter, talk to, and sometimes work alongside. I wonder why some are moved to act, others to ignore, and yet others let despair immobilize them completely. As we see what is being done to Palestinians by the country we live in, as we recognize how our comfort comes at the expense of someone else’s suffering, and as we contemplate the gargantuan size of the systems that oppress us– the corruption in our governments, the vast inequities in power– as we see the people in Palestine being starved, terrorized, and killed while we also feel the pain of not yet having been able to stop this, I understand why some may feel helpless. I understand having moments where hopelessness may overwhelm us, I truly do. Hopelessness, grief, despair. I feel these things too.

But I strongly believe we cannot let that be the place where we stay. We have a duty and a responsibility to not let these feelings, no matter how powerful they may feel, prevent us from doing what is necessary, required, and needed. I often think of Rasha Abdulhadi’s words:

"For those of us not currently being bombed, for those of us whose taxes & daily purchases pay for genocide: Despair is far too expensive a luxury. We have already bankrolled too much horror. Let us save time, save our spirits, and act now to get in the way."

I have thought for a long time about trying to write something about barriers to action, barriers that cause people to retreat and look away, to ignore or hide. I would like to write something that could help break down those barriers, and offer an attempt to help more people find their pathways into action. I am still thinking about this now. But I have more thoughts in my jumbled heart and mind than I know how to effectively communicate at this time.

I regularly write and send email updates to an ever-growing list of people with whom I’ve been trying to raise more support--people from within my own life who may live anywhere, but also primarily people from my local community. In the most recent update, which I shared late last night, I wrote about the families who I am most committed to trying to support. I wrote about how they are struggling. How they are exhausted beyond words, fatigued, malnourished, and losing more loved ones to violence every day. 

The truth is, all Palestinians in Gaza are struggling. They have already been forced to endure so much, and they don’t really have more in reserve to draw from in terms of strength or capacity. They are continuing to lose weight, and their bodies are very very weak. I wrote about how there has been an increase in the daily massacres of Palestinians trying to find food at the American GHF centers, as Palestinians are attacked by quadcopters, missiles, tanks, and gunfire while they try to obtain flour or a small box of food.

 

Every family I spoke with this week has recently risked their lives in pursuit of the so-called “aid,” not because they don’t know the risks, but because they do not feel they have a choice. Several families lost loved ones and family members who were martyred after being shot by the American mercenaries while they waited for food. One family has a relative who went in search of aid and never returned, a scenario which is also becoming very common. Several of the primary contacts for the families themselves had very close calls when they attempted to get food and faced a barrage of bullets and gunfire.

I feel it needs to be clearly stated that American soldiers and American mercenaries are the people killing hungry starving Palestinians– hungry starving men women and children–as they try to find food to keep themselves and their families alive. This is happening every single day. And our country is responsible for it. Which means those of us who are living in this country must do more to end this, while also doing all we can to help those who are trying to survive stay alive.

For the families I am closest to, this week was marked by many consolation services and funerals for killed friends and relatives. And this while the families continue to be starved and forced to experience extreme hunger, as they struggle to afford anything to eat. On average right now, each family needs to receive at least $150 in donations per day at minimum, and that is not an amount we have been able to reach as of yet.

I recently updated my Linktr.ee, and in addition to the links to various fundraising campaigns you can find on the right side of this site, there are also fundraisers listed and linked from the link tree, including the links for the eight families who are featured in the local “Eight Families in Gaza: Amplifying Their Voices” presentations. Likewise, all of the other campaigns I link to belong to people I know personally, people I speak with often, people I am trying to support how I can.

I have recently been quoting the words from a Palestinian man in Gaza named Samer, sharing (with his permission) an excerpt of something he posted online:

“So please, please, please, especially in these days — don’t abandon us. We are facing the worst genocide, the harshest famine, and the vilest enemy on the face of the earth and in all of history. We will keep reminding, speaking, and crying out — for you, about you, and with you — until no one is left alone to face starvation. Until no child goes hungry. Until no father collapses. Until no mother is let down. To anyone reading these words: Whatever you can do — do it now. It may not save the whole world, but it could save a family. And right now, saving a family means saving an entire world.”

If you are feeling hopeless, I hope you will channel that emotion into action, actions that will make a positive impact. Actions that will help keep people alive. It is the least we can do to support the people to whom we owe everything.

Solidarity with the Palestinian Students & Educators

The academic year for the university where I work is drawing to a close, and I have been thinking about the students in Gaza. And I have been reflecting on where things were a year ago at this time, and how much worse they have become since then. 

Every day I speak with students and educators in Gaza who are doing their best to survive the genocide, the unrelenting violence, and the famine, all while still holding on to their dreams. And I wonder what it will finally take to end this. 

I have asked before and I ask again now, what would happen if university and college presidents came out publicly, as leaders of their institutions, against the genocide? What if they made statements in solidarity with their Palestinian peers and colleagues? Would that have an effect? 

Sometimes we say words are just words without actions to back them up, that words on their own are not enough to change anything if they don't have something behind them. And yet, people can be so afraid of words that they try to suppress them, so there must be some power there. 

And who gets to speak, who gets to be heard, and what power is associated with someone's words is often dependent on their position, and the positions of power they hold. I can't help but think the weight of the words of a university president speaking out against the genocide of the Palestinian people would make an impact, would make the news, would inspire others, and would attract students who want to go to a university whose leadership is unafraid to speak out and do what is right. 

Maybe you are reading this and you think you are "just" an ordinary person. And maybe you are reading this and you are not a university president, as is likely the case since I am not a wealthy donor, nor am I a Board of Trustees member, so it is very unlikely any university president would be interested in what I am writing here. But I will write it anyway, and I will add that none of us are ordinary, and everyone has some power, whatever that might look like, however that might be. The thing is to recognize what yours is and find a way to use your voice, in every space and every room, to keep trying to find new ways to do new things until we can finally stop this. 

While my heart is with Palestine and with all Palestinians, especially with those I have grown closest to in Gaza, I also have the deepest love for and solidarity with the educators, school staff members, students, librarians, archivists, teachers, writers, and translators in Gaza, those who are my peers and who deserve so much more than what they have received from their professional colleagues. And there is so much more we could and should be doing. I will keep trying, and I hope you will too.

"Eight Families in Gaza - Amplifying Their Voices" May 31, 2025

 SATURDAY, MAY 31, 2025 / 2-3pm (presentation) / 3-3:30pm (Q &A) / Bellingham Central Library Downstairs Lecture Room (This program is not sponsored by the Bellingham Public Library, and is offered in affiliation with the Whatcom Coalition for Justice in Palestine).

"Eight Families in Gaza: Amplifying Their Voices," May 30 at WWU

 

Friday, 5/30/2025 at WWU in Miller Hall 138 at 4pm / Event Description:

Developed in collaboration with members of the featured families, “Eight Families in Gaza: Amplifying Their Voices,” offers attendees a chance to learn about the lives, loves, and challenges of eight specific families in Gaza as they try to survive the ongoing genocide. 

WWU alum and classified staff member Clarissa Mansfield will also speak about the relationship between disability justice and Palestinian liberation, as well as the responsibility of students and educators in the U.S. to oppose the scholasticide being inflicted upon our Palestinian peers and colleagues. After the presentation there will be time for a Q&A.

Last week on the 77th anniversary of the Nakba, Israel began an intensification of its violent assault on the people of Gaza with attacks from land, air, and sea, with support and weaponry supplied by the U.S. government, sending more shells, drone missiles, bombs, and fire to kill Palestinians in hospitals, school shelters, tents, markets, and streets. 

Since then, this intensification has only worsened every passing day and night, becoming more murderous, terrifying, and brutal. Israel has continued to target hospitals, including one that could offer treatment to cancer patients. 

Israeli forces also continue to terrorize Palestinians in Gaza by dropping threatening leaflets from the sky, issuing so-called "evacuation orders" which force Palestinians to flee amidst the bombs with no safe place to go.

The women, men, children, who are not killed but are left trapped beneath the rubble, or who are rescued but left hurt and wounded, burned and besieged, starved and sickened, can not be given adequate treatment for burns or pain relief for their suffering, cannot rest or breathe or heal, cannot be granted any comfort or assurance of even one moment of safety because of Israel's constant violent bombardment and genocidal attacks. Israeli forces also continue to destroy any kind of construction or rescue equipment, as they also bomb and destroy whatever small food stores are left, while extending their illegal blockade to prevent food, medicine, water, and fuel from entering into Gaza.

How many times will I say that conditions are worse than they have ever been? How can each day and night, which are the worst possible days and nights, somehow be even worse than the preceding ones? And how many times will I have cause to wonder this? There must be an end, somehow, someway. 

Israel has also launched what they are calling “Gideon’s Chariots,” formalizing their blueprint for permanent occupation, mass displacement, and expansion of genocidal violence. While this has been referred to in some media sources as the Israeli government declaring it is launching a "major ground offensive," there is no "offensive." This is a violent intensification and acceleration of genocidal violence unleashed upon families who are already traumatized, starving, and suffering and who are trying to survive. 

Unleashed upon families. Fathers, mothers, children. Siblings, grandparents, aunts and uncles. Cousins, friends, husbands and wives. People who just want a chance to live their lives. 

Israel is violating international law, acting with impunity, and showing no indications they intend to stop. And Israel and the U.S. are also planning to further weaponize food and food distribution, effectively establishing concentration camps with the help of American mercenaries. This should be receiving more scrutiny and attention, especially from Americans, but so far it has not. And Israel's recent announcement about allowing in a mere nine trucks of so-called "aid" is merely a mocking and disdainful nod towards the increasing number of people throughout the world who have been protesting  these past several days who want Israel to stop starving and killing Palestinians. 

These past five days have been hell-like for Palestinians in Gaza and only continues to worsen. One of my friends sent me a video and voice note recordings of shelling and gunfire from the helicopters hovering above his tent on Sunday. The video and sounds were enough to make my heart skip and my body to shudder, from the safety of my home, a 10 second clip--what must it be to be living through this, and for this to be only one threat, only one source of fear, one cause of anxiety among so many, too many to count?

Everyone I talk to in Gaza is trying, trying so hard to keep going, to be ok. They are doing everything they can to take care of their loved ones, to be strong for each other. But there is a weariness, a fatigue, an exhaustion steeped in trauma, devastation, and starvation, compounded by being immersed in constant loss while also surrounded by an abundance of violent death.

It is too much to bear.

We need to keep doing what we are doing to end the genocide and the occupation, while we also continue to find new ways to stop it. We must keep giving all we can to help those who are trying to survive. I do not know how much longer we can continue like this, how much longer anyone can. But I feel strongly that time is not something we can spare. There is an urgency required of us if we are to adequately meet this moment.

One thing I am hoping more people are beginning to understand, one thing that I am trying to show with the presentations I have been giving, is that this is not something happening separately from us. The Palestinian people in Gaza are connected to us. And the people in the U.S. are connected to them. And this country is also the country that is enabling and supporting this genocide. 

What is happening to Palestine, what our country is doing, is also connected to what is happening here. And it is connected to the trajectory this country has been on for a very long time. And if we cannot somehow stop the normalization of intentionally using mass starvation, torture, and violence as means of asserting control and maintaining power, then there isn't much hope for any of us. And perhaps, there shouldn't be.

So again I request that you please do what you can, today, now, this moment to help. Send whatever support you can send to Palestinians in Gaza. Direct aid from us in terms of the funds we are raising right now is the only thing that is helping. And listen and respond to what Palestinians are saying. Prioritize hearing their voices above the voices of others. And then talk to everyone in your life about this. Push back against the lies, the normalization, the silences. Bring this with you to every moment. Take whatever action you can take. Take up space. Take up room. Take up air time. Do whatever you can do. Nothing we have done so far has been enough. So we must keep trying.