My Friend Tamer - Beauty, Love, & Sunrises

What can I say about my friend Tamer, and where should I begin? Maybe I should start by telling you about some of the things he loves. About how these things are also a part of him. About how generous he is to share them with us. Tamer loves beauty and beautiful things. Like his dear cousin, my wonderful friend Ashraf, Tamer also has a kind and sensitive nature, and he is highly attuned to what is lovely, life-affirming, and pleasing.

I also want to tell you about his gift of creating beautiful moments, of finding the pieces of sweetness and life that can be hidden and obscured by heaviness, uncertainty, and chaos. Whether it is making and enjoying a cup of coffee, appreciating the sight of a beautiful flower, or finding a way to entertain and bring joy to his nieces and nephews, he nurtures and appreciates these small moments, these little things that are not actually little, especially when seen clearly for all that they are and all that they represent. He finds these moments, creates these moments, and shares these moments.

Tamer has a wonderful smile, a smile which is both reassuring and contagious, a smile that you can’t help but smile back when you see it, a smile which brings hope and happiness, a smile that radiates love. Tamer lets love guide and strengthen him,whether it is his love for his mother, his nephews and nieces, his wonderful wife, or his beloved cat, (who sadly, recently passed and who he still misses very much.) His love is what lights his path and helps him move through each sorrow and pain to a place of determination and faith, a place he inhabits with a generosity of spirit, a place to which he invites others through his sharing of whatever beautiful moments he can find and create.

As is the case with many of my talented and amazing friends in Gaza, Tamer is also a very good writer, even though he has told me before he does not think of himself as a ‘writer.’ But he feels things intensely and notices what's around him, and his sensitivity, awareness, and depth come through when he writes about a particular moment, place, or experience.

His kind heart is keenly aware of injustice, and again, similarly to Ashraf, being unable to alleviate the suffering of others upsets him greatly. His observant and insightful nature is often reflected in the questions he asks, questions which often strike a chord deep within my heart. Once, when we were talking about the state of things in Gaza, he was lamenting the lives of the many children who had lost so much, whose homes and schools had been destroyed, whose lives revolved around trying to find food and water, as did the lives of many adults in their family. We spoke about forgotten dreams, of lives put on hold, of wishes becoming hidden by the constant efforts and demands of trying to survive, and he said:

“We are enduring so much. But these thoughts come to me every day: When will the sun rise on our lives like it does for the rest of the world? When will I sit in my home, eat what I crave, drink what I desire, go wherever I love, and do all of this without fear?”

I told Tamer I did not know when this day would come. I told him his questions were good ones, and that they were also questions he should not have to ask. I said I was sorry it was taking so long, that I wish it could be now, that what is being done to him is unjust.

Over a year has passed since we had this conversation, and I still think of it every day. And I still do not know the answers.

Daily life in Gaza remains a constant struggle, as there is still no safety, no guarantee of survival, and not enough support. Tamer and his family have suffered many losses, and they are still enduring much hardship. Tamer has family members who have chronic health conditions that require regular medical treatment, and because of Israel's ongoing illegal blockade and targeting of the medical system, medication and treatment are expensive and difficult to find.

Nothing is getting easier, and this family still does not have enough support. But I admire and appreciate the many ways Tamer chooses life each day. And I have learned much from him about the importance and the means for doing this. And I look forward to the day when he can live his life again with his beloved family, the way he chooses and wants to live; I look forward to the time when he can fill his thoughts with remembered dreams and new hopes and all of the things that make him happy. And I believe this day will come, even if we do not yet know when it will be.

In the meantime, we owe this family our every effort, our every hope, our every support. And the material support we offer can help Tamer and his family get through these difficult days and nights. We must show them that we appreciate their efforts, that we are grateful to them for all they share with us, and we must do everything we can to bring the sunrise closer.

[To contribute to Tamer and his family’s survival fund, you can make a donation online via their Chuffed crowdfunding page or contact Clarissa at eightfamiliesingaza@gmail.com.]

Upcoming Presentation: May 14, 2026, 'Eight Families in Gaza: Amplifying Their Voices'

 

The next "Eight Families in Gaza: Amplifying Their Voices" presentation will be on Thursday, May 14, 2026 at 7pm at the Whatcom Peace & Justice Center.  A special thank you to the WPJC for hosting this presentation again, and for understanding the importance of creating and sustaining networks of care that are critically important for survival amidst violence, injustice, and oppression. 

I hope you can join me for this program, as it offers a chance for new people to get to know members of these beloved families who are trying to survive in Gaza through the presentation theyhelped me create, which includes what they have generously shared with us. And if you have previously attended past versions of this event, this latest version will give you an opportunity to learn the latest updates about the families you have come to know and care so much about. 

This will likely be the last presentation like this for a number of months, so I encourage you to please come if you can, and I hope you will make time and space in your hearts and minds for those in Gaza who are being forced to endure so much for so long, and who are still doing everything they can to somehow find a way through this. As I have often said, we owe them everything.

An Important Update & Sustaining Donations

 

When I first became involved in the efforts to help find support for families in Gaza as they tried to survive the genocide, I was not sure what would happen, what I would be able to do, or how long this would be needed. I am grateful for the support I have been able to find from my local and area communties, for the new friendships and relationships that have since formed, whether they are here locally, with friends in Gaza, or with others also involved in these efforts from a number of different locations throughout the world. 

While I have been heartened by the support we have found, it is still not enough, and unfortunately, it will be needed for much longer, as conditions have not improved and in many ways are worsening. Because my commitment will last the rest of my life, I will continue to seek out new opportunities, and to expand our network of support in whatever ways I can. 

In order to do this, there are some things that have changed that I want to tell you about today. Washington State requires that fundraising activities that generate funds above a certain amount be registered as falling under an official nonprofit structure. While I have always been more comfortable in mutual aid spaces that are external to these official mainstream structures, I also don't want anything to prevent me from continuing these efforts. 

Therefore, I have had to file paperwork to establish a nonprofit registration, which I have completed. This means the fundraising activities I am doing for a number of families in Gaza who I am personally connected to will now be formally organized under the non-profit name "Eight Families in Gaza." Because of the amount of financial support that is still required, I had to make these structural changes in order to continue these efforts without any barriers.

The impact of your donations remains the same, however, and 100 percent of all funds raised for campaigns I host or for families I support through funds raised in my community for specific families in Gaza will still go directly to these families in Gaza. 

Additionally, I am hoping that what began as individual mutual aid campaigns might have the potential to build in more stability through regular, ongoing, recurring donations, and I hope you will join me in this effort. You can sign up to become recurring donors on their individual campaign pages, or you can sign up to make monthly recurring donations to a central pool of funds that I can pull from to help cover emergencies, rent, and other essential needs. 

There is a platform called Zeffy, which is free to non-profits, and offers a mechanism for collecting contributions online that will be designated as a central fund for use for all of these families, to be dispersed and allocated as needed.

I will also be transitioning any of the campaigns I host the financial services for to new campaigns organized under the "Eight Families in Gaza" (EFIG) name, and I will be asking recurring donors to cancel their old recurring donations and establish new ones on the new campaign pages.

Thank you for reading this update, and for all of the support you have given to me and to these families these past two and a half years, and thank you also for everything you continue to do now and into the future. It means more than you could ever know.  If you have any questions or need more information, you can contact me at my former personal email address, or at the new one, eightfamiliesingaza@gmail.com.

_______________________________________________________

[And for those of you who have come to know and care about these families in Gaza through the "Eight Families in Gaza: Amplifying Their Voices" programs, featuring presentations that these families helped create, the next presentation will be on May 14, 2026, at 7pm at the Whatcom Peace & Justice Center in Bellingham.] 

Ponies for Palestine: Saturday April 25, 2026 / Mountain Meets Farm / 11am to 1pm

 With gratitude once again to Mountain Meets Farm for hosting this amazing event. I am looking forward to seeing everyone who can join us! I will be on hand to share information and updates about the beloved "Eight Families in Gaza," and I am very grateful for this opportunity. 

An Open Letter to WWU Leadership & the Community

I am writing in response to the deeply disturbing news that Western Washington University is considering welcoming and hosting members of the Israeli Occupation Forces to speak on campus. I am writing because I have recently learned that the university where I attended school for both my undergraduate and graduate degrees, the university where I have worked professionally for almost twenty years, the university I had hoped would welcome a brilliant and hard-working student from Gaza, to whom they had accepted and awarded a scholarship, is now seriously considering giving a platform to those who are openly advocating for the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people.

If this event is permitted, Western will be making clear its decision to cultivate and support what is already a hostile and unsafe environment for many WWU students, as well as for faculty and staff members, especially for those with identities and relationships that are consistently targeted and harassed by zionists and their advocates, those who are marginalized, those who are not part ot the dominant culture, those who are already vulnerable to harm and who face personal risks every day simply by existing in spaces that are committed to upholding systems of oppression, injustice, genocide, and the racism that is embedded in our institutions, all of which fuels the ongoing violence and destruction of Palestine and the Palestinian people.

I write to you today from a place of disappointment that my words are even necessary, that what I am sharing with you now even needs to be said or explained. And I urge you to listen to the voices of the students who are asking you to not allow this event on campus, as I add my voice to theirs, speaking in alignment with their words, while also contributing my own.

As both an employee and an alum of WWU, I am deeply connected to this community, with my relationship with Western beginning when I was an undergraduate student around 30 years ago. Despite reasons which more and more frequently give me cause to doubt the aspirational rhetoric I once believed to be true– words about Western’s commitment to justice, equity, and providing access to education for all students– some part of me is still holding on to the hope that there remains a vestige of truth in these proclamations. However naively, I still want to believe that there are many among us who do believe in the values this institution has so long espoused and claimed to uphold.

I want to believe in this despite having been repeatedly let down and disappointed by this institution. I want to believe in this despite the fact that after over two and a half years of genocide, of scholasticide, of violence and destruction, there is no institutional response of solidarity with or expression of sympathy or commitment to our students and our colleagues in Gaza.

I want to believe this despite having seen time and time again the "Palestine Exception" play out without resistance in spaces throughout this university, having myself been told by members of this institution that my "advocacy for Palestine" makes "some" people at WWU "uncomfortable;" having once been told that there was a complaint submitted to Human Resources about my wearing a certain article of clothing that demonstrated my solidarity with the Palestinian people; having been told that “some” people may think that my doing such things was creating a "disruptive" environment, (to which I affirm my belief that every space should be one that actively seeks to "disrupt" genocide).

I have spent over two and a half years trying to find a way to exist in spaces at WWU that are invested in genocide denial, while simultaneously strengthening and maintaining my personal commitment in my own life to do everything in my own power to support those in Gaza who are trying to survive, while also working to end the genocide in whatever way I can. 

I have done this on my own time and in every space I could find outside of my professional spheres, as with the exception of some students at WWU and a handful of colleagues, this has not been something this institution has welcomed, invited, supported, or wanted to be publicly involved with. For the most part, Western has intentionally cultivated an environment that is dependent on silence and looking away, and this is an environment that has caused intense moral injury to those of us who cannot do this. Working, existing, and functioning in this environment for so long has come at great cost to me personally, and has negatively impacted my own health, to say nothing of the cost to others who are more directly impacted by the genocide.

As Dr. Asfia Qaadir has explained in numerous venues when she has spoken about this injury, spaces of genocide denial are also hostile spaces--hostile to our bodies; hostile to our humanity. And when we are forced to work and live in these spaces, spaces where we are pressured to disconnect from what is happening and deny our own reactions, the distress we are already experiencing is exacerbated. Additionally, while these negative health impacts are causing harm, those of us who are experiencing them are actually having a normal response to something that is not normal and should not be normalized.

Some of the mental and physical effects on our health and bodies that occur as a result of this intense moral injury and moral distress include: memory problems; being in a constant state of heightened anxiety and panic; nightmares; increase in chronic pain conditions, cardiovascular illnesses, and inflammatory conditions--all of which can contribute to suppressing our immune systems, making us more susceptible to illness and sickness, which also makes it much harder to recover from illness. As Qaadir explains, this psychological and physical distress response indicates that we have refused and are unable to disconnect and turn away from our humanity, despite pressure around us to do so.

What I am describing here is specifically about a climate at Western that already exists, an unhealthy and dangerous climate that is already present, without the added harm of inviting perpetrators of genocidal violence to this university, to this university which could not find a way to help a WWU student be evacuated from Gaza but is now considering hosting people who would be coming here to speak about and justify the murder of this student’s family members, while he and his family continue to face injustice, danger, and harm every moment and every day. As I write these words now, I am overcome with nausea. The very fact that any of this even needs to be said is challenging for me to comprehend and respond to.

You cannot, you must not welcome this event at this university. I am not asking. I am stating this, unequivocally, clearly, and without hesitation. If you care about this community, you cannot invite this harm to this campus. There is already so much harm that so many of us who are not part of the dominant culture are trying to exist among and survive. And there is no need to look to “free speech” policies or to use as subterfuge some kind of regulation or statement intended to create the illusion of “neutrality” to mask this decision. If you allow this event to take place on this campus, you will be choosing to make an intentional space for supporting genocide. You will be deliberately choosing to allow those who are part of this community to be harmed. You will be making it very clear who is welcome here and who is not.

Thank you for reading this letter. I am trusting you to do the right thing.

Clarissa Mansfield

This letter was submitted to the President of WWU & his cabinet, and in that letter I also explained I would be publishing it online and sharing it with local contacts. I also gave them my permission to make it as available as they would like, and to share it as openly as they wish. I stand firmly behind my words.

SAVE-THE-DATE / FRIDAY MARCH 20 2026 / CLUB GORT + 8 FAMILIES IN GAZA

FRIDAY MARCH 20, 2026 / 7:30 PM / CLUB GORT + 8 FAMILIES IN GAZA / KARATE CHURCH / BELLINGHAM

DANCE PARTY FUNDRAISER FOR 'EIGHT FAMILIES IN GAZA'

Spring-Equinox-Dance-Party-Benefit-Fundraiser for ‘Eight Families in Gaza’ with: 

MISS KITTY 

ALKEMIST 

APRILXD 

JULES

Pay what you can, 100% of funds raised goes directly to support “Eight Families in Gaza.”
(No alcohol / no strobe lights)

THANKS to the amazing DJs, friends, community members, & everyone making this event happen!! ❤️ Hope to see you there!

REMINDER: Saturday, March 7, 2026 'Eight Families in Gaza: Amplifying Their Voices'

As of this moment, I am still working on updates to this latest version of the presentation, hoping to be finished in time before tomorrow. I am again feeling deep appreciation and gratitude to the families who have shared so much with me, and who have given me so much to share with you. 

It is always an honor for me to try to bring these families closer to you, and closer to those in my local community, even though I know my words are not enough to ever do them justice. I am grateful for this opportunity, and I hope there will be many people in attendance tomorrow, as I want for these families to have as much attention, support, and respect as there can be, and I hope you will help me find more for them.

 If you are reading these words and are committed to attending and will be there tomorrow, I thank you in advance, and I look forward to seeing you there.