Excuse me, may I please speak? I post this blog to honor Nakba Day, May 15, 2024, 77 years of forced removal from homes, villages and communities—The Palestinian Catastrophe of 1948 On May 9, 2024 a group of us, many from Newton, some Palestinian, some Jewish, organized a program at the Newton Free Public library […]
Read More My Missing Talk at the Newton Public Library Nakba ReceptionI’d written to Yeela with some questions. She responded at some length. My earlier blog about her. On February 8, 2024 she emailed me: Skip: i found a photo of destruction in your home presumably caused by hamas. Yeela: yes, Hamas. Yeela’s kitchen after the Hamas attack could you tell me what happened, especially how you […]
Read More Dual Loyalty-addendum to Yeela Raanan (her response to my questions)Overshadowed by the savage destruction of Gaza and the massacre of Israeli civilians (with some Israeli military) on October 7, 2023, Palestinians in the West Bank live under another form of siege and potential expulsion: checkpoints, night raids, demolition of homes, destruction of olive and fruit groves, and theft of agricultural lands—an apartheid region, two […]
Read More Fareed Taamallah in the West BankWhich side are you on, boys, which side are you on? Sahar Vardi Like many observing the violence over Gaza, I’m stunned, frenzied, and outraged. My mind fractures, I feel dizzy, nightmares disturb my sleep. My heart-sick sometimes turns into gut-sick, I feel physically ill. When I shop for food and cook, when I pee […]
Read More DUAL LOYALTY-part 4-Sahar Vardi-Which side are you on, boys, which side are you on?In my 4 part blog series, drawing heavily from my photography during 6 journeys to Gaza (2013 was the most recent; since then Israel has blocked me from entrance), I hope to portray my personal connections with people and issues in Gaza, Israel (especially southern Israel in the Negev/Naqab desert bordering Gaza) and the West […]
Read More Dual Loyalty-part 3-Yeela RaananThe Palestinian inner layers of psychology go around one single issue: the 1948 uprooting and the destruction of their homes. And what the Israelis are doing, by destroying all these homes every day, they are making the Palestinians relive the trauma, which is very deeply buried into our conscious and our unconscious. The home for […]
Read More Dual Loyalty-part 1Francis Day 2022 reflection— As part of a procession to memorial trees during the annual St. Francis Day celebration at Agape, a lay Catholic/Catholic Worker style nonviolence activist center in central Massachusetts, I offered the following reflections at a tree dedicated to suffering and resilience in the Middle East. Agape’s annual Francis Day celebration in […]
Read More Gaza Comes to MassachusettsFrom my journal, letters, and other writing about internally expelled Palestinian refugees in the West Bank and Gaza (once I can enter Gaza), plus their ancestral homelands. These dispatches based on my latest work in Palestine-Israel from mid-May to mid-July 2019. With the pandemic crisis easing, I now plan to enter Palestine-Israel in mid May […]
Read More THE ONGOING AND RELENTLESS NAKBA—NOTES FROM THE PAST POINTING TO THE FUTURE (PART 3)From my journal, letters, and other writing about internally expelled Palestinian refugees in the West Bank and Gaza (once I can enter Gaza), plus their ancestral homelands. These dispatches based on my latest work in Palestine-Israel from mid-May to mid-July 2019. With the pandemic crisis easing, I now plan to enter Palestine-Israel in mid May […]
Read More The Ongoing and Relentless Nakba—notes from the past pointing to the future (part 2)From my journal, letters, and other writing about internally expelled Palestinian refugees in the West Bank and Gaza (once I can enter Gaza), plus their ancestral homelands. These dispatches based on my latest work in Palestine-Israel from mid-May to mid-July 2019. With the pandemic crisis easing, I now plan to enter Palestine-Israel in mid May […]
Read More The Ongoing and Relentless Nakba—notes from the past pointing to the future (part 1)
Skip Schiel & Teeksa Photography 