"...the toughest thing I have... is an Expo marker."
Palestinian poet Refaat Alareer killed in Gaza
Before being killed (along with six members of his family), I was not familiar with Palestinian academic and poet Refaat Alareer. Like a lot of what’s lost, I’m sad to know him only after he’s gone.
He wrote this poem about a month before he was killed (by many accounts, assassinated):
Here is actor Brian Cox reading the poem as well:
In this video from Al Jazeera, he is quoted saying
I am an academic, probably the toughest thing I have at home is an Expo marker. But if the Israelis invade, if they charge at us, open door to door to massacre us, I’m going to use that marker, throw it at the Israeli soldiers, even if that is the last thing I will be able to do. And this is the feeling of everybody. We are helpless and we have nothing to lose.
He also told CNN:
You want to hug your kids like you usually do, or tell them stories or pat them on the head. But you don’t want to do it because you don’t want to feel, or make them feel, that this is like a farewell hug.
Both the CNN and Al Jazeera pieces mention how he offended people by saying on BBC that the October 7th attacks by Hamas against Israel were justified and compared them to the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (“a BBC spokesperson said his comments ‘were offensive and we don’t intend to use him again (as a commentator).’”). I don’t feel like any civilian murder is justified but I also haven’t lived my entire life under apartheid and was then interviewed as tens of thousands of my friends, family, and neighbors were being killed.
It feels like we are always looking for a reason someone deserves to die. I think Bill Maher sucks, but I don’t think he deserves to die for saying the 9/11 hijackers were not cowards. Hamas is often accused of using civilians as “human shields,” but does that then justify blowing up the human shields? And if the remaining Israeli hostages are also being used as human shields, then either those hostages are in great peril or Israel can be a lot more precise with which human shields they can avoid hitting. How often do people say “they were no saint” during someone’s funeral? Who deserves to die?
I vehemently disagree with Israel’s actions right now, but I also don’t think they deserve to die for them. Maybe that peace-loving position is a privilege of being a white American.
Please feel free to tell the White House what you think of their level of support for this ongoing genocide.