Hejsa,
It really has turned autumnal now. Rain and windy most of this past week. Luckily, Blake and I have managed to miss the rain on most of our walks. Although yesterday morning we did get wet and Blake had had enough after five minutes, so home we went!
Happy Samhain. Or Halloween or All Saints. :-)
I have been working on the Samhain motif in the Wheel of The Year embroidery. I am especially loving working on the large squares, using the battlement stitch. It is just such a cool stitch. :-)
I have a tutorial for battlement stitch on YouTube if you want to try it.
And now for something completely different.
The other day I posted this photo on Instagram (I’ve pasted the text from the post below). I was in two minds whether I should do so or not. Should I be “nice” and not post something “controversial” and just stick to crafts?
But, you know what? The people who live in Palestine don’t have a choice. They barely even have a voice because Israel shuts off their means of communicating with the rest of the world. As well as blocking access to basic necessities of life: food, clean water and fuel.
It is a genocide, plain and simple. And the government here in the UK, and elsewhere, is not condemning it. On the contrary, they label marches, demanding a cease fire, as ‘hate marches’. It is beyond comprehension. The contemptuous UK government does not speak for me.
After I shared that post on Instagram, a whole bunch of people unfollowed me and good riddance. Because if you don’t like it when someone speaks out against genocide then…I dunno...does that mean that you are FOR genocide? If that’s the case then I’d definitely prefer that they don’t follow me.
What Hamas did on October 7th was horrendous and inexcusable but what Israel has been doing in the weeks since is far worse. You don’t right a wrong by being wronger by a factor of a hundred. Using war crime bombs like white phosphorous, targeting journalists and bombing hospitals.
If you think that Israel is right to do this, then you are siding with war criminals. If you think that Israel is fighting a just war, instead of murdering people and bombing into oblivion what is left of Palestine, so Israel can grab the land (and oil rights), then please unfollow me, unsubscribe, forget you ever heard about me because we couldn’t disagree more.
There is more I would say about all this but I won’t… I don’t have the words. But I will say this: standing against Israel’s genocide on Palestine does not make someone anti-Semite. Just like it doesn’t make someone anti-Muslim for condemning Hamas.
Blaming Jewish people in England, for example, for the crimes of the Israeli government is not okay. Neither is blaming Muslims in Canada, say, for the actions of Hamas. It is wild that some people don’t know the difference.
I pray for peace.
But for many there will be no peace. Even when the bombs eventually stop.
x Carina
P.S. Any kind of hateful comments about Jews or Muslims will be deleted. Take that kind of BS elsewhere. x
What Hamas did on October 7th is despicable.
But what Israel has been doing is far worse. The indiscriminate bombing of Gaza, where people can't escape, where a large proportion of the population are children, is completely out of proportion. Taking away food, water, electricity, and means of communicating with the outside world. That is not 'retribution', that is genocide.
Since my government, nor (extremely disappointingly) the leader of the Opposition, will condemn Israel's attack for me, then I will add my voice to the hundreds of thousands who have been marching in support of Palestine, in demand of a ceasefire.
If you disagree, feel free to unfollow me, because this is not up for discussion.
Also, Islamophobic and anti-Semitic comments are absolutely not welcome here. Find somewhere else to spout hate.
Free the hostages, and free Palestine.
I'll be honest with you, the past couple of days I have been thinking about what, if anything, I should say/post on Instagram. Is it my place to say something? Do I know enough about the Palestine issue? Would it just seem like a performative thing to do?
But in the end I decided that I must say something. We all must. Genocide is happening in Palestine and we can't be quiet in our opposition to that.
I don't know what else to say. I pray for Peace. Salaam. Shalom.
#CeasefireNow
Ceterum (autem) censeo Palaestinam esse liberandam.