Unfollowed you on all platforms.

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Hejsa,

How are you?

Screenshot of an email that says: Unfollowed you on all platforms. I don't care about your political views, your craft blog is not the place for them.

I received this response to my last newsletter/Substack post. And um, wow.

I’m glad they unfollowed me because we are clearly not ‘compatible’. I will never not talk about important things like a genocide happening before our eyes. And apparently with the approval of our governments; our so-called Home Secretary whose husband is a ‘proud’ Zionist. The US is sending $14bn worth of weapons to Israel. Well, that says it all, doesn’t it?

I try to imagine being able to shut out the images of dead children in the rubble of their homes and just be able to focus on my current craft project.

And I simply can’t.

If I don’t share my outrage (not a strong enough word!) on my craft blog ‘platforms’, then where? I don’t have access to sharing my opinions elsewhere.

But maybe they mean that I should just shut up in general and only talk about crafts and not disturb their nice, peaceful life in blissful ignorance?

That person is obviously so privileged that they can pretend that politics is something that happens outside the crafty sphere. Every aspect of our lives is political, it’s just that some have the privilege to be able to ignore it.

So if you feel the same way as that person, please unsubscribe/unfollow/whatever.

I have more to say, and I wrote it down. It is quite long, so I have put the rest below. Read it if you like.

Since reading about what is being/has been done to Palestinians has made me feel quite despondent, I made myself go looking for things that are more cheerful.

Let’s start with some music. I put together a playlist with some Palestinian singers. And a couple who aren’t. I hope you will have a listen. Even if it is a bit different to what you usually listen to. And even if you don’t understand it. I don’t, sadly, apart from a couple of words, unless they sing in French. But that does not stop me from ‘singing’ along with some of my favourites. :-)

Next, a few poets/writers to check out: Ghassan Kanafani, Khaled Juma (look up Oh Rascal Children of Gaza), Mahmoud Darwish (Identity Card).

On to cookbooks. I was going to list a few, but then I thought I might as well put them together in a list on Bookshop.org: Palestinian Cookbooks*. Or on Amazon (UK) if you prefer: Palestinian Cookbooks.

More than one thing can be true at the same time: Palestinians/Muslims are not monsters (although some people, press and politicians try to convince us that they are) and neither are Jewish people. Hamas does not act in the name of all Palestinians (not all of whom are Muslim by the way) and Israel does not act in the name of all Jewish people.

Just because I am speaking out for Palestine does not mean that I am saying that Jewish people are terrible.

Well, some of them are since they are ok with genocide. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I don’t know how people can just go about their daily life and not think about what is happening in Gaza. I wish for a ceasefire. I wish for peace. I wish for a free Palestine where people can be alive and share meals while their children play and laugh under the olive trees.

x Carina

P.S. I almost didn’t share this post, I guess I got a bit nervous about being so forthright about my opinions, but if not now, then when? But then I thought: no, that one person’s email is not going to make me shut up. Even if there is nothing else we can do, we can take a stand with out words.

*The bookshop.org link is an affiliate link, just FYI. That’s just how their site/lists work. If you did happen to buy anything using my link then I would earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. But I don’t want to make any money from sharing this so please just copy the titles and get them from the library or your local bookshop. x

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I am not going to stop talking about what is happening to the Palestinian people.

Since October 7th, Israel has killed 10,000 people (and counting) and half of them are children. If you are not outraged that 5,000 children have been killed…where is your humanity?

Hospitals are being bombed, as are ambulance convoys and universities. Power supplies to the hospitals are being disrupted and solar panels on nearby buildings are targeted too. Think of everything that is relying on electricity. And not just light bulbs. Dialysis machines, incubators etc.

100 Israeli doctors have signed a letter for the hospitals in Gaza to be bombed. That is a war crime! And goes against the Hippocratic Oath, I would think.

Israel holds the census of Palestine. They know where everyone lives. Think about that. This is how they have been able to specifically target journalists, and their families, who are still reporting from inside Gaza. How they are able to target bakeries, leaving loaves of bread strewn in the street in pools of blood.

Clean drinking water is in such short supply that people have resorted to drink sea water.

There is cholera.

It has been the Zionists goal to take all of Palestine (Lebanon, too, given half the chance) ever since the Nakba in 1948. Palestine is a fraction of the size it was a hundred years ago. Israel has taken most of Palestine land by force. Throwing old ladies out at gun point. They don’t have They burn crops and olive trees. Plant invasive species so nothing native will grow. And it is not just people who are born Israelis. It is so disturbing to see videos of young people in Israeli military uniforms stating their ages and where they have come from: Florida, California, South Africa etc. The so called lone soldiers.

Israel wants to build a canal, as an alternative to the Suez canal. They have the backing of the UK, US, France and many other countries to do so. Building a canal in a straight line is cheapest and guess what is in the path of a straight line between the Gulf of Aqaba and the Mediterranean? Yup, Gaza. So it’s no wonder that Israel doesn’t care if they are blowing every building and infrastructure to smithereens. Never mind the people who live there.

And with potentially billions in revenue from such a canal, no wonder the political backers in the West are willing (happy?) to turn a blind eye to the atrocities committed by Israel. For example, our current PM has a father in law who owns a company that has shares in BP which was just granted rights to explore the oil reserves in Palestinian territory. Always follow the money where the corrupt politicians are concerned. What are a few thousand Muslim lives in the grand scheme of things?

It is very convenient for Israel that the West has spent decades (centuries, really. Hello, the Crusades!) demonising and dehumanising Muslims as nothing but terrorists, in particular since 9/11.

I have seen a few Indigenous Americans compare the Palestine situation to what they/their ancestors have experienced at the hands of white people and that is a good comparison, I think. An indigenous people put in reservations and basically all aspects of their lives are controlled by the colonisers and settlers. Who can mistreat them, even murder them, with impunity.

There is a lot about the children, of course, a bit less about the mothers, and much, much less about the fathers. Because Muslim men have particularly been painted as murderous terrorists. It feels like it is not dissimilar to how Great Britain wasn’t keen on taking in adult Jewish refugees before WWII but they did allow the children, the Kindertransport.

The footage of the little boy (I think) sitting on a bed, just shaking. These children, if they survive the rockets, the houses falling on them, the lack of water, the lack of food, the death of their siblings, mothers, fathers, extended families. If they survive that, then what? Where will they go? Where will they grow up? A refugee camp? At the mercy of their oppressors?

By the way: what Hamas did on October 7th was abhorrent. But what Israel is doing, and has been doing since 1948, is infinitely worse. Israel has some 15,000 Palestinians in prison without charge or trial. They are hostages too.

The thing that I fundamentally don’t understand about this whole thing is how Israel can act like this. How descendants (I know, not all Israelis are) of people who were victims of one of the most horrific genocides in history can repeat that very thing.

I saw a post from a Jewish person (I should have saved the link) and it went something like this: “God's chosen people or Master race. You tell me the difference.”