Palestine is an Embodied Struggle
Izdihar Afyouni
December 2023
Mohammed Bakri. Jenin, Jenin (still), 2002.
We find ourselves in an indescribable state of bliss amidst the chaos. Amidst the ruins, a new city emerge[s] – a testament to our resilience. Cries of pain echo through the air, mingling with the blood-stained garments of doctors. Teachers, despite their grievances, embrace their little pupils, while families display unwavering strength in the face of adversity.
—Attributed to Palestinian writer and poet, Hiba Abu Nada, killed by an Israeli airstrike on her home in Khan Yunis, Gaza, on October 20, 2023
The following is a non-exhaustive curation of Palestinian work by a totally exhausted Palestinian curator. What I aim to convey with this compilation is the urgency not only of documenting and responding to the current moment but also of contextualizing this history through poetry, prose, artwork, archival documents, oral testimonies, and documentation of the Palestinian grassroots liberation movement(s).
This prolonged period of intensified aggression is part of systemic pogroms of Palestinians by the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) that have brought us to this historical juncture where Palestinians in Gaza are being indiscriminately bombed, starved, and stripped of all “human rights.” Indeed, it is the framework of human rights, ultimately defined by the Eurocentric colonial and imperial powers, that has created the conditions where Palestinians in Gaza are condemned to live in exile and under siege on their indigenous land, and for Palestinians under occupation to endure the myriad expressions of brutality that a militarized, expansionist ethnostate built on the foundation of genocide and ethnic cleansing can generate.
At the moment of writing, the IOF, emboldened and supported by the United States and its allies, has killed at least 20,000 Palestinians in Gaza and hundreds in the West Bank, and injured, starved, displaced and dispossessed countless others.
Palestine is an anti-colonial struggle. Palestine is an indigenous struggle. Palestine is a transnational struggle. Palestine is a feminist struggle. Palestine is an embodied struggle. What it is not is an abstract ideological playground for Western thinkers to put their most depraved theoretical fantasies to experimentation. That is why I urge publications, cultural workers, curators, content producers, and educators to learn from and platform the immense diversity of Palestinian voices whose work is deliberately tied to their political and material liberation, and to place their voices at the center of this ongoing resistance.
From the River to the Sea, Palestine Will Be Free
Izdihar Afyouni, December 2023
Call to Boycott
The Palestinian Campaign for Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) has put out a generous invitation for all cultural workers and organizations to join the liberation movement by taking practical steps to disrupt the normalization and culture-washing of Israel’s apartheid regime, its prolonged ethnic cleansing project, and its systemic denial of Palestinians’ human rights. I urge you to join them and the wider BDS movement.
Watch
• Gaza Frontline – Palestine Deep Dive and Double Down News hosted an event featuring Palestinian speakers Ahmed Alnaouq, Dr. Shahd Abusalama, Dr. Mohammad Seyam, and Saleem Lubbad on the ongoing genocide.
• Gaza in Context (film)
Articles
• “Genocide in Gaza: Global Culpability and Ways Forward” by Yara Hawari, Tariq Kenney-Shawa, Fathi Nimer, and Alaa Tartir
• “At the Threshold of Humanity” by Karim Kattan
• “Two Months” by Palestinian Youth Movement
• “Let’s Talk About How the Media Covers Gaza” by Mohammed El-Kurd
• “Grounding the Current Moment: An Al-Shabaka Syllabus” by The Palestinian Policy Network
• “I Joined Gaza’s Trail of Tears and Displacement” by Hind Khoudary
• “Nakba, Sumud, Intifada: A Personal Lexicon of Palestinian Loss and Resistance” by Rana Issa
• “Here I am, Being Displaced by the Same Army, but on a Donkey” by Bushra Khalidi (a transcribed testimony collected via Whatsapp messages from the author’s relatives in Gaza, November 2023)
• “Plan Dalet: Master Plan for the Conquest of Palestine” by Walid Khalidi
• “Can the Palestinian Mourn?” by Abdaljawad Omar
• “No Dispossessions Left to Count” by Samer Badawi
• “Whose Humanities? Western Academia’s Persisting Complicity” by Sanabel Abdelrahman
• “Radical Futures: When Palestinians Imagine” by Yara Hawari
• “On the Limits of Sumud in Genocide: A Message from Gaza” by Ali Abdel-Wahab (translated and transcribed by Nadim Bawalsa)
• “The Uses and Abuses of Language in Israel’s War on Palestinians” Isabella Hammad And Sahar Huneidi
• “Jabaliya, a Vanishing Image: Of Faces and Homes” by Omar Mousa [بالعربية]
• “No Human Being Can Exist” by Saree Makdisi
• “Fuck the Fucking Lines” (2021) by Kohl Journal
• الوصول إلى الذروة في نزع صفة الطفولة
نادرة شلهوب – كيفوركيان
Art and Interactive Resources
• We Had Dreams: The Gazans Living and Dying under Siege – Gazans in their own words in collaboration with Visualizing Palestine
• At Those Terrifying Frontiers Where the Existence and Disappearance of People Fade into Each Other by Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme
• Palestine: Ways of Being (available in English and Arabic) – A season of stories centering on under-explored areas of Palestinian life and liberation. Curated by Zena Agha and produced by Skin Deep.
• The Gaza Monologues by ASHTAR Youth. Download the monologue texts from 2010, 2013, and 2023.
• Register for 2254: Awda Birthright by Palestinian-American writer Alia Gilbert
• Thicker than Blood by Izdihar Afyouni. A digital game interrogating language and carceral logic as deployed by the IOF (not mobile-compatible).
• Palestine Open Maps
Listen
• “Exist Takeover | Bint Mbareh”
• “(Ear) Witnessing” by Christina Hazboun and Knut Jonas Sellevold for Radio Alhara with sounds and music from Sabreen, The Gaza Youth Choir, Ahmad Kabour, Waleed Abdelsalam, Firqat Al-Ashiqeen, Sol Band, Donya Ashour, Ismail Abu Hatab, Wael Odeh, Mahmoud Darwish, and the children of Gaza.
• “We Teach Life Sir” by Rafeef Ziadeh
• “UNTIL LIBERATION: 12 Hours Program on Palestine” by Radio Alhara
Poetry
• “I Grant You Refuge” by Hiba Abu Nada, writer and educator killed by Israeli airstrikes in southern Gaza on October 20, 2023. Translated by Huda Fakhreddine.
• “If I Must Die” by Dr. Refaat Alareer, writer, poet, translator, university professor, and activist who was killed along with his brother, sister, and children by an Israeli airstrike in Gaza on December 6, 2023. This website compiles translations of his poem written five weeks before his killing.
• “War Machines Dress Up as Drag Queens” by Mohammed El-Kurd
• “Mamma, I’m fine” by Maya Murry
Statements
• Writers Against the War on Gaza
• Artists Against Apartheid
• K-oh-llective
• Environmental Humanities Scholars Statement on Palestine
• Palestine is a Feminist Struggle: US Feminist Organizations Call for Permanent Ceasefire Now
• Justice for Palestine: We will not be deterred nor silenced – Statement and extensive resources by the European Legal Support Center (ELSC), an independent organization defending and empowering the Palestine solidarity movement in Europe through legal means. You can donate to them here.
Advocacy Resources
• All Out for Palestine – Digital Action Toolkit by Palestinian Feminist Collective
• The Witness Boycott Apartheid Search Engine
• Palestine Solidarity for the Long Term, a guide by Rooted Solidarities
• Archive of Silence, a crowdsourced archive documenting silenced voices. Their mission is to chronicle the alarming waves of erasure and violence directed at Palestinian advocacy in Germany.
• SOAS Palestine Studies Book Series
Educational Resources
Policy Analysis
• Al-Shabaka: The Palestinian Policy Network
• Institute for Middle East Understanding – IMEU regularly produces policy analysis for distribution to decision-makers on various Palestinian-Israeli legislative and policy topics.
Podcasts
• This Is Palestine by IMEU
• Let’s Talk Palestine
Libraries
• The NAKBA Archive
• Learning Palestine Group (Radio Alhara)
• The Free Palestine Library, a free online resource of texts on Palestine and related material, updated regularly. Curated by Izdihar Afyouni.
• Decolonize Palestine Reading List
• Palestine Film Library – Palestine Film Foundation (PFF) archive of audiovisual materials related to Palestine. Managed by a network of academics, curators, filmmakers, and volunteers from Palestine, the UK, and elsewhere.
Social Media
This section has been compiled by PalTrek.
Twitter / X: Organizations
Al Mezan Center for Human Rights – @AlMezanCenter
Al-Haq – @alhaq_org
Institute for Middle East Understanding (IMEU) – @theIMEU
Al-Shabaka – @AlShabaka
Visualizing Palestine – @visualizingpal
Middle East Research and Information Project (MERIPO) – @meriponline
Grassroots Jerusalem – @grassroots_quds
Addameer Prisoner Support & Human Rights Association – @Addameer
Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) Action – @JvpAction
Defense for Children International – @DCIPalestine
Twitter / X: Individuals
Mohammed Al-Kurd (The Nation) – @m7mdkurd
Amany Khalefa – @Amanykhalefa
Yara Hawari (Al-Shabaka) – @yarahawari
Mezna Qato – @meznaqato
Yousef Munayyer – @YousefMunayyer
Noura Ekakat (Rutgers University) – @4Noura
Amjad Iraqi (972 Magazine) – @aj_iraqi
Omar Baddar – @OmarBaddar
Sumaya Awad (Adalah Justice Project) – @sumayaawad
Diana Buttu – @dianabuttu
Alaa Tartir (Al-Shabaka) – @alaatartir
Tareq Baconi (Al-Shabaka) – @TareqBaconi
Steve Salaita – @stevesalaita
Jehad Abusalim (The Jerusalem Fund) – @JehadAbusalim
Nadia Hijab (Al-Shabaka) – @nadiahijab
Ben White (The British Palestine Media Centre) – @benabyad
Daoud Kuttab (AI-Monitor, Arab News) – @daoudkuttab
Zena Agha (Al-Shabaka) – @zena_agha
Riya Alsanah – @RiyaAlsanah
Randa Wahbe (Harvard University) – @randawahbe
Mariam Barghouti (Mondoweiss) – @MariamBarghouti
Jalal Abu Khater (Blue Sky) – @JalalAK_JoJo
Omar Shakir (Human Rights Watch) – @OmarSShakir
Linah Alsaafin (Al Jazeera) – @LinahAlsaafin
Instagram
Eye On Palestine – @eye.on.palestine
Addameer Prisoner Support & Human Rights Association – @addameer_pal
Hidden Palestine – @hiddenpalestine
JVP Action – @JVPAction
Adalah Justice Project – @adalahjusticeproject
Tal’at – @Tal3at_sept26
Palestinian Youth Movement – @PalestinianYouthMovement
US Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR) – @USCPR
Donate
• ASHTAR Theatre is launching an intervention in the West Bank, Palestine, providing immediate relief to express and mitigate the traumatic impact of the current war on Gaza. In partnership with Palestinian psychologists, ASHTAR will deliver psycho-social interventions for children, youth, and adults using theater and art as a medium for trauma release in schools and youth centers.
• Urgent Gaza Appeal: Save the Children of Fady Ahmed
• Palestine Action’s Defense Fund
• UK Solidarity campaign
• Palestinian Youth Movement Britain
• European Legal Support Center, a grassroots activist support group for protests and political action.
Izdihar Afyouni (b. 1994) is a Palestinian-Jordanian artist, writer, and curator based in the UK. Her creative practice encompasses large-format painting, performance art, installation, ritual interventions, and text. Her work is situated at the intersections of necropolitics, occultism, and sexual dissidence, her work explores phantasmic hereditaments of imperialism by interrogating the colonial gaze.
IG: @izdihar.studio