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Israel and Palestine in Context

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Columns

My Enemies Defeated Me / For Nothing
October 26, 2021
My enemies defeated me, led me downhill,executed my horse, and made me watch.My enemies defeated me, sold my mats, rugs,and colored rosaries at the bazaarto merchants and traders in shadows.In the dark my friends betrayed me.My children saw the hyena laugh outside our window.At ...

A Contemporary Novel
September 28, 2021
heeds no council, offers no rawsolutions, is part and parcel of actionsthat were not taken. Finding out who the killer isis not the point of the murderin the opening scene. For the third time my handsalter the female protagonistbefore the novel even begins. In her ...

Reflection
September 14, 2021
Yesterday, I handed all my poems to my publisher.I feel like I handed him my headand the words I speak from now onwill come out of his mouth.What a disaster! Disasters don’t show up one at a time.They arrive in legions like a starving hoard.A poet said this then died.For ...

Obeidah the Cow
August 31, 2021
We had a cow, Obeidah the cow. She had big wide eyesbut the whole herd had big wide eyes. She was dappledbut the rest of them were dappled. She had two large uddersthat daily gave two or three buckets of milkbut every other cow in the herd had full uddersmy mom milked ...

A Small Eternity
August 17, 2021
Alone, soaring, my balcony a cloud in the sky’s gentle hold, I look out on a beach, a paradise where the green (whispering, roaring) has said all it has to say. A green that almost glows with pistachio-colored edges. A green that suckles, crawls, grows into bright apricot and ...

Innocent Despair
August 10, 2021
When separate from you my blood will ache.An unknown part of me will acheand I’ll try to kill it. Or grab it.The cell that misses you will throb in me,and I won’t be able to spot it,it changes position often,drags out the game,hurts my senses.My eyesight will worsen,my ...

Nakba
July 13, 2021
My mother is three years younger than Nakba.But she doesn’t believe in great powers.Twice a day she brings God down from his thronethen reconciles with himthrough the mediation of the bestrecorded Quranic recitations.And she can’t bear meek women.She never once mentioned ...

Carob Tree
June 29, 2021
I want to talk with you. It’s been a whilesince anyone’s talked with me, no one aroundsays to me the things I say to youwhen I’m sleepwalking.For example, yesterday at 3AM the soldiers rainedtear gas bombs on us, ten workerswho crammed in a walk-in refrigerator for ...

Belief
June 24, 2021
Not a main one,but each time I erase itI forget my hands over the objectswhose faithcompels their reappearanceon my knuckles. You are another kind of belief.It may dominate in the presence of the victim before meor reach out to the executioner in my heart.Each case the ...

Not Blind
June 22, 2021
No it isn’t. But lovetook one of my eyes for itself, lovehad vision before birth, diddiscuss with me the accuracyof what transpires in lenses. And then it went blind—slowlysoaked us up from behind a veil,and we couldn’t see it. A deaf air said to methat borders ...

Hand of War
June 17, 2021
We hold war’s hand,not so that it walks among us,but it is death,a bit tardy, we cajole it. We hold war’s hand,convinced that this is the last timeit waves catastrophe to us,since the road is a futile wall, and the country is searchingfor a photographof collective ...