Haidar Eid writes, “In Gaza, staying at home leads to some existential questions and deep soul searching. With time to reflect, I am tempted to cross that invisible thin line separating fiction from reality. The real world of occupation, blockade, apartheid, settler-colonialism, and coronavirus on the one hand, and on the other, the imaginary world of my favorite authors.”
The myth that the Palestinians keep “missing opportunities” for peace is being revived from Jared Kushner, to Tony Blair, to Mohammed bin Salman.
Roger Waters on the importance of international solidarity with Palestinians: “The aim … is to focus world attention on the plight of the Palestinian people in Gaza in the hope that the scales will fall from the eyes of all, ordinary, decent people round the world, that they may see the enormity of the crimes that have been committed, and demand that their governments bring all possible pressure to bear on Israel to lift the siege.”
Haidar Eid writes, images of an entire family killed in an airstrike in Gaza while they slept will haunt Palestinians for generations to come. “We will tell our remaining children about this heinous massacre the same way our parents and grandparents told us about the Deir Yassin massacre.”
Jared Kushner told a conference of business leaders in Saudi Arabia that, “Israel is not the cause of all the suffering of the Palestinian people.” Haider Eid says Kushner’s combination of racism, Orientalism, and colonialism can only be described as “Palestinophobia.”
Haidar Eid discusses teaching Ghassan Kanafani’s The Land of Sad Oranges to students in Gaza. He says it not only provides insights into the tragic loss of the Nakba, but raises questions of what justice means today.
This week marks the anniversary of Edward Said’s death and Haidar Eid reflects on how the Palestinian intellectual’s work has impacted his own. “It is important at this time of turmoil, not only in Palestine, but also globally, to remember Said as he would have wanted us to remember him, out of place,” Eid writes.
Haidar Eid says there is nothing for Palestinians to celebrate about the Israeli elections. “Only secular democracy under the rule of law and in which ALL citizens are treated equally regardless of ethnic and religious origin is what should be celebrated,” Eid writes. “Anything short of that is a recycling of 19th century ethnic nationalism disguised in slogans that mean absolutely nothing to us Palestinians.”
Haidar Eid introduces his new album Tyrants’ Fear of Songs — “I hope that these songs will document Palestinian desire to be free from the ravages of colonialism, occupation and apartheid.”
Haidar Eid writes Palestinians can never endorse anti-Semitism and looks at models within popular movements and supporters of BDS who have championed the rights of all and worked in partnership with Jewish supporters of Palestinian human rights.