there are no real insider whistleblowers in those non-compete, NDA cunt companies who have strangled communities and have us all by the gonads
Jun 29, 2026
First, another monster, another story by a Jew about a Jew, and the end of common sense.
A face only a carnival barker could love: “Can Jennifer Mnookin Heal Columbia? One of higher ed’s most skilled negotiators arrives at one of its most fractured campuses.”
By Francie Diep and Nell Gluckman (Jew Jew Bean)
Jennifer Mnookin, the President of Columbia University, is Jewish. Raised in the Bay Area in a Reform Jewish household, she famously escalated her family’s Jewish engagement as a child when she explicitly asked her non-observant parents to have a bat mitzvah
It’s always the mitzvah and minyan in the morning with my coffee:
Several years ago, Lynn Vavreck needed advice on how to deal with a professional dilemma. She turned to Jennifer L. Mnookin. As they meandered through a farmer’s market in Los Angeles’s Westside, Vavreck, a political scientist at the University of California at Los Angeles, described her predicament to Mnookin, who was a faculty member in the law school.
“If you decide to take the practical solution, good for you. Then you get to move on. Everybody can put it in the rear view,” Vavreck recalls Mnookin explaining. “But, if you decide that you can’t do that and you need to stand on principle, good for you.”
Vavreck’s intersection with Jewish topics and the Jewish community is driven entirely by her professional expertise:
- Jews United for Democracy and Justice: She regularly serves as a featured expert and panelist for events hosted by Jews United for Democracy & Justice. She discusses topics such as election integrity, public opinion, and the impact of disinformation on democracy.
- Research on Stereotypes: In her academic career, she has co-authored political science research examining how social and political stereotypes of Jewish political candidates impact voter behavior and candidate evaluations.
It’s all Jews in Academia determining your poor Julie and James Goyim Smith’s outcomes:
“Our world, our academic world, needs Columbia to be successful,” said Michael H. Schill, who considers Mnookin a close friend and who resigned as president of Northwestern University after the Trump administration froze its federal research funding over alleged antisemitism. If Mnookin can bring together a notoriously fractured campus, Schill said, Columbia can “model to the rest of the nation the value of the universities” — and prove the higher-ed critics wrong about the state of speech and community on campus.
He has publicly and explicitly stated that being Jewish is a core part of his identity. In a 2024 op-ed published in the Chicago Tribune, Schill wrote, “I am a proud Jew who practices many of our rituals. Being Jewish is core to my identity, and I grew up with a love for Israel, which remains today.
[Wanda James, Diana DeGette and Melat Kiros participate in a League of Women Voters candidate forum at Montview Presbyterian Church on May 28, 2026, in Denver, Colorado.]
More of the Jewish Control of USA, not the other fucking stupid way around like all these Alt-Right and Alt-Left cunts think.
Super PACs funded by AIPAC and major big tech donors have poured roughly $2 million behind Rep. Diana DeGette on the eve of her contentious primary in Colorado’s first congressional district against democratic socialist challenger Melat Kiros.
Ya wonder why? No aid for their own fucking citizens, supposed citizens, Palestinians?
Originally published in CovertAction Magazine
Adelmo Becerra is a Venezuelan trade union activist with the National Institute for Training and Socialist Education (INCES).
In mid-June, he told Truthout that changes to a hydrocarbons law instituted after the kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro in January has led Venezuela to “regress more than 100 years, back to the era of Juan Vicente Gómez when the oil industry was transnational and the country obtained minimal income from petroleum, while those companies received almost all the profits generated by oil revenues.”
Gómez ruled Venezuela from 1908 until his death in 1935. Venezuelan President Rómulo Betancourt (1945-1948, 1959-1964) called him “the instrument of foreign control of the Venezuelan economy, the ally and servant of powerful foreign interests”—including of the Rockefeller-owned Standard Oil Company, which later became ExxonMobil.
Referring to Gómez’ predecessor Cipriano Castro, who stood up to U.S. business interests, as “an unspeakably villainous little monkey,” President Theodore Roosevelt sent gunboats to Venezuela in 1908 to help install Gómez into power and the Taft administration provided critical support to prevent his rival from ousting him.[1]
In November, Maduro claimed that “Zionists” were attempting to deliver his country to “devils”.
“There are those who want to hand this country over to the devils – you know who, right? The far-right Zionists want to hand this country over to the devils,” Maduro said during a speech to Bolivarian Integral Base Committees.
Following Maduro’s seizure by the US, Israel was one of the few countries to welcome the operation, which has been criticised as illegal by officials and politicians around the world.
“Israel commends the United States’ operation, led by President Trump, which acted as the leader of the free world,” Israel’s foreign minister, Gideon Saar, said on X.
“At this historic moment, Israel stands alongside the freedom-loving Venezuelan people, who have suffered under Maduro’s illegal tyranny.”
The US assault was strongly condemned by most South American countries, including Brazil, Colombia and Chile, as well as Venezuela’s key allies Russia, China and Iran.
This fucking monster didn’t commit long at UW Madison: August 2022, now Harvard?
Mnookin chose Madison, and she’s hit the ground running, brushing off early pushback from Republican state legislators — “I was a little disappointed that people who hadn’t met me decided to make assumptions,” she says — and embracing the Wisconsin Idea that campus serves as a launching pad for enhancing life across the state and beyond.
[The surname Mnookin has its roots in Eastern European Jewish communities, particularly among Ashkenazi Jews. The name is believed to derive from the Yiddish word mnook, which means to be content or to be at peace, reflecting a cultural emphasis on harmony and well-being]
“A commitment,” Mnookin says, “to do work that matters outside these walls.”
To that end, Mnookin traveled the state early on, determined to meet people and experience a wider Wisconsin, which she did.
“I had never waded in a cranberry bog,” she says. “I had never held a piglet at a state fair or had cheese curds.”
Moving onto other lower education news:
Florida’s educational officials are preparing to approve policies that would bar undocumented students from attending public colleges and universities. The cost? Millions in lost tuition — and much more in long-term economic and social losses, experts and advocacy organizations say.
While Florida wouldn’t be the first to take this step, limiting college access there would be especially disruptive given that the state has a large population of undocumented high-school students — roughly 8,000 — graduating each year.
A vote is scheduled Tuesday on a Florida Board of Education proposal requiring those wanting to enroll at the state’s 28 public colleges to provide documentation of “citizenship or lawful presence.”
On Thursday, the Board of Governors overseeing Florida’s 12 public universities took a similar step — advancing an amendment that would prevent people “present in the United States unlawfully” from initially enrolling at institutions that had not admitted “all academically qualified applicants” in the previous two years. (In a university system whose campuses all have somewhat selective admissions, this would likely preclude undocumented students from enrolling.)
“This state intends to slam the doors of our top public universities right in the faces of thousands of bright, hardworking, and qualified human beings,” Florida Atlantic University student and Florida House of Representatives candidate Alexander Lambridis said at Thursday’s Board of Governors meeting.
[FAU student plans on becoming a member of the Florida House before graduating.]
Mississippi, Goddam, and fucking 2026 Strenge Fruit:
If approved, the changes would make Florida one of a handful of states to expel undocumented students from the halls of public higher education — following Georgia, South Carolina, and Alabama, which adopted similar policies well before the Trump administration’s second immigration crackdown began in 2025
“Why is Florida shooting itself in the foot?” said Diego Sánchez, vice president of policy and strategy at the Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration.
“The state educated these students, they went through the public system, high school, etc., benefited from their hard work, and now wants to close the door just as they’re ready to contribute,” he added, saying that students would likely elect to move to another state or seek out private institutions.
And the winner is? This is what I saw in my email box, and alas, the trigger, man, the fucking trigger for this circuitous rail. Jewish Tech.
Key insights include:
- Where federal investment is accelerating across CBP, ICE, DHS, USCG, DoW, and state and local agencies.
- The technologies transforming border operations, including AI, autonomous systems, biometrics, sensors, data platforms, and counter-UAS capabilities.
- How agency priorities are evolving as border security becomes increasingly intelligence-led, integrated, and technology enabled.
- Emerging operational trends shaping procurement, modernization, and collaboration across the border security enterprise.
[Download the Report] to explore the technologies, funding priorities, and operational trends shaping the future of U.S. border security.
The sharp decline is driven primarily by the Trump administration’s strict asylum restrictions, increased rapid deportations, and the end of “catch and release” policies. Beyond the policy front, another factor in the decline of border encounters is enhanced deterrence measures taken by the Department of Homeland Security and Department of War. Both Departments have invested heavily in technologies ranging from unmanned aerial systems (UAS) to biometric/identity solutions that are improving federal law enforcement agencies’ ability to detect and mitigate the flow of illegal activity into the United States.
For the past four years, IDGA’s Border Technology Summit have provided an opportunity for these federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies an opportunity to connect with solutions providers committed to strengthening the U.S. border security mission.
Today, as the Trump administration continues to prioritize immigration enforcement and securing U.S. ports of entry, the agencies responsible for the securing American borders are seeing unprecedented levels of funding and support from the federal government. As a result, the Border Technology Summit has established itself as a must-attend conference for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, U.S. Border Patrol, U.S. Department of War, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, state and local law enforcement and industry innovators to assemble and learn more about how technology can, and is, supporting the border security mission.
Your fucking neighbors: 2026 SPEAKER LINE-UP
Now look at these Joseph Mengeles, man oh man, on steroids!
Inside Cannes, the Advertising Industry’s Biggest Party
Ahh, the cunts, the fucking Beautiful People, mother fuckers, while the world BURNS. The White Race is Cancer, and the Jewish Cult is the Turbo Vax Racing Through.
U.S. resumes limited strikes in Iran; Board of Peace may get legal immunity; Breathtaking new Trump corruption
Drop Site Daily: June 29, 2026
Digging how fucked up the 319 Jewish Billionaires are, those fucking Turbo Cancer Vax Cunts?
- U.S. resumes strikes on southern Iran. Iran responds to U.S. attacks.
- Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi warns against interference in Hormuz.
- Iranian President: $6 billion in frozen Iranian assets to be released, oil sanctions lifted. U.S., Iran give diverging accounts of planned Doha talks.
- Israeli and Lebanese governments reach framework agreement. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz hails agreement, says Israeli forces will remain in southern Lebanon.
- Hezbollah rejects “null and void” framework. Israeli violations continue in southern Lebanon; Hezbollah says it reserves the right to respond.
- Israeli drone strike kills three, including a child, in central Gaza. Israeli attacks on Gaza continue over the weekend.
- U.S. considering legal immunity for “Board of Peace” representatives and contractors, Guardian reports.
- U.S. House of Representatives to vote on second Lebanon War Powers resolution.
- Rep. Julia Letlow wins GOP Senate runoff in Louisiana.
- House Speaker Mike Johnson says he will send housing bill to Trump on Monday.
- ACA enrollment drops 4 million as enhanced subsidies expire, Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services data show.
- Trump bought up to $5M in Axon stock before ICE contract with Taser specifications.
- Sons of Trump and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick profit from Kazakhstan tungsten deal their fathers negotiated, NYT finds.
- Serbian president to resign after months of protests.
- Russia rejects Ukrainian proposal to halt long-range strikes.
- Belarussian leader visits China amid Ukraine War tensions.
- Iraq arrests dozens of officials in sweeping anticorruption raids.
- Five killed in shooting at German youth welfare facility.
And so the unending sickness of the unbearable light of Advertising, a la the Jewish Monster, Bernays and Company! That dirty carnival show Prez of Columbia University will be monitoring faculty doing these sorts of assignments:
“It’s Crucial for Israel/Jews to Kill Journalists”
UNITED NATIONS OF ISRAEL/JEWS SPIRALLING AFTER NEW REPORT SHOWS SYSTEMIC TARGETING OF CHILDREN
Reckoning With Harris’ Silence On Gaza | Ta-Nehisi Coates | TMR
The patron saint of the 2024 Democratic National Convention was Fannie Lou Hamer—recalcitrant sharecropper turned agitator and, like the Democratic presidential nominee, a black woman. Hamer worked on the plantation of W.D. Marlow near Ruleville, Mississippi—laboring in the fields, cleaning the Marlow manse, and keeping the family’s records. All this, estimates Hamer biographer Kate Clifford Larson, earned her “between $600 and $800 a year, less than half of what white farm families earned in 1948.”
This was by design—the mandate of Mississippi’s ruling class was assured through the reduction of the state’s black residents to near slavery. Hamer took her revenge: She wore the Marlows’ fine clothes while they were away. She stole their perfume. She bathed in their tub. She used the family’s spoons and then watched them eat behind her. It was said that Hamer “didn’t have real good sense,” that she was “uppity,” and filled with “gripes.” But, as Larson recounts, Hamer’s own analysis hinted at something deeper—“I was rebelling in the only way that I could rebel.”
Danny Lyon/Magnum
The patron saint of the 2024 Democratic National Convention was Fannie Lou Hamer—recalcitrant sharecropper turned agitator and, like the Democratic presidential nominee, a black woman. Hamer worked on the plantation of W.D. Marlow near Ruleville, Mississippi—laboring in the fields, cleaning the Marlow manse, and keeping the family’s records. All this, estimates Hamer biographer Kate Clifford Larson, earned her “between $600 and $800 a year, less than half of what white farm families earned in 1948.”
More than 10 fucking years ago, the fucking Real News Network and Bernie Sanders! Paul Jay and Sharmini Peries Ousted from The Real News Network in June; Current Fundraiser Hides that Fact; Falling Viewership and Liberal Turn Result
Fucking purile:
Yassamin Ansari – the first and only Iranian-American Democrat in Congress – who explains why she “hopes” this deal will mark the end of this war. She also discusses why some Democrats are trying to rally against the peace deal.
“It’s the natural inclination to want to criticize Donald Trump and what he’s done, because what he did was insane,” Ansari says to Mehdi. “Sometimes in that effort, we may inadvertently become obstacles to peace as Democrats.”
In this wide-ranging interview, Mehdi and Ansari discuss the ongoing negotiations between the U.S. and Iran, Israel’s attacks on Lebanon, her party’s handling of the war, and more. She also, for the first time, accuses Israel of committing genocide in Gaza – joining the growing list of Democrats willing to use that term.
Here are some highlights of the discussion:
- Her impeachment articles against Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and his alleged war crimes in Iran (“That bombing at the school in Minab… was the final straw for me.”)
- Vice President JD Vance claiming this current deal with Iran is better than the 2015 Obama administration nuclear deal (“I don’t believe a word that JD Vance or anybody in this administration says.”)
- Why it has taken so long for Democrats to constrain Trump and his war on Iran (“We need to be the anti-war party.”)
- Whether the victories of democratic socialist candidates in New York, backed by Mamdani, will ultimately hurt Democrats in swing states (“I just find all of this attacking each side of our party really exhausting.”)
- Ansari’s rejection of future donations from pro-Israel lobby groups such as DMFI and AIPAC.
Yassamin Ansari —-
The pace of trips since 2024 has largely held steady, even amid a broadening consensus among human rights workers, international organizations and scholars that Israel’s conduct in Gaza constitutes genocide.
The documents show that an AIEF trip from 6-14 August 2025 brought at least 15 Democrats to Israel, including Wesley Bell (Missouri), George Latimer (New York), Eugene Vindman (Virginia) and Gil Cisneros (California). Earlier the same month, 20 GOP House members, including Randy Fine, the vociferous pro-Israel representative from Florida, enjoyed an AIEF-sponsored trip with a similar itinerary.
Bell and Latimer were both elected with the help of millions of dollars from Aipac’s Super Pac, deployed to defeat incumbents Cori Bush and Jamaal Bowman.
Bell has defended Aipac’s role in US politics, including at a St Louis town hall in December, where he faced down protesters who demanded that Missouri politicians stop taking contributions from the organization. Latimer, meanwhile, has faced criticism from progressive groups and his former primary opponent Bowman in recent weeks over chummy public appearances with Mike Lawler, the pro-Israel New York Republican whose seat is in Democrats’ firing line in November.
An AIEF trip from 16 to 24 August 2025 brought staffers for House Democrats to Israel as Israeli forces were carrying out ground operations in Gaza City. The offices represented were those of John Larson (Connecticut), Kathy Castor (Florida), Luz Rivas (California), Cleo Fields (Louisiana), Yassamin Ansari (Arizona) [fucking human stain there, behind the fucking president of Is-RAQ-Hell ——), former member Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick (Florida) and the late David Scott (Georgia).
When Bill Ayub returned from his trip to Israel, he was impressed — but a bit wary. Israeli surveillance software is “a little more invasive than you would see here in the U.S.,” the former Ventura County sheriff told Jewish Currents in 2022. And the use of force in arrests was “shocking,” Ayub said. “It was like, ‘Wow, you do that?’ […] We’d be in jail if we did something like that here.”
Ayub is one of hundreds of senior American law enforcement officers who, over the last two decades, have toured Israel and met Israeli law enforcement officials with the help of non-profit organizations like the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA). Public information about these trips, which focus on counter-terrorism, is limited. But an itinerary from a 2016 ADL delegation showed meetings scheduled with Israeli officials at a notorious prison and in Hebron, a segregated city in the West Bank.
Publicly available information shows that ICE officials participated in eight ADL trips between 2013 and 2016. Joseph Harhay, the current assistant chief of Customs and Border Patrol (CBP), joined a JINSA junket back in 2018.
These privately-funded trips are just one facet of the relationship. The Bush administration created ICE and CBP in 2003, when it restructured the federal government following the 9/11 attacks. The agencies, both of which are part of the Department of Homeland Security, became part of a government-wide effort to combat terrorism. “ICE has grown with the global war on terror,” said Anthony Aguilar, a retired Army officer and activist.
Congress quickly looked abroad for help, setting up a DHS office focused primarily on learning from Israeli officials, according to supporters of the legislation. “I think we can learn a lot from other countries, particularly Israel, which unfortunately has a long history of preparing for and responding to terrorist attacks,” Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said at the time.
ICE and CBP agents have since developed a close relationship with their counterparts in Israel, allowing them to trade notes on tactics and technology. DHS has organized conferences with Israeli security officials, held joint training sessions, and even given grants to Israeli officers in order to do research on areas like countering violent extremism, according to a former senior DHS official.
The Bureau of Prisons supports Immigration And Customs Enforcement (ICE) (ICE) in Portland, OR. Working together to protect our communities and defend our homeland. Under President Donald J. Trump we back the badge, defend our borders and #MAKEAMERICASAFEAGAIN.
Fucking JEWS:
Anti-Israel posts got a Montreal high school student suspended. She says she’s being censored
School board spokesperson says tone was violent, free speech expert says that doesn’t hold up to scrutiny
The high school, Royal West Academy, which is public, said in a letter addressed to the teen’s mother that the commentary was “offensive/inappropriate regarding another country.”
At issue are two statements the student wrote over the last month where she expressed outrage against Israel’s actions and shared a conspiracy theory regarding the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks.
“I wasn’t targeting anyone. I wasn’t going after an individual or a group of people. I was criticizing a corrupt government for a genocide,” the student told CBC.
CBC agreed not to name her as she is concerned about further academic repercussions.
The most recent post was made following Israeli strikes in Gaza last week. The parties had agreed to a ceasefire earlier in October though both sides have traded blame for violating it. The airstrikes killed 104 people, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
“Out of rage and disbelief I posted just a black screen that said ‘Fuck Israel holy shit,’” said the student.
On Monday, she was called into the vice-principal’s office to be told her post, and the language in particular, had “negatively impacted the school environment,” she says.
Students had flagged that story and another one, posted about a month ago, where the teen shared a reel by comedian and news commentator Lee Cam
The teen’s parents said they could barely keep their cool when they met with Royal West Academy’s vice-principal Monday afternoon to understand what the suspension was about. They’ve since filed an ombudsman complaint with the English Montreal School Board (EMSB) which oversees the school.
During Monday’s meeting, Tina Vibert (Native Canadian, Inuit no less!), the teen’s mother, says a lot of emphasis was placed by the administration on her daughter’s use of profanity in the second post.
“They have overstepped their bounds,” said Vibert. “It’s definitely a slippery slope in sort of the fundamental right to freedom of expression.”
EMSB spokesperson JEW Mike Cohen says the school board stands by the suspension.
“Any time a student feels threatened by something another student does, it could be considered bullying. And it’s also considered violent, the type of post, because when you start sharing posts on Instagram and others see it, and other people see it in the school, it could have a very bad impact,” he said.
“Unfortunately at this moment my daughter does not feel safe and [she] feels targeted for something that she posted from her own political stance.”
Her daughter is outspoken. She wears pro-Palestinian jewelry and T-shirts on dress-down days and even attended the pro-Palestinian student strike on Oct. 7, 2025. Her connection to the Palestinian cause is personal, she says – she is Kanien’kehà:ka from Kahnawà:ke.
“I feel for the people of Gaza even more deeply because they are experiencing something that our government claims to condemn,” she said, referring to Canada’s process of reconciliation with Indigenous peoples.
“Putting us on reservations, intentionally doing ethnic cleansing to get rid of us, right? This is the exact same thing that’s happening with the Israeli government and innocent Palestinians.”
She thinks her social media has been scrutinized unfairly.
“Had I criticized almost any other government in the world, we wouldn’t be having this conversation,” she said.
They all are carnival freaks!!!!
RE:
When we say there’s a material difference between being uncomfortable and being unsafe, this is exactly what we mean.
Mayim Bialik saw a man wearing a “Zionism is Racism” shirt in the parking lot of her favourite vegan restaurant—
and immediately imagined a violent attack that never happened.
No one touched her.
No one threatened her.
No one harmed her children.
A grown, five-foot-four mother saw a political message she didn’t like, and her immediate instinct was to broadcast her hypothetical, imagined trauma to the world as though she had survived a war zone.
Zionists have been so culturally protected that many genuinely cannot distinguish between having their politics challenged and being physically unsafe.
A political t-shirt becomes an existential threat.
A stranger in a parking lot becomes a near-traumatic event.
Meanwhile, Palestinians don’t have to imagine the violence being inflicted on them.
The bombs are real.
The starvation is real.
The displacement is real.
Yet somehow,
the woman with the podcast microphone,
the celebrity platform,
and every institutional protection imaginable–
is still asking us to centre the chill that ran down her spine because she saw a piece of cotton she didn’t like.
Nothing happened, Mayim.
Your children witnessed nothing…except political dissent.
Nobody threatened you.
Nobody hurt you.
Nobody touched you.
You saw a political message you didn’t like,
imagined the rest,
and now expect the world to participate in your performance of victimhood while Palestinians endure horrors that require no imagination whatsoever.
The narcissism — and the immense harm it causes — are absolutely off the charts…
—–
If you want the analysis institutions won’t touch and the media won’t print, you can support my work at The Anti-Zionist on Patreon.
The shackles of this world confine a dreamer.
I realize that the feelings my heart harbors are too lofty to be described precisely in this materialistic world; a world consumed by the pursuit of carnal pleasures. That the love entrenched in my heart and that which I wish to be extended to everything around me and to all humanity is too deep and vast to be fully and correctly understood or appreciated. Even acts of kindness are at times misinterpreted when all you really want is to put a smile on someone’s face.
Like lovers denied a reunion and forced to live in perpetual agony. Like the high and tumultuous sea waves which no ship can tame. The sea always triumphs, always conquers no matter how big the ship that navigates its waters.
Time passes, I get closer to my inevitable end, yet so much unsaid keeps growing inside me. I thought that as a person’s journey in this world progresses that one finds more answers and fewer hurdles. That a person finds more peaceful closure.
I have found answers indeed, but they hit me like a ton of bricks. The harsh truths that people in power can decide the fate of entire nations, whether they deserve to live or be annihilated. That empathy and compassion exist more among literary texts. Among real human beings they’re like rare gems God blesses a person with every once in a war.
This doom and gloom talk is not me. It’s just me stating the ugly truths. But then God guides me to climb to the highest mountain top so I can get a bird’s eye view of the bigger picture of things. It’s amazing how I discover that all I needed was to shift my position to see it all. Everything becomes clearer and I find the answers, the biggest truth being: everything that occurs in this universe happens according to God’s Will.
I rest my case.
Maybe you don’t think much about that as you scroll through videos and images of a livestreamed genocide. Maybe when you see that a person is still alive, clean, and properly dressed, you think their life must be OK.
What you don’t see is what goes on behind the scenes.
The neat dress I’m wearing has been hand‑washed along with piles of laundry. Filling up water for washing is another story in and of itself. It begins with finding water, filling up buckets, and finally hauling them. Wash, rinse, and wring repeatedly. As I labor over the washing basin, I remember how back at home I used to sit and relax as my washing machine purred in the background, my brain oblivious to the various tasks it was doing so efficiently.
The hijab I’m wearing may be light and easy to wash, but have you thought about the burning detergent and the ensuing skin rash that follows? My mind wanders off to manicured fingernails and soft skin as I realize how damaged my hands are.
Beyond the scenes, even the smile I’m wearing is no longer second nature. I put a lot of effort into practicing being happy as I will my facial muscles to relax. Sometimes, when anxiety overtakes me and I can’t smile, I wear a mask to hide behind.
Survival in Gaza requires tremendous physical and mental strength that is not easily acquired. Since day one, I knew I had to stay composed to protect my mental well‑being. I needed to believe I had the power to overcome all the horrors I was facing so I wouldn’t collapse. I had to keep reminding myself that God is with me and that His mercy will envelop me and my family.
Being under constant threat has meant being on the run and living in any makeshift place or tent. The first thing that may come to your mind when I mention living in a tent is an enchanting camping trip — the image of pitching a tent on the beach or in the woods for fun and excitement. But the tents I’m talking about are the ones where your stay in them is overdue. Where summer heat is scorching and winter cold is bone‑chilling and can lead to being frozen to death. A tent where you stave off rodents and insects.
As I contemplate my status, I realize that my stay in this world is exactly like my stay in the tent — temporary and fleeting. That I can live with a scant amount of material needs and still survive. Images from my prewar life in my elegant apartment flash before me, and I realize how I’d lived in extravagant luxury. To have a decent wardrobe to choose from, and different rooms to sit in. I can’t help but feel the creases deepen in my forehead as I frown and wonder: why did I have so much stuff when it’s become evident that I can live with so much less?
Modern and convenient transportation has become a thing of the past. To get from one place to another, you have to brace yourself for an excruciating ride — a piece of hell. Short distances have turned into long, rough, and rugged journeys. I sit in cramped seats as my head bangs against the metal posts that hold the trailer (pulled by cars to fit more people in) together. A five‑minute ride can take up to thirty minutes, and you can do the math for longer rides. When I reach my destination, I have to persuade my muscles to cooperate as I try to get out of the seat because I’ve been sitting for so long on wood, torn leather, or worn‑out fabric with protruding metal.
Throughout the journey, a battle erupts between my body and my brain. As my muscles throb, fatigue overwhelms me, and my brain labors to stay alert and positive.
I have to endure until I get off.
I can do this.
I know I’ve loaded my backpack with too many things. But I’m sure my muscles have gotten stronger and I can carry it.
Tomorrow morning I know I’ll wake up to sore shoulder blades.
If Samih were here, he’d carry all this load and hold my hand too.
Amid this battle, a harsh fact hits me: I’m on my own in this act of survival. How did I get accustomed to being a loner? It’s been like this since my family was fragmented and separated. It’s not a new discovery — only another moment of sudden awareness.
Survival is a lonely path. It’s an enduring path just as rocky and bumpy as the car rides I take. A path I didn’t choose but found no way to evade. I embraced it so I could continue. The battle between my mind and body continues. My brain tells me to shun all grim ideas, to unsee the destruction. To close my eyes as I pass by a child trying to balance a pot of food bigger than their size. To close my eyes so I don’t get assaulted by the knotted features of a woman gripping two water containers, one in each hand, because the war has stolen not only her husband but her sons.
The trailer I’m riding in keeps jerking. I pass destroyed structures and houses, people with war‑engraved features, children doing the cruelest forms of labor… I put my head down and shut my eyes to protect my sanity. And when I open them again, I pretend that the images that passed weren’t there to begin with. That I had just scrolled past them the same way people do when they see us in Gaza. Or unsee us.
[Artwork by my daughter: Hoda Alsarraj]
Paul Haeder, Author 