For A Long Time After, Id Just Burst Into Tears If Anyone Even Touched Me. Sometimes Its Like That When

“For a long time after, I’d just burst into tears if anyone even touched me. Sometimes it’s like that when somebody touches you and you haven’t been touched in a long time.”

— Sandra Cisneros, Caramelo

Sylvia Plath, from The Unabridged Journals

“Take a lover who looks at you like maybe you are magic.”

— Frida Kahlo

Artwork: Le Printemps (Springtime), Pierre-Auguste Cot.

bell hooks, All About Love

Sheikh Jarrah residents have been given until November 2 to respond to a settlement agreement that transfers the ownership of their homes to israeli settlers. The four families had to sit through a court session held entirely in hebrew, with no translators, and were presented with the choice of either having their houses stolen and given to settler "tenants" or being evicted.

The Sheikh Jarrah court ruling has been postponed since May because of the massive international backlash. Media attention has gone down but nothing has changed: Gaza is still being bombed, now in retaliation to Gazans protesting the 40 year old blockade held by Israel and Egypt, Sheikh Jarrah is still under threat, Silwan residents are having their homes destroyed and living on the streets and Beita residents are scared of harvesting their crops because Israel has built military outposts on their land.

Silwan is currently being ethnic cleansed under the pretense of building a biblical park, a number Israel has pulled since its establisment to steal Palestinian land (read this quick article on the Allon Colonization Plan). Silwan residents were given the choice to either destroy their own homes or pay a fine for the trouble of Israel hiring bulldozers, and these same bulldozers are being used to raze through Palestinian cemeteries. Settlers are now storming houses in Silwan, beating and kicking the residents on the street, and after being questioned, said the home owners "owed debts" to the government.

Don't mistake this for a land dispute between neighbors with equal rights. Israel is an apartheid state, brutalizing and stealing homes systemically. Let's not forget this tweet still up on Yair Lapid's account (this was in response to criticism of a law that didn't allow Palestinians married to Israelis to gain Israeli citizenship):

[id: tweet by יאיר לפיד - Yair Lapid @yairlapid reading, first in hebrew, then the translation in english:

There is no need to hide from the essence of this law. It is one of the tools designed to ensure the Jewish majority in the State of Israel. Israel is the nation state of the Jewish people, and our goal is to have a Jewish majority. In addition, the law has security importance. The GSS presented data according to which without this law being passed today, there will be a material harm to Israel's security. / end id]

Israel's intention is to finish the Nakba, to erase every trace of Palestinian existence on that land. Israel has set fire to Bab El Rahma cemetery and brutalized Palestinians protesting the desecration of Al Yusifiya cemetery, one of the oldest Muslim cemeteries, again under the guise of building a biblical park.

International pressure has helped Palestinian resistance in these last months. Educate yourself on this apartheid and don't look away. Amplify Palestinian voices and find out what's happening from their mouths. Here's some resources of pages and activists to follow to keep yourself informed:

Eye on Palestine on twitter and Instagram

Mohammed El Kurd on twitter and Instagram

Muna El Kurd on Instagram

Grassroots Al Quds on twitter and instagram

IMEU on twitter and instagram

In Brasil: Juventude Palestina Sanaúd on instagram

In Ireland: Irish Palestinian Solidarity Campaign

Follow BDS all over the world

A constantly updating link to protests around the world - if you know one that's not on the list, you can email them and they'll add it

A link to resources by Samidoun Network on instagram

Feel free to add more resources and don't look away

Alexandre Cababel - L'Ange Déchu (The Fallen Angel), 1847, Musée Fabre à Montpellier.