Letter from Bethlehem: Mazin Qumsiyeh

 From my friend Yasser in Gaza:

"Our neighbor in the camp, his wife was killed about a year ago while going with him to receive American aid. For the past three days, I've felt like I can hear her voice inside the tent, but I was afraid to dwell on the thought or let my mind race, so I ignored it. Yesterday, it happened again. While we were sitting down to coffee today, I decided to confide in him: "I'm sorry, Abu Issa, but lately, at night, when everyone is asleep, I hear Umm Issa laughing and calling to the children, and I don't understand why this is happening to me." I was shocked when I didn't see any surprise on his face. He smiled and said, "Oh, my friend, that's my daughter, Soso. Before she goes to sleep, she keeps playing this video of her mother on her phone and falls asleep to it." Honestly, I didn't know what to say or how to comfort him. I took my coffee cup and looked at Soso, who wasn't far from us, playing hopscotch with her friends. I drank the whole cup silently, cursing everything, cursing this world that demands this child be normal during the day amidst this carnage, then leaves her at night to collapse alone without her mother."  [Note: there is no privacy in the tent cities in Gaza, everyone hears everyone]

We commemorate 250 years on the establishment of the USA. Also 1000 days since 7 Oct 2023 the beginning of the accelerated US/Israeli genocidal push in Gaza that left tens of thousands of children dead!  It is 79 Years since the US started pushing for theft of Palestine from its indigenous people to give to European colonizers. 250 years of genocide of indigenous people in the Americas. All but 20 years without waging war on some country on earth on behalf of special interests (greedy rich people benefitting from wars on Vietnam, Korea, Iraq, Libya and dozens more). The 250 years of being addicted to wars are best represented by the pedophile racist Donald Trump. New passports hold his image. I think it is the best image of a nation that never reconciled with its past. The US only changed elite masters and now is run by the Epstein regime. A country that has dozens of publicly funded Jewish holocaust/genocide museums (a crime the US had nothing to do with it) but no museums that recognize the genocide of Africans (slavery) or of indigenous/native Americans! It is a land of hypocrisy. But if you want to see signs of hope, there are some. Examples include the thousands of civil society organizations working against fascism, against rampant capitalism, against an extractive destructive economy, against AIPAC and the Zionist lobby..etc. Social democrats and Green party candidates are being elected against the wishes of the establishment duopoly (Democraic and Republican parties). Maybe they will succeed in saving the USA.

In our corner of the world, hope is more fleeting. Both the Tel Aviv and Ramallah regimes project a veneer of "democracy". The Israeli "elections" bar most original inhabitants of the land from voting (ethnically cleansed refugees) and insist that all candidates must accept Jewishness of the state -- you cannot run for the Knesset f you support a democratic secular sate. Meanwhile, the "Palestinian Authority" (Vichy style corrupt regime) rich kleptocratic leaders insist that even in municipal elections, no candidates are allowed who call for a pluralistic secular democracy. All candidates must agree to Oslo surrender treasonous agreements or they will not be allowed to run. But the corrupt leadership of the PLO that sold out Palestine 35 years ago are no better than the corrupt ones in Lebanon who just signed an agreement with the genocidal Epstein regime (Israeli/US) or ones of other Arab "leaders". The US appointed "president" of Lebanon (Aoun), a representative of the same elite family that "sold" land they did not own to the Zionists 150 years ago or of Sadat and Sisi of Egypt and many others. Here is the sell-out "agreement":
https://www.state.gov/releases/office-of-the-spokesperson/2026/06/trilateral-framework-between-the-united-states-of-america-the-state-of-israel-and-the-republic-of-lebanon/ Both this sell-out 2026 and the one by the PLO in 1993-95 helped the Zionists get what they could not get by their military. They were losing on the ground (see  https://x.com/i/status/2055841161823105408 for Lebanon and  https://www.aljazeera.com/video/al-jazeera-world/2014/12/17/stories-from-the-intifada for Palestine ).  But even here, there is still hope. Millions of stories of sumud. The struggle continues.

Amnesty International on what is happening here in the West Bank
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/research/2026/06/israel-west-bank-ethnic-cleansing/

Don’t Be Fooled. The Netanyahu-Backed Plan to 'End' U.S. Military Aid to Israel Is a Scam: Israel, and its allies in Congress, want to replace military assistance with something much worse. Here's what you need to know.
https://zeteo.com/p/israel-arm-sales-end-proposal-scam
[I suggest mobilizing to pressure congress AND suing the US government for violating its own laws]

Sanctioned ICC judges sue Trump in US over 'attack on judicial independence
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/sanctioned-icc-judges-sue-trump-us-over-attack-judicial-independence

A luta continua

Stay Humane, act, and keep hope and Palestine alive

Mazin Qumsiyeh
A bedouin in cyberspace, a villager at home
Professor, Founder, and (volunteer) Director
Palestine Museum of Natural History
Palestine Institute of Biodiversity and Sustainability
Bethlehem University
Occupied Palestine