stainsworld - Tumblr blog

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Whenever I see people try to differentiate what is “Israel” and what is the “Palestinian state” I always have a very awkward feeling - which is why I think a lot of people need to reevaluate how they speak about Palestine and Israel, specifically what they define as occupied Palestine.

My father’s family is from a village in Jaffa (the district), which is now part of what most people define as “mainland Israel” or an “undisputed” part of Israel - like that land was acquired legally or ethically and an unequivocal part of what is Israel vs what is considered (at least to some) Palestine (the West Bank & Gaza). 

My father’s family had the choice to flee or die and to this day cannot return home to Jaffa. It leaves me with a strange feeling when people discuss a hypothetical “two state solution” as if that land is inarguably Israel and the West Bank and Gaza is inarguably Palestine - my family is not from the West Bank or Gaza, they’re from Jaffa. Proudly Palestinians from Jaffa - they’re not Israeli and never be Israeli, they predate the modern colonial state of Israel.

When people talk about occupied Palestine, they’re usually referring to the 1967 borders and the increasing settlements in the West Bank, when Palestinians talk about occupied Palestine, we’re talking about all of it - every corner of what people define as “mainland Israel” there is a story of Palestinian dispossession - It includes my family and thousands of others. 

Leaving this map here for people to get an idea of how much destruction of Palestinian life and communities happened in what people see as an “undisputed part of Israel” - there is a reason the Palestinian population here plummeted in 1948. 

In short:

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fuck does anyone have that poem thats like the speaker used to press her ear to conch shells when she was a child but as an adult the world has closed its second mouth or something

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Rhiannon McGavin, “Prayer for the new year,” in Branches

[text ID: For the new year, I won’t count it down like a / uranium bomb. The last days / came as a plague ship over the horizon, I / know, so I’m swimming to meet it. Let the / desert bloom through ruins we can look out of, let us / outlive the wolves. Fresh air is the only kiss I / need and I will carry you like honey and / apples. Bless the body between / love and fear, bless who / dares the skyline, and who holds / thieves accountable from the lamp posts / as fireworks blaze into red dandelions, / and what’s the future except an / unfolded table cloth? / Midnight led by the shifting light / of wounds across white rose / petals? I / I will / I will see / I will see the moon and morning and hope.]

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“It consumes, and when it is done there is nothing left. Nothing.” — Beric Dondarrion

a storm of swords, g.r.r.m. / the surgery, dimitris anastasiou / christ displaying his wounds, giacomo galli / “the man with a hole in his head”, rick bursky / the limits of control, nicola samorí / the perjured city, hélène cixous

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when i say “that reminds me” & theres zero connection you just have to take my word for it theres no time to explain

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— Clarice Lispector, from “The Hour of the Star.”

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jon snow sophie mamma mia. invites robert rhaegar and idk howland to winterfell not sure which is his father. ned is donna

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Mary Oliver, from “Marengo.” [ID in alt text]

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― Rosary, Anna Akhmatova

[text ID: Will you forgive me these November days?]

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― E.M. Forster, Howards End

[text ID: The house was very quiet, and the fog—we are in November now—pressed against the windows like an excluded ghost.]

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“Know this: I live beast days. I am a water hour. At night my eyelids droop like forest and sky. My love knows few words: I like it in your blood.”

— Gottfried Benn, “Threat,” translated by Michael Hofmann, Poetry  (via seols)

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here it is a collection of poems about hope and or holding on despite everything !

I Am Not Ready To Die Yet by Aracelis Girmay

A Litany for Survival by Audre Lorde

Snowdrops by Louise Glück

Most Days I Want to Live by Gabrielle Calvocoressi

Insha’Allah by Danusha Laméris

A Good Day by Kait Rokowski

Invitation by Mary Oliver

Instructions on Not Giving Up by Ada Limón

Tommorow is a Place by Sanna Wani

The World Has Need of You by Ellen Bass

Let This Darkness Be a Bell Tower by Rainer Maria Rilke

To the Young Who Want to Die by Gwendolyn Brooks

Night Walk by Franz Wright

Sorrow is Not My Name by Ross Gay

Everything Is Waiting For You by David Whyte

The Letter by Linda Greg

Testify by Eve L. Ewing

Every Day as a Wide Field, Every Page by Naomi Shihab Nye

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Glass pomegranate. Greek, Hellenistic period, 2nd c.BC. Phoenix Museum.

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my favorite love language is trying, actually

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“There were days when we laughed, / days we grew teeth. Season to sow, / season to reap.”

— Caitlin Scarano, from “Parameters”, The Necessity of Wildfire (via voirlvmer)

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children’s dreams / al-yarmouk, palestinian refugee camp in damascus, syria 

little palestine; diary of a siege (2021) dir. abdallah al khatib