Leftovers #82

Obviously I know it is not just a coincidence or divine intervention that is causing my algorithm to serve me videos of tarot readings that I gently manipulate in my head to fit any situation that I feel needs solving. I am lingering on these longer than usual because uncertainty reigns and there’s nothing like relying on strangers on the internet to help you control the narrative. Yet they do offer up some hope – what’s the difference between a friend telling you what you want to hear in a moment of weakness and someone from Minnesota telling you that the angels see an abundance of good fortune coming your way?

Anyway, here’s a round up of everything I’ve been eating (mainly chicken), cooking (mainly broths), reading (mainly female writers I dream of emulating), watching (mainly murder mysteries) and listening to (mainly – and strangely – David Gray).

PS: go see my friend Ali who runs my favourite craft wear brand, Francli, at the Toast Festive Market in Coal Drops Yard (on now until the end of the weekend). I’ll be there on Sunday morning treating her to flat whites and pastries and probably trying to buy more bags to add to my mounting Francli collection.

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Thinking – 

[This remains a free list of online opinions and resources that continues to educate me about the ongoing occupation of Palestine]

– "The War Did Not Start A Month Ago” – a guest essay for The New York Times by Dalia Hutuqa, a journalist who is currently writing from Ramallah, West Bank. She gives an insightful timeline of the continued violence Palestinians have been victims of over the past seven decades.

This history has been absent from much of the discourse surrounding the Israel-Hamas war, as though the attacks of Oct. 7 were completely arbitrary. The truth is, even in times of relative peace, Palestinians are second-class citizens in Israel — if they are deemed citizens at all. According to Israeli law, Palestinians do not have the right to national self-determination, which is reserved for Jewish citizens of the state. A variety of laws restrict Palestinians’ right to movement, governing everything from where they can live to what personal identifications they can hold to whether or not they can visit family members elsewhere.

– I’ve seen multiple clips of UN Palestine expert Francesca Albanese eloquently and concisely explain in legal terms, the myriad reasons Israel are violating human rights in occupied Palestine. Here’s one on her explaining the concept of racial domination and another disputing Israel’s ‘right to self-defence’.

– Here’s Norman Finkelstein on why there needs to be an equivocal dismantling of Israeli forces when we’re calling for a dismantling of Hamas.

– Baroness Sayeeda Warsi quoting Netanyahu in 2019 on how the existence of Hamas only bolsters the Israel line of ‘self-defence’ and justifies the mass-killing of Palestinians in occupied Palestine, and his rejection of a 2016 proposal for peace that had been approved by the Palestinian authorities.