Thirty four bombs dropped on Gaza last night.
We Skyped with a woman in Gaza this afternoon. I do not know her, but nothing in her voice or face indicated that she was up the entire night with solders and sirens, jets and blasts. In fact, she said her neighbors and her joke that when you hear the jets, you know the bombs are landing somewhere else.
We spoke a lot about her work. She develops training for the people in Gaza seeking work. Many in Gaza have lost work due to the siege. Her trainings provide Palestinians in Gaza with innovative ways of generating income, despite walls, checkpoints, and limited imports.
Gaza has an incredibly high number of graduates. Their schools and communities have been very successful in preparing students for work. They just need to find it. There are online options. But life in Gaza sometimes interferes with that as well. Typically, electricity will be cut for eight hours, returned for eight, cut again for eight, etc. It has been this way for eight years. She says the number 'eight' with a smirk and a roll of her eyes.
Sometimes it is on for four, off for twelve. The worst was 2008, when all power was cut for 24 days. And remember, electricity is connected with water. With fans. With gas. There are a lot of generators in Gaza. There is also a lot of creativity in reshaping your day to cook and clean and work while you have electricity.
Sometimes I do not post things here because I know how our minds have been programmed and how easy it is to dismiss people and events when we're told something is justifiable. The word "Hamas", for example, can be very tricky for us. If we know that 500 people are arrested, that sounds insane. If we know that 300 of them are Hamas, how do we feel?
Yes, I strongly oppose radical violence connected with Hamas, just as I oppose radical violence connected with Israel, especially as I oppose radical violence connected with the US. Here, Hamas is referred to as a political party. This woman discussed voting for Hamas or Fatah the same way we discuss voting Republican or Democrat: Because something needs to change. Because they're tired of the wall. Because they want better health care. Because they need better employment.
I have never heard any party in the U.S. referred to as "militant Christian fundamentalist political movements that oppose peace" by the news sources that speak that way of Hamas. But they could be framed that way, couldn't they? Who kidnaps and who arrests? What is terrorism and what is an attack? Whose children are killed and whose are murdered? Words matter. We all use them to justify our actions.
And how does power and resources play into our framing of a situation? What did Britain think about our colonists as we used threats, applied pressure, became violent, and broke rules of engagement to assert our independence?
Thirty four bombs were dropped in Gaza last night, and you wouldn't know from our conversation with this woman. Thirty four bombs, and people went to school and work in the morning. Thirty four bombs, and we spoke about the youth's high graduation rates and the people's hope for innovative employment options.
"There is no security..." she concedes, but quickly brushes it away with a soft hand gesture. "Life has to go on," she says. "The people of Gaza are experts on living".
We Skyped with a woman in Gaza this afternoon. I do not know her, but nothing in her voice or face indicated that she was up the entire night with solders and sirens, jets and blasts. In fact, she said her neighbors and her joke that when you hear the jets, you know the bombs are landing somewhere else.
We spoke a lot about her work. She develops training for the people in Gaza seeking work. Many in Gaza have lost work due to the siege. Her trainings provide Palestinians in Gaza with innovative ways of generating income, despite walls, checkpoints, and limited imports.
Gaza has an incredibly high number of graduates. Their schools and communities have been very successful in preparing students for work. They just need to find it. There are online options. But life in Gaza sometimes interferes with that as well. Typically, electricity will be cut for eight hours, returned for eight, cut again for eight, etc. It has been this way for eight years. She says the number 'eight' with a smirk and a roll of her eyes.
Sometimes it is on for four, off for twelve. The worst was 2008, when all power was cut for 24 days. And remember, electricity is connected with water. With fans. With gas. There are a lot of generators in Gaza. There is also a lot of creativity in reshaping your day to cook and clean and work while you have electricity.
Sometimes I do not post things here because I know how our minds have been programmed and how easy it is to dismiss people and events when we're told something is justifiable. The word "Hamas", for example, can be very tricky for us. If we know that 500 people are arrested, that sounds insane. If we know that 300 of them are Hamas, how do we feel?
Yes, I strongly oppose radical violence connected with Hamas, just as I oppose radical violence connected with Israel, especially as I oppose radical violence connected with the US. Here, Hamas is referred to as a political party. This woman discussed voting for Hamas or Fatah the same way we discuss voting Republican or Democrat: Because something needs to change. Because they're tired of the wall. Because they want better health care. Because they need better employment.
I have never heard any party in the U.S. referred to as "militant Christian fundamentalist political movements that oppose peace" by the news sources that speak that way of Hamas. But they could be framed that way, couldn't they? Who kidnaps and who arrests? What is terrorism and what is an attack? Whose children are killed and whose are murdered? Words matter. We all use them to justify our actions.
And how does power and resources play into our framing of a situation? What did Britain think about our colonists as we used threats, applied pressure, became violent, and broke rules of engagement to assert our independence?
Thirty four bombs were dropped in Gaza last night, and you wouldn't know from our conversation with this woman. Thirty four bombs, and people went to school and work in the morning. Thirty four bombs, and we spoke about the youth's high graduation rates and the people's hope for innovative employment options.
"There is no security..." she concedes, but quickly brushes it away with a soft hand gesture. "Life has to go on," she says. "The people of Gaza are experts on living".
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