To have written 5,795 words this month without reference to the conflict in Gaza feels absurd. This US-sanctioned slaughter is hard not to constantly have on your mind, especially when doing anything else borders on feeling immoral. To not write about Gaza would fail to capture what is beautiful yet possible whether it stems from worldwide solidarity, young people willing to do the bare minimum, or a class flag proudly flying over Limerick. This absence would also fail to capture the springs of solidarity and hate spurred on by the Israeli Occupation, giving us new ways to confirm or deny our respective humanity. Escapism clears the room of anything better, even if that’s just analysis. This Genocide will and should remain unavoidable, necessitating messier paragraphs.

To write about Palestine is to reveal your place in the world, with nobody being truly neutral. Clear lines have once again developed between ’the West’ and ’the Rest’, a development reflected by media coverage and public discourse. In our case, the Free State government found itself wedged between ’West’ and ’Wretched’, lagging behind their metropolitan cousins in their attempts to downplay Palestinian solidarity. While ARD and ZDF in Germany are free to adjust their coverage or insert bad takes into their equivalent to ’Match of the Day’, RTÉ are still letting the Zionists look bad on occasion. Decades of solidarity and struggle have forced Martin and company to be subtle, sending out vague calls for peace between attempts at placating the US and Israel. We’ve also seen sections of the far-right identifying with the Zionist state outright, with those claiming otherwise often being insecure about not being a settler. To not write about Palestine is to pretend that the Irish people are pathetic, doomed to implement themselves into the exact systems they once fought against.

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However, writing about this Genocide is impossible without writing about everything else. We must disrupt and expose each silence that brought us here, openly stating the racist and colonial nature of the Israeli state. To place children in a cage is a statement, and to live in sweet ignorance of said statement is pathetic. Like all forms of colonialism, Zionism necessitates a perception of the Palestinian people as perpetually “lesser”, devaluing their literature and culture in order to justify rape and pillage. Palestine is never allowed to speak for herself, with each attempt being met with brutal violence. “The most moral army in the world” doesn’t offer vegan boots out of a love of animals, it just looks for any opportunity to depict Palestinians as being even lesser.

The Irish people have stood strong in this struggle against dehumanisation, with our literature and language serving as an extended middle finger towards notions of a singular, “civilised” West. On account of our radical tradition, refusing to engage with Palestine’s intellectual and political struggle for freedom is the ultimate form of abdication - making it very clear who actually places value in the words that they read, listen to, or learn. To write about Palestine is to care, and to care is to be free. This newsletter is actually about ’Gaza Writes Back’, a collection of short stories edited by the late Refaat Alareer.

There’s something utterly crushing in discovering an artist’s true depth as their light starts to fade. These last few months have been awful in this regard, with the words of Shane MacGowan and Benjamin Zephaniah haunting a winter defined by death. Yet the sudden snuffing of Refaat Alareer’s light and life cut deep, capturing the attention of the world. Tomaí Ó Conghaile’s thoughtful translation of ’Más éigean dom an bás’ forced this train of thought to cohere, making utterly clear which lights had been extinguished so cowardly. Refaat was now just a tale, one we must all finish.

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It’s not enough to depict Refaat as just a journalist, translator, scholar, or poet. It’s certainly not enough to solely depict him through English either. Alareer’s work expands on and blurs the lines between fiction and polemic - with his decision to write in English being pointed, yet deeply considered. Refaat is more than happy to use an teanga iasachta inconveniently, mirroring Pearse and Hyde in his choice to polemicise at instead of with the English-reading public. This is most blatantly seen in the introduction to ’Gaza Strikes Back’, with the project being rooted in the wider view that “the notion of giving up, or surrendering to the occupation, […] sounds quite repulsive”. Refaat refused to accept any supposed inferiority, with Israel viewing the innate humanity of his work as an existential threat.

Within ’How Does She Stand’, Pearse finds himself pondering the legacy left by Wolfe Tone. Central to Pearse’s perception of Tone is “an immense tenderness and charity”, with Tone’s final sacrifice reflecting a deep love for his people:

Yes, this man could love well; and it was from such love as this that he exiled himself; which such love as this crushed in his faithful heart that he became a weary but indomitable ambassador to courts and camps, with the memory of such love as this, with the little hands of his children plucking at his heartstrings, that he lay down to die in that cell on Arbour Hill.

’Gaza Writes Back’ **is a literal labour of love, with each story fuelled by forms of passion and sacrifice that are totally foreign to those controlling the drones. Alareer and Tone were willing to face “the high and sorrowful destiny of the heroes” not out of some barbaric irrationality, but instead, a level of love solely found amongst us ’barbarians’.

When reading about each writer that contributed towards ’Gaza Writes Back’, the daily horrors inherent to Israel’s occupation become clear. Authors are largely young and female, “most if not all […] have never been to other places in Palestine”, and all face conditions that get in the way of their writing. As outlined in the collection’s introduction:

The lengthy political, economic, and intellectual siege that Israel has maintained around Gaza meant that, as they worked on their stories, all of our writers — like every single person living in Gaza — had to cope with the constant and debilitating structural violence of power cuts, isolation, unemployment, lack of basic goods, lack of books, lack of medicine and access to health care, extreme difficulty in traveling outside Gaza, and far too often pain, death, or the loss of loved ones.

While it’s genuinely impressive that any form of writing was possible in such conditions, what makes ’Gaza Writes Back’ worth reading is its depth, with deep levels of empathy and authenticity shaping each story. Our protagonists are almost constantly aware of those suffering, comparing their traumas with those worse off. This can be seen most blatantly in Rawan Yaghi’s ’From Beneath’, a story based around the bleak experience of bleeding to death following an Israeli airstrike. Despite everything, our protagonist finds himself wanting to help, even though he can’t move a limb. This fundamental empathy fuels some of the best contributions towards this collection - with ’Neverland’ covering the experiences of a health worker who can’t help but think about the children she treats, ‘House’ discussing the morality of revenge, and ’Scars’ depicting **the struggles of parenthood during under occupation. ’Gaza Writes Back’ is an utterly real book, with its depth contrasting heavily with the two-dimensional depiction of the Palestinian people the West occupies themselves with.

One of the most intriguing examples of this book’s empathy is Nour Al-Sousi’s ’Canary’, a piece that alternates perspectives between a resistance fighter and an IDF soldier. This choice of plot is particularly brave for the author considering how tripe previous attempts at tackling it have been, with authors on the outside falling into the same tropes over and over. However, this story actually works due to Al-Sousi’s experiences, with there being something uniquely fascinating in seeing how someone depicts the life and thought process of someone totally opposed to her existence - especially when you consider the fact that most people growing up in Gaza have likely never met an Israeli without uniform. Al-Sousi does what professional writers in Israel seem unwilling to do, raising depressing questions.

One of the most absurd aspects of colonialism is the extent to which those on the receiving end are stuck with the burden of conciliation, having to display a superhuman level of restraint to prove their humanity. In the same way that cultural colonisation forces our thoughts to be based around their occupiers, any discussion for a transition towards something new will always prioritise the interests of a colonising minority over everyone else. You can see this quite blatantly in discussions about reunification, with every aspect of our discourse solely being based around the whims of Unionists - even more so when they refuse to participate. A one-sided relationship develops, with those stuck on colonialism’s receiving end being expected to bridge every divide they’ve had forced onto them.

It’s hard not to start reading ’Canary’ through this lens, with Al-Sousi’s depiction of someone “on the other side” contrasting heavily with the pure bile being posted by ardent Zionists. We’ve seen Israeli soldiers burn food supplies, crack jokes about Arab women being “the sluttiest” while looking through personal belongings, and likely give themselves dysentery by playing with their shit in someone’s house. This reflects a wider dehumanisation endemic to Israeli culture, with local influencers bragging about still having running water and looking forward to replacing the people of Gaza with “Disneyland, Sapphora, […] and hotels with water park”. One set of young people are able to depict an Israeli despite years of distance, the other seems more intent on making crass TikToks and harassing teachers for seeing Palestinians as human. Those rambling on about “both sides” or the abstract need for “class unity” conveniantly fudge and ignore the extent of this hate, often on account of being culturally closer to those doing the settling. “Both sides” have never been equal, with one expected to do all the work necessary to solve a problem they didn’t start.

This isn’t to say that unity is impossible, but instead that it first requires some level of mutual understanding. However, this concept is anathema to the colonial logic behind Zionism, with attempts to “civilise the civilised” generally going nowhere. Colonialism necessitates a division between the West and the Wretched, eventually leading to the dehumanisation and destruction of those unlucky enough to fall outside of the first category. Those supporting Israel’s attacks on Gaza are unable to engage with the works of those like Refaat Alareer as they actively refuse to see them as human, and no short story or lecture could ever change that fact.

However, it’d be wrong to isolate this bleak outlook to Israel. This devaluation of Palestinian lives is inherent to the ways in which the West reports on and conceives this conflict - with the deaths of thousands of Palestinians generally being seen as equally (if not less) important than one or two undergraduates in America feeling uncomfortable. While a country like Germany may wax lyrical about their “Staatsräson”, it’s no coincidence that their ardent support for Israel comes hand in hand with dogwhistles about migrants. Reading about Israel is disgusting as they represent the core of the West, a core that’s more than accustomed to killing stories, languages, and the writers themselves. Rather than being some evil abberation, those looking to raze down the Gaza strip for Disneyland are the closest thing that the West has to true believers.

While this may be a depressing note to end the year on, falling into sheer doomerism is even worse than just doing nothing. Despite years of struggle and insurmountable odds, the Palestinian people are still brave enough to survive and write out of spite. Some of the most beautiful passages in ’Gaza Writes Back’ relate to this unceasing dedication to what Ó Cadhain terms as an “illogcial striving for the impossible”, with anything beyond standing up being long out of the question:

Between my father and his Land is an unbreakable bond. Between Palestinians and their land is an unbreakable bond. By uprooting plants and cutting trees continually, Israel tries to break that bond and impose its own rules of despair on Palestinians. By replanting their trees over and over again, Palestinians are rejecting Israel’s rules. “My land, my rules,” says Dad.

We must learn from the dedication running through each page of this collection, being willing to create and take sacrifices ar son na cúise. We must reaffirm our deep solidarity with the people of Palestine, making it clear that the Irish nation stand in opposition to colonial plunder. We must continue learning to read, write, and think for ourselves - stepping out beyond the Anglosphere and engaging with more than just our deranged neighbours. We must live to tell Refaat’s tale, ideally after Reconquest. Athbhliain faoi mhaise daoibh go léir.

fuaimrian na seachtaine: jane remover - kodak moment

Beidh orm rud éigin a scríobh faoi Jane Remover san athbhliain, go háirithe agus í ag dul ó neart go neart le gairid. Tháinig mé ar Jane mar gheall ar ’Dariacore’, an tionscadal leath-magúil agus ró-’ar líne’ a bhí aici i rith na paindéime. Is léir domsa go bhfuil Jane duine de na ceoltóirí ’Iar-Covid’ is tabhachtaí, rud a leiríonn an rian tochtmhar seo go paiteanta.