🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Palestinian death toll in Gaza soars past 25,000 with no end to war in sight : NPR'

21 January 2024 - kudos:

1,200 deaths is an enormous tragedy. What does that make 25,000 deaths? link to “Palestinian death toll in Gaza soars past 25,000 with no end to war in sight : NPR”

🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on '‘God Is Under the Rubble in Gaza’: Bethlehem’s Subdued Christmas - The New York Times'

24 December 2023 - kudos:

Again, what’s going on isn’t bad because it happens to touch on things significant to Christians, and it’s bad when Christians only care about Palestine and Israel because it fits with their religious worldview. Yet, it would be a missed opportunity to talk about Bethlehem this Christmas season without asking about the West Bank, Israel, and Gaza, and how to make a better world for everyone there. link to “‘God Is Under the Rubble in Gaza’: Bethlehem’s Subdued Christmas - The New York Times”

10 December 2023 - kudos:

Kiddo’s grade is learning about how “other countries celebrate the holidays,” but I’m afraid the result will be reinforcing US Christian supremacy. Framing Hanukkah as Israeli suggests that it is foreign to the US, no? I also worry that there will be a class assigned to do Kwanzaa “from Africa.”

Bethlehem in the Nativity and in the West Bank

29 November 2023 - kudos:

Earlier this year, I read Guy Delisle’s excellent comic Chroniques de Jérusalem twice in the course of two months. I began by finally checking out the English translation from a local library to give it a try (I like Delisle, but I’d had trouble getting into this particular comic in the past). Then, as I was getting into it, my brother-in-law texted me from New York to say he was stopping by a local French bookstore and ask if I wanted anything.

🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Gaza Civilians, Under Israeli Barrage, Killed at Historic Pace - The New York Times'

25 November 2023 - kudos:

I had been reading and thinking about non-violence for months before the 2023 Israel-Hamas war started, but its outbreak is making me more committed to the idea than any abstract philosophical argument. I’m more inclined than ever before to believe that military force can never be justified, and I think that’s especially true in cases where civilians are deliberately targeted (or allowed to be caught in the attack). Hamas’s attack on Israeli civilians is unjustifiable, the IDF’s seeming disregard for Gazan civilians is unjustifiable, the U.

📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ for Chroniques de Jérusalem, by Guy Delisle

25 August 2023 - kudos:

It’s been less than a month since I read the English translation of this, which I already gave full marks. Yet, the original French version was even better. Delisle captures this city and its conflicts in a comic book better than any news story ever could.

📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ for Jerusalem: Chronicles from the Holy City, by Guy Delisle

29 July 2023 - kudos:

I have been a fan of Delisle’s for quite some time, but I’m still blown away by how good this is. The book isn’t political or polemical, but a slice-of-life comic done by a cartoonist living in East Jerusalem for a year brings walls, checkpoints, rockets, and attacks on Gaza to life in a subtle, compelling way. I used to follow this news a lot more, and Delisle made me feel like there was a lot I missed even then.