Reflections after our meetings...

At times, the participants in our monthlys meetings publish or submit furter reflections after the meeting has ended.  We collect here what we find out about, or they submit, with a reference to the specific conversation  to which they have  added. 

December 2025 -- Ending suffering, sustaining communities— what are we learning from Palestine?  with Mazin Qumsiyeh  and Karima Kadaoui

Biljiama Vankovska on Substack (click to see) 

Karima Kadaoui -- via e mail (see below)

Corrado Poli -- on Facebook (see below)

Olivier Hamerlynck -- via email (see below)

Extracts from the chat of the meeting -- (see below)

From Karima: 

"The madness of normalising genocide does not begin with ignorance; it begins with a severing of feeling from understanding.

 Genocide is never normalised because people do not know. It is normalised because knowing has been stripped of embodied cognisance; of the capacity to feel what is known as real, as present, as happening to bodies like one’s own.

Cognitive knowing alone is insufficient. Facts can be processed, statistics debated, legal definitions refined while the annihilation of a people continues uninterrupted. This is not neutrality; it is dissociation. 

Embodied cognisance is different. It is understanding that passes through the body before it settles in language. It is the painful tightening of the chest when hospitals are bombed, the nausea when doctors are imprisoned for saving lives, the shock when children are burning alive or torn into pieces, the refusal of the nervous system to accept the unacceptable. This is not emotion as reaction; it is discernment. The body knows when a moral boundary has been crossed long before institutions admit it.

The madness lies precisely here: genocide can only be normalised when this felt intelligence is systematically suppressed, when people are trained to mistrust their own somatic recognition of horror and instead defer to procedural language, geopolitical ratiocination, and “complexity.” Complexity becomes a shield against conscience.

Normalisation is therefore not passive. It is an active discipline. It requires the continuous anaesthetisation of embodied understanding: turning massacres into “security incidents,” turning starvation into “logistical constraints,” turning the destruction of hospitals into “operational necessity,” turning tortured doctors into “detainees.”

Each linguistic move distances cognition from sensation. Each move teaches the body to remain still when it should revolt. Understanding is not achieved by adding more information, but by restoring the unity of feeling and knowing. In this sense, intelligent feeling is not subjective; it is ontoepistemic. It is a way of knowing that resists capture by systems invested in denial and the normalisation of abomination.

This is maybe why genocide feels “unreal” to those far from it, and unbearably real to those living it. Reality is not evenly distributed and realised when feeling is policed or polished.

To feel intelligently is therefore an act of being fully alive, an act of resistance that does not exclude but embraces. It refuses the false safety of detached cognition.

And perhaps this is the most dangerous thing of all to systems that depend on normalization: a population that trusts its embodied cognisance, it's knowing of the heart will not accept genocide as policy, precedent, or background noise."

 We are called, as Paul said, to think differently beyond systemically. We can think systemically remaining in the inner architecture of emotional detachment. "That humanity is the indispensable humus where everything else -- system analysis, theories of change, action... you name it—can grow healthy, without distortion and corruption and futile failures..." expresses the "how" with clarity, coherence and beauty. The ultimate paradox: trusting our humanity in a crisis of humanity.

From Corrado:

IL CAMBIAMENTO È POSSIBILE: Il dovere morale di agire

Ieri ho partecipato a una riunione online di “Elders for Peace”, un gruppo di studiosi, attivisti e sostenitori che si riunisce per organizzare azioni a favore della pace.

Abbiamo ascoltato due testimonianze dirette sul genocidio dei palestinesi.

Sono state commoventi e significative, lasciando tutti i partecipanti senza parole; per lunghi minuti nessuno ha osato commentare, né tantomeno porre domande. Più tardi, uno dei partecipanti ha citato: “Quando le parole falliscono, parla il silenzio”.

Dopo essermi disconnesso dalla conferenza Zoom, non riuscivo a scrollarmi di dosso i pensieri cupi. Un senso di impotenza travolgente ha preso possesso della mia mente e della mia anima.

Poi ho reagito perché non abbiamo il diritto di disperarci. Il problema è come agire... così mi sono sentito di nuovo infelice: la risposta alla domanda “Cosa fare?” non è facile oggi. Non lo è mai stata, tra l'altro.

Un amico continua a lamentarsi sui social media di quanto i media siano cattivi e di parte, e di come le potenze occidentali li controllino.

E allora? Che c'è di nuovo? Dico io.

Sappiamo tutti che i media mainstream manipolano pesantemente la maggior parte delle persone. La maggior parte delle persone, ma non “tutte le persone ogni volta”.

Sono fiducioso e dovremmo esserlo tutti!

Il pensiero positivo è un dovere morale e una responsabilità che non possiamo evitare.

Non siamo più soli: ci sono molti media non mainstream e social network che trasmettono informazioni diverse. Creano un'altra cultura, indomabile come la verità stessa.

Possiamo contribuire unendoci all'informazione libera e navigando in rete sulla nuova onda, portando la nostra esperienza e la nostra cultura.

Dobbiamo invece astenerci dall'autocompiacimento e dal predicare ai convertiti. Dobbiamo essere umili e abbastanza coraggiosi da discutere con gli infedeli, coloro che ancora adorano i media mainstream e sminuiscono il nostro impegno.

Sovvertire l'ordine politico e militare occidentale non è facile, ma è necessario ripristinare la libertà, la giustizia e la fratellanza.

Anche se non accadrà dall'oggi al domani, la marea sta salendo ed è inarrestabile.

I BRICS+ stanno sfidando l'egemonia economica occidentale, con ripercussioni sulla geopolitica globale. Il mondo sta cambiando più rapidamente che negli ultimi 50 anni.

In Occidente, chi ha più di 70 anni (circa) ha assistito in prima persona a questi cambiamenti. Abbiamo vissuto una delle rivoluzioni materiali e sociali più rapide e radicali della storia umana. Tra il 1950 e il 1970, sia l'ambiente sia le nostre convinzioni e i nostri comportamenti sono cambiati radicalmente.

Possiamo farlo di nuovo, o almeno prestare attenzione e sostenere la trasformazione in corso. Anzi, dobbiamo credere che una nuova rivoluzione sia possibile e accoglierla.

“Desiderio di cambiamento” era il motto del mio mentore, un atteggiamento molto umano, in effetti.

Pertanto, dateci una battaglia da combattere e noi la combatteremo

From Olivier:

Everything that needed to be expressed has already been written. And, as Orwell formulates it, that everything has to be against totalitarianism. We are currently both in 1933 and in his novel 1984 but with, thanks to Palantir and the other criminal facilitators of our manipulation, a much more sophisticated Big Brother. The 1 % that enslaves us all, through the (anti-)social hate networks and the Newspeak that permeates their FoxNews et al. Hannah Arendt in her treatise on the origins of totalitarianism goes into length on how language is subverted and lies become truths.

So what are we left with? Emotion, but not the hatespawning clickbait type. Real emotion with real people or as Mazin expressed it: I will be emotional as we are among friends. Karima emphasized empathy, another characteristic of real people. It is through that shared emotion, that empathy we are strong, that we can resist.

We are capable of sharing feelings with others because we share values and many of these values were written down before, as Mazin stated in Jesus’ powerful Sermon on the Mount. Briefly: humility, mercy, purity of heart, peacemaking, a hunger for justice, sincerity and radical love (the other cheek). What I loved in Karima’s parable (but a true story as all good parables are) is that it are the young ones that overcame the generations of hate and violence, they were able to see through the lies. The young hearts are the ones that we, as Elders, should try to help opening and, of course, we face stiff competition here as they are very strongly targeted by the influencers on the anti-social networks, e.g. Charlie Kirk’s programme.

But our leaders, the ones that the 1% bestows upon us either through manipulated elections or more open powergrabs, do not adhere to these values, quite the opposite: they more and more openly denounce and abhor them. Why? Well, you already intuitively know the answer: because there is more money to be made that way but also, and Mazin hinted at that “because they are different”. Now these are treacherous waters as that is precisely what the 1% wants us to believe, namely that all problems originate in those that are different, the ones they want us to fear and therefore to hate.

I will come back to this difference after an older story than the magnificent Sermon of the Mount. I want to take you back to the first murder and the shame attached to that event. The (first) farmer Cain slays the (first) livestock keeper (with a stone, we are still in the Neolithic).

YHVH (literally the Name) puts a mark on Cain so that nobody will revenge the murder of Abel. Nor will Cain be killed accidentally in a violent encounter that he might himself create to escape his terrible punishment, which is to be ashamed of his deed (the deed, as in MacBeth I have done the deed, which can only mean one thing: murder). He has to live with this shame as will his descendants for 7 generations. He is an outcast. He has no friends.

The true behavioural rules, the ones that allow us to live together in harmony start with the sixth commandment (the first 5 are “god stuff” plus respect for parents): “Thou shalt not kill”. Thus the Name sets the murderous descendants apart. That is the “they are different” I was referring to earlier.

Mazin hinted to this as a geneticist, there is a violent personality profile in our midst (he referred to chimps) but obviously, in our caveman days, a non-empathic profile was, in evolutionary terms, useful in certain situations, so they are still around. We often call them sociopaths and psychopaths but they are more accurately described in psychiatry these days under the Dark Triad.

Muris, P., Merckelbach, H., Otgaar, H. and Meijer, E., 2017. The malevolent side of human nature: A meta-analysis and critical review of the literature on the dark triad (narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy). Perspectives on psychological science, 12(2), pp.183-204.

It is fairly easy to see that a lot of our leadership fits in here. Like Cain and his descendants, they have no friends with whom they might share the emotions as we shared them with Mazin and Karima.

When I was (1983-1984) in Hazarajat in the Central Mountains of Afghanistan during the Soviet Occupation we had too many dying people coming from “the West”. People from these extremely poor valleys would die on their way to the hospital so I was charged with opening up a dispensary several days march to the West (in an abandoned school building – better not to describe in detail what happened to the teachers, suffice it to say that half of the school was for boys and half for girls, still not a popular concept there).

That hamlet had 7 Arbab families (master of the waters, the ones owning the springs and distributing the irrigation waters) in a strict hierarchy that had completely shifted with the Soviet invasion. To simplify: the numbers 1,2 and 3 were relegated to 5,6,7 and vice versa. As I got to know them better, the former leaders included moderate, well read intellectuals (including my best mate who had a schizophrenic son he treated with such gentleness, with so much love and respect, reading from his “deranged” but very poetic writings, etc.). The new triumvirate were of the Dark Triad. The military commander, number 2 wouldn’t have his mongoloid son circumcised = not human. He was using me to visit the surrounding (Pashtoun) villages – my job (as the locally famous doctor who patches up your bullet holes) included negotiating firewood to keep the dispensary open in winter – to find out what weapons they had and confided to me his plan to murder all of them after the Soviets would have left. I guess the inverse happened as there was a lot of Hazara being murdered afterwards (they are Shia).

So, under threat - and that is why our leaders are all the time fear mongering: fear of the ones that are different - the community chooses the Dark Triad guys as we are doing with Trump, Orban, Marine Le Pen, etc. through the media manipulation.

Our task (as Elders) is to help point out these profiles and against all support critical thinking, especially in the younger generations debunking all these myths through what we have witnessed. Telling stories. We are good at that.

Extracts from the chat of the meeting:

00:58:36 Julie: Religious sects and etno-religious nationalism play an important role in this barbarity.  How can people go to the Church without asking the Pope to make a statement? How do people read the Gospels "love your enemy" and accept that what the US Protestant evangelical churches are supporting in the name of their blind literalist interpretation of the Old Testament? This is a 2000+ years conflict. The Book of Maccabees boasts of exterminating the Samaritans! They happen to be the very people who have the oldest version of the Pentateuch, written in a script that indeed existed before square Hebrew. The current displacements of populations in the Golan, and the attacks in Naplus, are related to the central role of these people, which today are considered as "another religion" by mainstream Israelis. Is it because Christianity and Islam consider that the Old testament is their "foundation myth" that they cannot criticize the literalist interpretation?

00:59:02 Bill Samuel: I was just sent a video from my contact in Gaza (journalist Hind Khoudary) of the flooding today there.

01:04:56 Julie: We also need to question the concept of "resilience" when it means pure and simple acceptation of the idea that "predestination" is the rule rather than free will. It makes perfect sense for ruler to impose the idea that there is a God that pre-ordains everything, but in fact, within the history of the very same Abrahamic religions, there have been currents who promoted free will and explained that good and evil are not the same thing. Supposedly, international justice was based on this principle.

01:09:50 Julie: Basically the question can be reduced to: what is preventing the filthy rich, in the Gulf, Saudi Arabia or Europe, to do an air bridge and save the people in Gaza from being buried under the future Trump/Kushner resort?

01:10:19 Mazin Qumsiyeh: My email mazin@qumsiyeh.org

01:12:43 Bill Samuel: If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other. -Mother Teresa

Karima, you are talking about the need to remember that we belong to one another.

01:12:55 Chuck Johnson, IPPNW: It is about expanding our circle beyond just those closest to us to the larger circle.  It is about recognizing our commonality.

01:13:06 Karima Kadaoui: Reacted to "It is about expandin..." with ❤️

01:13:10 Bill Samuel: Reacted to "It is about expandin..." with ❤️

01:13:13 Karima Kadaoui: Reacted to "If we have no peace,..." with ❤️

01:13:36 Jordi Cat: It takes both recognizing and honoring commonality as well as singularity

01:13:47 Karima Kadaoui: Reacted to "It takes both recogn..." with ❤️

01:14:00 Bill Samuel: Reacted to "It takes both recogn..." with 👍

01:16:13 Deivide Oliveira: Agree with u chuck

01:16:26 Julie: Same conclusion was reached by Spinoza about the fairy tales of the Old Testament; same of Luther regarding the corruption of the Catholic church; same of Freud with regard to Judaism as a failed attempt to kill the father (in his book on Moses)

01:17:06 Jordi Cat: Many years ago I was fortunate to attend a small meeting with Hanan Ashrawi. She struck me as the strongest person and also the funniest. Humanity.

01:18:54 Chuck Johnson, IPPNW: Reacted to "Many years ago I was..." with ❤️

01:19:10 Chuck Johnson, IPPNW: Reacted to "Agree with u chuck" with 🫶

01:19:21 Julie: The reason why the Palestinians are hated is precisely because as originally Bedouins, they know how to live together, no matter how many religions have tried to divert them from their love of life and nature. The so-called followers of Jesus have been unable to agree on the books they read (in Greek, Syriac, Arabic, Latin) for 2000 years because they obey priests who in turn obey wordly powers, very much against the message of the Gospels.

01:27:29 Jordi Cat: Many religious crusaders among the new far-right political leadership

01:27:33 Julie: Do we really need Jesus to believe that there were human beings in history, who preached helping the poor and loving all people no matter their ethnicity or religion? Look at religions as "brands" and softpower. When the US funds evangelical sects in Africa or South America, it is only to "sell" Biblical geography, adapted by Christian Zionism. As long as we do not denounce this we are stuck.

01:28:40 Chuck Johnson, IPPNW: Replying to "Do we really need Je..."    No, we don't need Jesus, specifically.  But those who claim to follow him should study what he said and did according to the gospels they profess to believe as God's word.

01:30:29 Bill Samuel: Julie, my nextdoor neighbors are Sudanese refugees. They are Muslim. I look at them and see people who love God and love their neighbors. They are living what Jesus held up. Our church, which took them in, sees them as brothers and sisters, and we don't see our different faith traditions as a barrier. We respect each other.

01:31:28 Christopher Mbanefo: Reacted to "Julie, my nextdoor n..." with ❤️

01:31:44 Karenza-Monica Case: Religions have been corrupted and misused, but let’s not throw the baby out with the bath water.

01:31:53 Julie: Bill, it is also possible for human beings to love each others without having churches. There is plenty of great writers and philosophers who have worked on it and indeed written on it. There is too much corruption in organized religions for the last few millennia to be mentioned.

01:32:38 Julie: How do you address ethno-religious nationalism? Identity politics has been very fine-tuned in the latest decades.

01:33:11 Chuck Johnson, IPPNW: Replying to "Bill, it is also pos..." Yes, do it that way, if it works for you! We should love however anyone wants to live and let live and show kindness and give assistance to those who are the "other."

01:33:57 Christopher Mbanefo: Those who have not reached the mountain top will argue which way is best, and in the worse case may kill each other. Whereas those who have reached the top do not ask which way you took.

01:34:05 Julie: Religion is supposed to connect people above nationalism. But we have seen that there is no transnational solidarity and that 5 percent of extremists can take hostage the rest of the population. They are more organized, more zealots and they have what Ibn Khaldun calls 'asabiyya in this way.

01:34:32 Paul Shrivastava: Thanks Julie... I am afraid religion in the 21st century is not helping peace and harmony

01:35:14 Julie: My point is that Chabad Lubavitch has taken Judaism as a hostage. What is needed is a serious deconstruction of what they claim and how they got allied with the Protestants all the way since the end of the 80s.

01:37:36 Karima Kadaoui: Love is in all religions and love has no religion.

01:37:48 Julie: Please see the recently released film "Soundtrack for a coup d'état". It resonates very much with the current situation. The UN was irrelevant already in the 1960s. But the new element is that we have international officials, such as Albanese and the ICC and ICJ judges who are now under sanctions. We should be thinking about how to get organize for these people to do their work outside of the grid of sanctions and indeed outside of a corrupt UN.

01:39:31 Chuck Johnson, IPPNW: Reacted to "Love is in all relig..." with ❤️

01:39:39 Geoffrey Garver: I’m reading the book Kayanerenkó:wa: The Great Law of Peace, by Kayanesenh Paul Williams, about how the Haudenosaunee Confederacy was created, ending ongoing war among the five Nations and agreeing on a way to sustain peace.  So many lessons for our times in this wonderful book (although my Kanien’kehá:ka friends remind me it was an oral tradition and more fluid than a book would make it seem). I’m grateful to be on this path of learning.

01:39:45 Julie: Love should be in all religions but if you read the Book of Joshua or most of the sections of the OT that call for the destruction of geunine people: Samaritans exist, Moab and Edom are the ancestors of the Palestinians and Arabs of Jordan (as attested by archaeology), you cannot expect people who read this to love their neighbours. And again I do not understand how "Christians" can keep reading these sections without excising them. We all know how books have been gathered and canonized and sanctioned by authorities.

01:40:07 Alberto Cacopardo: Julie, careful! It is not the UN that is corrupt, it is the US that is building its dictatorship over the world. That is the Greatest menace right now! That is the great threat to the victory of Love

01:40:28 floydhomer: Perhaps a key question based Grazia’s comments is how do we weed the ‘good’ wolf in others who can influence a change for the better.

01:40:42 floydhomer: …feed…

01:41:07 Julie: It was the case in 1960 already when they allowed for the kidnapping and assassination of Lumumba. See "Soundtrack for a coup d'état" and all the people responsible boasting on cameras in the interviews they gave in the following decades. We have not moved from there.

01:42:55 Geoffrey Garver: We need to call out as fraudsters those (from Reagan to Trump and beyond) who call for “peace through strength” which amounts to pointing a gun at people and telling them not to make trouble.  Much more powerful is the call for strength through peace - strength within and among communities bound by peace.

01:43:11 Julie: https://roape.net/2024/02/08/myth-busting-dag-hammarskjold-katanga-and-the-coup-against-the-lumumba-government/

01:44:05 Bill Samuel: It is not "religion" but the love that is behind the best in all religions that is what we need.

01:44:40 Mark Halle: Amen brother!

01:45:00 Mazin Qumsiyeh: A Christmas song for you (English lyrics included in description) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4O0sMRd-8s

01:45:59 Julie: Look at how the US has been funding religious wars in Africa for decades. It is not just now. But indeed the Trump team feels sorry the US were not around at the time of the Crusades. More realistically, they understand religion as soft power and know how much money it makes. Anyone who has visited Switzerland has seen all the various sects of the worls that were there. Indeed one of them, a local one, Oxford Group/Réarmement moral, has played a very powerful role in going after NATO officials and high-ranking people...

01:47:31 Julie: Aff to the mix that in a number of European countries, it is the so-called "Christian democrat" parties that are the king makers of coalitions. They are not many in parliaments, but they do hold the keys of power in many places, including most of Northern Europe, Germany and Italy. Mainly protestants, but also catholics.

01:47:39 Mark Halle: As always, I need to drop off now.  Thanks for a moving and inspiring session.

01:48:10 Chuck Johnson, IPPNW: I think it is important to look for commonality and to appeal to people's better wolvers.

01:48:46 tom barton: Emotionally powerful presentations and dialogue - thanks to all.  bye for now

01:49:17 douglas: The recently published Global Environment Outlook tries to bring us to a better world

01:49:44 Julie: In my opinion an answer from the social sciences could be what Iain McGilChrist says about the lateralisation of the brain hemispheres. Contrary to what the Abrahamic religions say, all men and women have the same brain. It is very likely though that we use it differently because of the cultural and multi-generational factor.

01:49:46 Bill Samuel: The answer is not so much in systems but in living out love. If love spreads, systems will change. It does not work through a rational process by itself.

01:50:00 Karima Kadaoui: Peace making doesn’t mean passivity. It is the act of interrupting injustice without mirroring injustice, the act of disarming evil without destroying the evildoer, the act of finding a third way that is neither fight nor flight but the careful, arduous pursuit of reconciliation and justice. It is about a revolution of love that is big enough to set both the oppressed and the oppressors free.”

Shane Claiborne, Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals

01:50:15 Bill Samuel: Reacted to "Peace making doesn’t..." with 👍

01:50:16 Alberto Cacopardo: I must also leave. Thanks a lot to you all for the most precious meeting.

01:50:25 Chuck Johnson, IPPNW: Reacted to "Peace making doesn’t..." with ❤️

01:50:48 Julie: Love starts by refusing to have shares in Lochkeed Martin or to work for any of the Big Tech surveillance apparatus. This means that many people are going to be without jobs and therefore what is needed are millionaires to pay for ethical jobs.

01:51:34 Bill Samuel: "abyss of dehumanization" - that captures it. That is the root problem.

01:52:44 Jordi Cat: Education is a key opportunity for trying, especially at a more individual and personalized level, but it’s embedded in the economic, religious/culutral and political systems that are not peace-conducive. Trying is important, but it’s getting harder and harder (even in science).

01:53:56 Geoffrey Garver: Yes, it’s the normalization of so many hate-fuelled practices that is at the heart of what needs to be addressed, starting in the severe, acute cases like Gaza, but all across the world.

01:54:37 Bill Samuel: Replying to "Education is a key o..."  In my country, the USA, the people in education who are feeding the right wolves are being kicked out. They are considered subversive and dangerous.

01:55:09 Geoffrey Garver: Reacted to "In my country, the U..." with 😪

01:55:33 Karima Kadaoui: Reacted to "Yes, it’s the normal..." with ❤️

01:55:39 Andréa Finger: Thank you Mazin and Karima we need humanity, to share and nurture love. But indeed Paul the systemic structure of violence needs also to be analysed and deconstructed.

01:55:49 Bill Samuel: "white" people were created in the 1600's to provide a basis to enslave a whole group of people for economic gain.

01:55:59 Jordi Cat: Replying to "Education is a key o..."   I feel more and more vulnerable on my campus

01:58:56 Beverly Ovrebo: “Let us be human.” - L. Wittgehstein

02:02:15 Karima Kadaoui: "the coloniser is colonised" - "the dehumaniser self-dehumanise"

02:02:55 Jordi Cat: I’m afraid I have to leave. Thanks for the testimonies and the realism about the challenges.

02:03:12 Bill Samuel: Reacted to ""the coloniser is co..." with 👍

02:04:15 Paul Shrivastava: I too need to get off now, Thanks Mazin and Karima  ... for a very thoughtful discussion... let's keep working together on this

02:06:03 Bill Samuel: Reacted to "I too need to get of..." with 👍

02:06:44 Silvia Lelli: The fact that Francesca Albanese is so strongly ostracized means that UN still have the power to say something true and important. able to challange the economic system Mazin Qumsiyeh is talking about

02:08:14 George & Maria: Thank you Mazim and Karima. We have to go now. Till next time

02:09:04 Chuck Johnson, IPPNW: Replying to ""the coloniser is co..."   This is true.  They are not happy

02:09:18 Andréa Finger: Thank you Michel too for these last words thanks to all

02:09:29 Karima Kadaoui: Deeply grateful to all

02:09:34 Beverly Ovrebo: ❤️

02:09:50 Christopher Mbanefo: May Peace be upon us all! ❤️

02:09:55 Mazin Qumsiyeh: mazin@qumsiyeh.org

02:09:56 Julie: Take care all of you and a happy new year, looking forward for some change

02:10:47 Karima Kadaoui:

If I must die, 

you must live 

to tell my story 

to sell my things 

to buy a piece of cloth 

and some strings, 

(make it white with a long tail) 

so that a child, somewhere in Gaza 

while looking heaven in the eye 

awaiting his dad who left in a blaze— 

and bid no one farewell 

not even to his flesh 

not even to himself— 

sees the kite, my kite you made, flying up above 

and thinks for a moment an angel is there 

bringing back love 

If I must die 

let it bring hope 

let it be a tale

02:10:58 Christopher Mbanefo: Reacted to "If I must die,  you ..." with ❤️

02:10:59 Karima Kadaoui: Rafaat Alareer