Hello, and welcome to this week’s dispatch.

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Dar Jacir, working with researcher Chris Harding, is hosting Time Before the Disaster: Reading the Dar Jacir Archives on the Eve of al-Nakba.

This workshop will discussing newspapers and magazines from the late 1930s and 1940s, from Dar Jacir’s collection. Examining selected extracts from periodicals such as al-Ghadd, Huna al-Quds, and Nida al-Ard, it will consider the temporality of this short period of flux which was colored by upheavals such as the Great Revolution, World War II, as well as rising tensions brought about by the explicit creep of colonisation.

In such a context, calls for a Palestinian state, and more importantly, liberation, were stronger than ever. Many of the writers that will be read argued that a Palestinian state, and with it a temporal shift, would be soon forthcoming. They were, however, rarely in agreement as to how they would pave this road to new time.

Following two workshops—which will be a repeat of one another: one online, the other in-person—Chris will deliver a short talk online, informed by the workshop discussions and his wider reading of the material.

Find out more and register here.

Don’t forget to check out the tenth issue of The Key, our landmark online magazine that places Palestine at the center of the world. This new issue features an essay on Israeli imperialism in Nigeria, a stirring poem from Gaza, and more.

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Excerpt from THALASSA – Three Poems – Selected poems from leena aboutaleb’s new book THALASSA: “Sweet almond oil, fresh tides of jasmines, rosemary water, crushed hibiscus. The dazzle of dawn, my father gathers a lamb. The bride is made of miracles and sacrifices, as aching and hidden as time’s cycle. I am no one’s beloved. My light stretches the sea, rinsing its salt from banks.” 

Standing on the Rubble – Isabella Hammad examines the significance of ruins and rubble in the Arabic literary tradition over nearly a millennium to consider how we should account for the production of ruins and rubble in Gaza today: “As we look upon burned flesh in Gaza, we are also seeing the rubble of this older version of Western empire. How best to splice the frame, to keep them both in mind, to keep looking? How to refuse nostalgia, that basis of violent nationalism; how to grieve, and yet not submit to the romance of the ruin, nor the urge to make permanent what is vanishing?”

The Passive Voice of Light: On Grief and Imperial Grammar – Hanan Habashi, a Palestinian teacher, remembers the sister who taught her the passive voice, and traces the violence of moving through the world as a well-structured argument.

“We Remain”: Music, Survival, and Sumud in Gaza – Ayah Annab argues that musical performances inside and outside of Gaza represent a mode of return that is not physical repatriation, but the resurgence of Palestinian memory and collective struggle.

Hamas Disbanded Its Government in Gaza, but Israel Will Still Prevent Reconstruction From Starting – Although Hamas dissolved its government in Gaza to remove Israel’s pretexts for delaying reconstruction and withdrawal, Tareq S. Hajjaj documents, Israel is now doubling down on a demand for full disarmament as a precondition, a condition designed to be impossible to meet.

The Man Who Walked Toward the "Yellow Line" in Gaza—and the Son He Carried With Him – Mohanad Maher reports on a recent incident where a man underwent a mental break and walked himself and his son into the line of fire near the yellow line in Gaza, subjecting himself and his son to torture at the hands of Israel.

The Ecology of Dispossession – Diana Kruzman argues that Israel’s nature reserves in the West Bank use the language of conservation to restrict Palestinian life while facilitating settlement expansion.

How Israel Uses Sexual Violence as a Tool of Genocide – Nada Elia argues that sexual violence has been central to Israel's settler-colonial project of ethnically cleansing Palestinians since 1948.

Inside the Dispute Over How To Define a Journalist – Christin El-Kholy writes about debates over the redefinition of the category of ‘journalist’ by the Committee to Protect Journalists, which has led to the formal exclusion of some Gazan journalists from the category, highlighting the political pressure that Zionism exerts over Western media institutions.

Egypt, Palestine, and The World Cup: Football’s Political Tradition – Maleeha Haq considers the gestures of solidarity by Hossam Hassan, the coach of the Egyptian national football team, at the World Cup, placing them in a longer tradition of a transnational political tradition in much of the Arab world.

Seeds of War – Marianne Dhenin reports on the food crisis in Lebanon, which Israel has instrumentalized and worsened to make Lebanon both more dependent on foreign imports and thereby less politically and economically stable in the midst of the Israeli siege.

World Cup Short Fiction: Adania Shibli’s ‘A Tin Ball’ – A short story by Adania Shibli on the repurposing of the debris of the occupation into a children’s game of football: “They split up into two teams of three, and began punting the tin back and forth between them. And whenever the tin was kicked too far away, Maya, who was standing on the side too young and too small to know how to play football, would rush to fetch it. It was a truly beautiful day that none of them would easily forget, ever. They were happy.”