Today there is a general strike in Palestine for freedom. For my part, let me explain how I came to support peaceful boycotting, divestment and sanctions against Israeli institutions. For me, it’s a way to live out my deepest values of love and justice.... Thread
First, many do the Palestinian communities and leaders whom I admire the most asked me to observe the boycott. When they did, I was ready. I started formally studying Palestine in high school—my prep school had a whole class on what they called the conflict.
In 1992, I went to live for a semester with a family in Beit Safafa, a neighborhood of Jerusalem divided in the 1948 by Jordan and Israel. Most days I took Bus 14 in Talpiot to Kikar Zion where my study abroad office had an office. This is the downtown of modern West Jerusalem.
I traveled widely—Haifa, Kibbutz Kfar Hanasi, Safed, Beit El, Ofra, Nazareth, Ramallah, Tel Aviv, Gaza, Beit Shemesh, Dimona, Bethlehem. I talked with everybody I could. I got to interview David Hartman and Mitri Raheb. I saw Bibi debate Shimon Perez live. I knew the Knesset.
I visited again in the mid 1990s and then after the Oslo Accords in the late 90s, seeing the incredible growth of Ramallah and going on late night romp with Palestinian friends from Bethlehem to West Jerusalem—something impossible in 92.
So when I decided to boycott Israeli institutions, it was not as if I did so without any knowledge of what I was doing. I have colleagues at Israeli universities and I clearly have a stake in communities there. But it is precisely because I care about all the people that I do it.
My own sacrifice is nothing compared to that of Palestinians in Palestine and academics here who have given up much more than I have. Whatever price I pay—the shunning, being called an anti-Semite—is often healed in the pro-liberation Jewish, Xian, and Muslim circles I run in.
Here in Indianapolis and around the world, I get to to be in communion with people who demand an end to the military occupation, an end to discrimination, and the right of return for refugees. That’s what #BDS is. I hope you will join us.

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More from @EdwardECurtisIV

19 May
An anonymous African poet’s lament for the people of Palestine:

Jerusalem, 2021
I saw thousands of prayers      rise up like flares
         nightly, o’er an iron dome
Then dozens of souls,       the young and the old
      dispatched by hearts  colder than stone Image
The Prophets gathered  on mount and valley
        In spirit and deep in the bones
As Pharaohs parade in Moses’ clothes,
       new Edomites tear down old homes1
The spirit of God   moves over the gas
        that’s made tears flow into salt seas
The Temple Mount groans,     Aqsa’s boulders moan
       and even the olive trees weep
How can we sing   the old songs of joy
         in lands without justice or peace?
Read 13 tweets
18 May
Rana Razek, Sally Howell, and I invite you to ur panel on race and religion in the Arab American Midwest. Thursday, May 27, 9 am on Zoom. It's free. Link and abstracts below. #sschat #amrel #arab #Islam
Read 4 tweets
16 May
Midwestern solidarity with Palestine, a history....
It was in local chapters of the New Syria Party in which Midwesterners and Arabs from other regions organized for Palestinian and Syrian self-determination in the 1920s.

For example, in Sioux City, Iowa
@IaHistoryCenter Image
Thew New Syria Party raised money for Syrians who resisted the French occupation of Syria and Lebanon.

In St. Joseph, Missouri, 1927.

@OzarksWatcher @RabiaGregory Image
Not all Arabic-speaking Americans were fans of the revolt or the New Syria Party. For example, in 1927 Maronite Christians in Cincinnati opposed the party and its VIP guest, Shakib Arslan. Image
Read 9 tweets
16 May
If you consider yourself to be an ally of Arab Americans, please educate yourself about our long history of advocacy on behalf of Palestine.

We are your neighbors, friends. Please make room in your heart for our voices.

e.g.:
uncpress.org/book/978146963… Image
Read 4 tweets
16 Feb
"The Nation of Islam, Caring for the Black Body, and #VaccineHesitancy," another thread for #BlackHistoryMonth

The history of the Nation of Islam (#NOI) *helps* to explain why some U.S. African Americans do not want a foreign substance injected in their arms.
#COVID19 cover of Black Muslim Religion by Edward Curtis
As @COVIDBLK and others have revealed, the horrible impact of #COVID19 has had on Black people is due to the health care system's anti-Black racism as well as social and economic racism.

Any "cultural explanation" that blames Black people for #vaccinehesitancy repeats racism. CDC graph of Covid-19 impacts by race
The assault on Black people's bodies is a pillar of U.S. culture. And since forever, Black people have developed cultural, social, political, and economic strategies--from root work to community organizing--to protect the Black body.
Read 13 tweets
15 Feb
#MalcolmX and the #Arab World, a thread for #BlackHistoryMonth . Based on my "My Heart Is in Cairo: Malcolm X, the Arab Cold War, and the Making of Islamic Liberation Ethics," @JournAmHist

#AfricanaReligions #blkaarsbl #AfAmReligion #BlackLivesMatter #Religion #Black #African Malcolm X with Shaykh Abdel Rahman Tag, head of Cairo’s Al
From the late 1950s until 1965, El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz developed and maintained consequential relationship with Arab and Arab American leaders. His message to them, whether as #NationofIslam leader or Sunni convert, was: Islam requires you to support Black Liberation. Dartmouth student Ahmed Osman and Malcolm X. Credit: Emily O
Arab Americans like Aliya Ogdie Hassen (@saladinahmed 's great grandmother) believed that Muslim unity was necessary for self-determination and human rights. Hassen was the liaison between Malcolm X and the Federation of Islamic Associations.

lebanesestudies.ojs.chass.ncsu.edu/index.php/mash… Aliya Ogdie Hassen, founder of ACCESS.
Read 20 tweets

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