Issue 34: Fewer words

Dearest reader,

I hope this letter finds you safe. I don’t have a lot to share today. My heart and thoughts are with the Palestinian people and especially the people of Gaza. Gaza has long been regarded as the world’s largest open-air prison and I became persuaded today that this characterization may itself be too soft. Prisons are structures governing authorities use to contain and separate those they’ve deemed to have offended, in some shape or form, the law, in some shape or form, from the rest of society—whether under a morally sound system of justice or not. In a few weeks faces above dinner tables all across America will be drooling over roasted Turkey and tipsy round uncles across the nation will be drumming the pretense of Palestinian crime. The question I begin to ponder, fruitlessly, is, “What crime?” Gaza is more than an open-air prison. It is a contemporary concentration camp. It’s a place where the essential ingredients for human life have been systematically deprived, by its true governing power, for decades. It makes sense to me that those born into a concentration camp would want to break free. In fact, I struggle to think of a response that could be more fundamentally human than that.

Love,
Reef