Free Palestine 🇵🇸

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Boycott all Western goods and services.

#GazaHolocaust

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Shame on you world!

Boycott all Western goods and services.

#GazaHolocaust

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Free Palestine 🇵🇸

#GazaHolocaust

Join operation Israel #OpIsrael #FreePalestine

https://t.me/GhostPrincess

Free Palestine 🇵🇸

#GazaHolocaust

Join operation Israel #OpIsrael #FreePalestine

https://t.me/GhostPrincess

Child deaths in wars:

🇮🇶 Iraq: 3,100 in 14 years
🇸🇾 Syria: 12,000 in 11 years
🇾🇪 Yemen: 3,700 in 7 years
🇺🇦 Ukraine: 520 in 21 months

🇵🇸 Palestine: 12,000 in 2.5 months

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Annie Lennox was the only artist at the Grammys to call for a ceasefire after her performance of “Nothing Compares to You”

The city of Jerusalem is at the heart of the Palestinian identity, symbolizing their historical, spiritual, and cultural ties to the land. Al Quds

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A traditional headscarf, the keffiyeh is more than an item of clothing. It represents the warmth, resilience, and the rooted cultural identity of the Palestinian people, becoming an unmistakable symbol of Palestinian solidarity globally.

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The key is a poignant symbol of the right of return for Palestinian refugees. It represents the homes left behind during the Nakba, and the enduring hope of return to their ancestral homes and villages.

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The watermelon, with its colors reminiscent of the Palestinian flag, is a subtle symbol of national identity. In times where displaying the flag was not possible, people have made a subversive protest by displaying this fruit with its colors mirroring the exact colors of the flag.

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Olive trees in Palestine are a living emblem of patience and prosperity. These ancient trees, which dot the Palestinian lands, symbolize the indomitable spirit of the Palestinians and their deep-rooted connection to their homeland

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Maps illustrating historic Palestine are a powerful representation of the Palestinian attachment to their land. They embody the memory, loss, and the undying bond of the Palestinian people to their homeland.

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Palestine will resist..

From the river to the sea Palestine will be free!

Free Free Palestine 🇵🇸

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The famous cartoon of Handala by Naji al Ali

Handala is a cartoon, a cartoon of a little boy with a few short hairs, depicted on his back with his hands clasped behind his back. He is the symbol of the Palestinian refugees that are waiting justice and return.

The name of this little boy, this very simple cartoon that is basically just a few lines drawn on paper, is Handala for a reason. The name comes from a plant that grows in the area, especially in the dry areas and it called Handhal in Arabic. The Latin name for it is Citrullus Colocynthis (for the botanists among us) This plant produces a fruit that tastes very bitter. And this bitterness symbolizes the pain and the sorrow of the Palestinian refugees who were displaced in 1948 and lost their properties, their lands, their homes and their future. This plant has very deep roots and even when you cut it very deep it usually grows back. Also very symbolic for the Palestinians who keep struggling and who are waiting and hoping for a return. They are rooted in the land, just like the handhal plant is rooted deeply in the land.

The cartoon of this little boy Handala was drawn first in 1969 by the political cartoonist Naji al Ali.

Handala turns his back to the viewer

The first time this little character appeared was in a Kuwaiti newspaper called Al Seyassah and the first years Naji al Ali used to draw him with his face towards the viewers. But in 1973 when Naji al Ali was so disappointed with the normalization of the Americans and the Arab world with Israel, he turned his back towards the viewers. Naji al Ali said that by turning his back towards the audience he showed (and I quote) his “rejection at a time when solutions are presented to us the American way” and as “a symbol of rejection of all the present negative tides in our region.

I have also heard Palestinian refugees explain that we are looking with Handala over his shoulders towards Palestine.
Handala, a simple ten years old boy
Naji al Ali himself said that Handala is a ten years old boy and he will remain ten years old until he will be able to return to Palestine.

Naji al Ali was forced to leave his hometown As Shajara in the north of Palestine in 1948 when he was a ten years old boy himself.

The cartoonist made Handala look like a very simple boy, with very simple clothes and depicted barefoot as he wanted to symbolize his allegiance to the poor.

This is what Naji al Ali said about Handala :

The character of Handala was a sort of icon that protected my soul from falling whenever I felt sluggish or I was ignoring my duty. That child was like a splash of fresh water on my forehead, bringing me to attention and keeping me from error and loss. He was the arrow of the compass, pointing steadily towards Palestine. Not just Palestine in geographical terms, but Palestine in its humanitarian sense — the symbol of a just cause, whether it is located in Egypt, Vietnam or South Africa. I am from Ain Al-Helwa, a camp like any other camp. The people of the camps were the people of the land in Palestine. They were not merchants or landowners. They were farmers. When they lost their land, they lost their lives. The bourgeoisie never had to live in the camps, whose inhabitants were exposed to hunger, to every degradation and to every form of oppression. Entire families died in our camps. Those are the Palestinians who remain in my mind, even when my work takes me away from the camp.”
Naji al Ali

In 1959 Naji al Ali, the cartoonist, joined the Arab Nationalist Movement which was established in 1952 by George Habbash, that was focused on Arab unity and social progress. It was a more secular and socialist movement.

Naji al Ali made political cartoons that tackled a number of political topics and also criticized Arab leaders. The first times that his cartoons were published was by Ghassan Kanafani, in Al Hurriya newspaper. Ghassan Kanafani was a Palestinian author and one of the leaders of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the PFLP. He was assassinated in 1972 by the Mossad.

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The cartoons of Naji al Ali were simple and easy to understand. They were in black and white.

The topics would range from social injustice, absence of democracy and freedom of expression, to human rights issues and political issues.

Fatima, the good man and the evil man

Besides Handala there are three other characters that appear a lot in his cartoons. There is Fatima who represents the mother and the land. She is a woman who stands side by side with the men in the struggle for freedom and democracy. She often wears around her neck the key of the house that they had to leave in 1948, a very important symbol for the Palestinian refugees.

Another important character is ‘the good man’ who is drawn with sharp lines and clear features, an Arab man, a Palestinian man, poor, thin, a refugee but also a freedom fighter.

And there is the evil man. The evil man is represented as a fat guy, without features and we don’t see his legs, symbolizing that he has no popular support. He represents the men who betray and plot against the resistance and who are generally evil. He is the character that represents the oppression. This could be in general the establishment, the Arab regimes, the United States and Israel.

Symbolism in the cartoons of Naji al Ali

There is a lot of symbolism in the cartoons. You will recognize the use of the kuffiya, the black and white shawl that became known especially after Yasser Arafat wore it always in public. He also the folkloric dresses, the thob, and the embroidery, the tatreez. Other symbols are the Palestinian flag and the map of Palestine. But also the cross and the image of Jesus or people carrying a cross or even crucifixion, symbolizing the suffering of the Palestinian people.
On many of his cartoons there is also text, in Arabic, that clarifies or gives a message to the reader.
Naji al Ali made over 40.000 drawings and he published three books with collection of his cartoons.

Assassination of Naji al Ali

Naji Al Ali was assassinated on the 22nd of July 1987 in London. He was working there for a Kuwaiti newspaper for which he drew political caricatures. He was shot and he died five weeks later. It is still not clear who killed him and why, although there are many theories about that. For sure he had enemies because he was critical and influential.

Naji Al Ali said about Handala:

This character was born to survive. I will continue with him, even after I die.

And that’s true. Until today we see Handala depicted on murals and graffiti all over Palestine. We see Handala at demonstrations around the globe. We see him on key chains, jewelry, tattooed on people’s arms.

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“It shall pass, I keep hoping, It shall pass, I keep saying. Sometimes I mean it. Sometimes I don’t. And as Gaza keeps gasping for life, we struggle for it to pass, we have no choice but to fight back and tell her stories. For Palestine,”

Dr. Refaat Alareer

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“IF I MUST DIE” 
BY REFAAT ALAREER

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

فال بد أن تعيش أنت 
رفعت العرعير
إذا كان ال بد أن أموت 
فال بد أن تعيش أنت 
لتروي حكايتي
لتبيع أشيائي
وتشتري قطعة قماش 
وخيوطا
(فلتكن بيضاء وبذيل طويل) 
كي يبصر طفل في مكان ما من ّغّزة 
وهو يح ّّدق في السماء 
منتظرًاً أباه الذي رحل فجأة 
دون أن يودع أحدًاً 
وال حتى لحمه 
أو ذاته
يبصر الطائرة الورقّية 
طائرتي الورقية التي صنعَتها أنت
تحّلق في الأعالي 
ويظ ّّن للحظة أن هناك مالكًاً 
يعيد الحب
إذا كان ال بد أن أموت 
فليأ ِِت موتي باألمل 
فليصبح حكاية
ترجمة سنان أنطون


Dr. Refaat Alareer's poem.
He was killed along with his brother, sister and her four children in a targeted Israeli airstrike.

BREAKING:

Putin Says Russia is Close to Creating Cancer Vaccines

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Israel assassinated Dr. Ayman Rafati, his wife and children. He often appeared on Al Jazeera to provide analysis as bombs fell around him. Today, Al Jazeera showed his brothers and neighbors searching for his body under the rubble with their bare hands.

Israel of silencing voices from Gaza, while others have called it part of an ongoing scholasticide, a term that has become popular to refer to Israel’s destruction of Gaza’s education system.

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Montreal demands hands-off Rafah.