That’s too rich of a title for me. Culture—of Palestinians are a culture. I just find this word somehow reductionist, minimizing when reflecting on it. They aren’t a nation resisting; they are a people stopping an invasion or defending their homeland. That actually would have been a great title come to think of it: This year’s them is “Defending Their Homeland.” If that had been the name you would have had to jump out of our chair to avoid the bricks being thrown in through the window from the Zionist protestors outside. The police would have swarmed in and arrested everyone in seconds. I remember the Queen died and as the funeral rolled through town an older white Oman held up a cardboard sign that said “Not my King” and immediately about 6 police pushed her up and swept her into jail. She was released with an apology. But it revealed to me how “triggered” the authorities were by this loan woman with a cardboard sign. If you make or say the wrong move, the whole empire opens up suddenly and gobbles you up, if you’re an older white woman. It showed the severe anger lurking under the British manners of the Monarch (“Oh, now we see the violence inherent in the system” - still one of the best scenes in any movie — Holy Grail). Thank goodness you didn’t smash the chair and go to jail. I hope you can stay well.

I really can see why you wanted to jump on your chair. I wanted to smash it just thinking about it sitting in the middle of a genocide funded and supplied with the usual suspects (USUKFranco-German suppliers) and hearing about nice and polite Palestinian “culture.” So typical condescending. It is a crazy experience to have and read about right now, after watching the political prisoners freed from Assad’s horrors how of a jail, with everything swirling about and proper-mannered droning of the voices about culture as resistance. Resistance. Tell that to the humans buried three floors below Sednaya in the red section when they finally drill through the concrete to get them out. The human bodies hanging by their hands, dangling off the floor in Israeli ‘holding pens.” Of the rods and hoses used to penetrate teenage Palestinian boys and men just a few cells down. Or the snipers drones putting bullets in the heads of Palestinian children in Gaza. Resistance is a strange word to those who can’t wield it.