In collaboration with Mohammed and our friends at Mallard Ice Cream, there is going to be a special fundraiser to help raise money to pay off Mohammed’s education fees so he can confirm his admission to start his Master’s program in Mathematics, Computer Science, and Digital Sciences at the University
of Geneva in Switzerland this Fall.
Mallard Ice Cream will be launching a special ice cream flavor, just for Mohammed, and when we asked Mohammed what flavor he’d like dedicated to him and he said Pineapple! On Monday, July 6th, we will be debuting this flavor and hosting a complimentary Palestine-themed trivia night where folks can gather in community, learn more about Mohammed, and also assess their understanding of Palestine and her people via a family-friendly trivia.
If you can’t make it on the 6th, you can still support Mohammed, and you can still try out Mohammed’s dedicated flavor as long as it lasts!
Mohammed has also written a special message to us, which you can read in the image above. It is important we continue our solidarity with Mohammed, and with our other friends in Gaza who continue to endure genocide.
Everyone should have a right to pursue education in safety. Everyone should have a right to return to their homes. Also, Mohammed should’ve been able to accept his scholarship that WWU granted him last fall. He should be here with us in community, but we will continue to support his educational journey in alternative ways.
[These words are taken from and based on the message posted to the Whatcom Families for Justice Instagram site, written and shared with support.]
The patterns and rhythms of my personal life have revolved around the academic calendar for so long now; I struggle to recall what it was like before I had these markers, these indicators of the change of seasons, of cyclical beginnings and endings, especially as time has seemed to both compress and collapse into a distortion that challenges my own perceptions these past two and a half years, ever since the intensified accelerated genocide of the Palestinian people began in October 2023.The end of every academic year and all of its accompanying graduation ceremonies that have since followed have also hit me differently, harder, with a weight I don’t know how to stop carrying. Just as I cannot help but think about and see the students and educators of Gaza whenever I am on campus at Western, I also cannot help but feel increasingly disheartened by the continued deliberate disconnect between our peers, colleagues, and academic institutions in this country, and our peers, colleagues, and academic institutions in Gaza. This is one example where for me “the Palestinian Exception” shines the most glaringly, blindingly, brightest and harshest.
This weekend was full of graduations and celebrations, as students at WWU and elsewhere marked their achievements. At the same time, students in Gaza have been working hard to finish their final semester of the year, many hoping to graduate soon. They have been doing this despite their college and university campuses having been bombed, damaged, or destroyed by Israel and the United States, and despite being forced to experience and endure human-made famine, forced starvation, illness, violence, bombing, and suffering.
A friend in Ramallah once told me that in Gaza, education is particularly special. She explained how it is integrated into the culture, the lives, and the values of the Palestinian people in Gaza in a way that is unique and beautiful, and I also believe this to be true. When she told me this, I thought about my friend who continued to teach throughout the genocide for free, or rather at a cost to himself, since he had to walk long distances and pay for things like power and internet access himself in order to teach. And I also think about my friend Mohammed, the brilliant engineering student who was accepted to WWU and awarded a scholarship he was never allowed to receive because of Israel’s continued illegal blockade, occupation, and genocide—all of which are enabled, sustained and supported by the United States.
This past Saturday, Mohammed was on my mind and in my thoughts, as I went up to campus for the graduation festivities, along with my husband and two friends, each of us there in community with both the students at Western, and the students in Gaza, and particularly with Mohammed, who should have been there with us. We set up a small table in Red Square, which included photos of Mohammed, and quotes of his messages to the Bellingham and Whatcom community.
I had taken my graduation cap, the one I wore 25 years ago when I graduated from Western, and tied a hand crocheted-watermelon that my sister made to the top of the cap as a graduation tassel. I placed this on the table next to Mohammed’s photo, in his honor and in recognition of his academic achievements. Through everything and despite everything these past two and a half years, and during the time we spent trying to lift the barriers that were preventing him from coming to Bellingham, Mohammed still continued to take classes in Gaza. His commitment to his education is unwavering. His efforts unyielding. And despite being blocked from attending Western, he will still be graduating this summer in Palestine from his university in Gaza. And this is something we should recognize. Which is what we were trying to do, in our own small way.
We stood at our table in honor of Mohammed for several hours as the crowds in Red Square dissipated and grew, ebbing and flowing with the tides of the different graduation ceremonies. We had placed a handmade card and some markers on the table, where people could write messages for Mohammed inside and on the back of the card. I explained to people that we would take pictures of the messages and send the digital photos to him, and that I would also keep the card safe, until I could deliver it to him in person, at some future time when he is finally allowed to leave Gaza. Or at some future time when the people in this world who are standing with humanity have somehow found a way to end the genocide.
As we stood near the table smiling and greeting passersby, graduating students, family members, and WWU staff and faculty walked past, some occasionally stopping to talk with us, to learn more about Mohammed, to thank us for being there. Others walked by without looking at us at all, while some waved, or gave us a thumbs up, or shouted “Thank you for being here!”
It was a sunny day with a bright blue sky, and the feeling in Red Square was celebratory. It was bittersweet being there on such an occasion, without Mohammed’s presence but with him in my heart. I was thinking about this when a young woman approached the table, followed by what I assume were her parents and perhaps siblings and grandparents. I did what I had been doing all morning and afternoon and smiled at the young woman and introduced myself, and explaining we were there on behalf of our friend Mohammed, a student in Gaza who had been accepted to Western with a scholarship, but who had been blocked from leaving Gaza, despite our best efforts to overcome this.
I explained how he was part of our community, even though he could not be here with us, and I started to share more about him, to tell them how he had been interning at a hospital that had been destroyed and how he was trying to help repair it, when suddenly one of the men standing behind the young woman said “I don’t think former IDF soldiers are allowed at this table,” to which the man standing next to him laughed.
Taken aback, I said nothing, still processing what was happening, and then the man who had laughed said, “Ah, yes, ‘free Palestine!’ We believe in freeing Palestine from Hamas!” They began to walk past the table when one of the women with them turned towards me and said, “We support the IDF! We want them to kill babies!” She said this loudly, clearly, and directly.
We want them to kill babies. My stomach churned. I felt instantly sickened and confused, shocked and repulsed.
These words were spoken openly, adamantly, without shame, without
hesitation. These words were spoken to four people standing there in a crowded
square, near a small table with a handmade card for a WWU student trapped in
Gaza, who was trying to protect his family from violence and forced starvation,
who was being denied his right to education, and was trying to survive a
genocide.
As I stood there still processing what had happened, feeling nauseous regret that I had told the people who wanted my friend’s family members to be killed anything at all about him, feeling as though I had exposed him to even more harm from a distance, harm through and in proximity to me that only reinforced the harm he was constantly facing, I watched this family, the family who openly declared they wanted Palestinian babies to be killed, join their graduating student, the young man whose graduation cap was decorated with an Israeli flag. I saw how there were also graduating students standing near them, students who had keffiyehs draped across their shoulders over the graduation gowns, and I worried about them as they were so close to those who proudly uttered such violent words. I tried to let the words go, but I kept hearing them echo in my mind, ‘We want them to kill babies.’ At our table, the four of us tried to focus on the reason we were there, to turn our attention back to Mohammed, to talking with the people who were glad of our presence, when less than 20 minutes past and a WWU staff person approached our table. At first, I naively thought she was interested in talking with us about Mohammed, maybe even in signing his card. But no, she was there to tell us we needed to leave because the space we were in was reserved for the graduation celebration and related gatherings.
I explained that was precisely why we were there—that we had come for this exact reason—and that we were part of the Western community—our small group was made up of two alums, a student, and a staff member. We explained we had been there for hours and there had been no problems, and that on the contrary, people had been expressing gratitude to us for our presence. I said I wondered if this sudden need to tell us we could not be there had anything to do with the family who had just visited us and who had said they supported the “IDF” and wanted them to kill babies. The staff person explained they did not know anything about that, but a few moments later admitted that yes, there had been “a complaint” about us, and the complaint is what precipitated her visit to us.
She tried to explain that the issue was not that we had done anything wrong, but rather, it was our presence in a space that had been reserved by the President’s Office for a particular event. We again reiterated that we were there as part of the intended purpose of the reservation, and what followed were a few exchanges about policy, consistency, and adherence to various rules. We tried to follow the logical threads and understand their logical implications, the concern about consistency and practical applications for future precedents. I have been on the other side of such discussions often enough as someone who works in administration at Western, and I understand there is institutional pressure to act within the parameters of one’s job expectations, guidelines, and trying to apply policy consistently.
But when it came down to that particular situation, it was clear we had done nothing wrong. We were not being disruptive. We were not approaching people. We were not creating an obstruction. People were free to come up to us or not, as they chose. We were not blocking access to anything. On the contrary, one of my friends even helped out some graduating students by taking some photos for them as they posed near the fountain. The whole reason we were there was for graduation.
The staff person listened to us and talked with us and expressed that they wanted to figure things out with us, adding that she was "the nice one," but that other people at Western "might not be so nice." And while she may have intended this to be a friendly comment, it did feel like intimidation to me. And as we were talking, a man who may have been the parent or relative of another graduating student, came up to the table and asked us to explain a little more about why we were there. He also said he wanted to thank us for being there. I explained about Mohammed, who he is, what we were doing, and the man said he really appreciated our efforts and our presence. "Thank you for saying this,” I responded to him, “although we are being told we need to leave now."
The man said he wondered if that was happening, which was another reason he came over to us, because he wanted to express his support for our staying. He said that higher education was about learning, and about being engaged in the larger world, and that this was something important, related to the most important issue of our time, and that actually he thought it was very appropriate that we be there. The staff person tried to explain that it wasn't what we were representing, but rather Western’s policy of not having anything unrelated to the purpose of an event in the reserved space at the same time, and that she was trying to convey the details about the policy, but that she did not make the policy. I again repeated that we were there because of what the event was, and the man who was trying to give us his support said that it could be useful to follow up with others who were telling her to enforce this policy, and that he had some things he may want to share as well.
Eventually after some time and more conversation, about our table, about our visibility, about our purpose and intent, we were permitted to stay, on the condition that if a family asked us to move if they thought we were blocking access to a place where they wanted to take photos, then we would, which we agreed to do.
After the afternoon graduation ceremony ended, the student with the Israeli flag on his graduation cap and his family members who had expressed they wanted the "IDF" to kill babies walked past our table again, this time from a distance. At one point, they stopped and turned and stared at us, and one man began to walk towards us, but then a different family member tapped him on his shoulder and shook his head, and then they all left together. After the crowd dissipated and as we had been on campus for many many hours, we began to pack up our table and collect our things, so we could return to our homes and recover from the many hours of standing in the sun, of talking with people in the community, and of experiencing all of the emotions and realizations and impacts that the interaction with the family who openly declared that they wanted Israelis to kill babies provoked.
In the hours and days that have since followed, there have been more Palestinian babies and children killed by Israelis in Gaza. And I have heard from more friends this weekend who lost more relatives and friends to missile strikes on families in camps, and sniper attacks on people who were sitting among friends talking in cafes. And as I have talked with other friends, students, and families who are forced to somehow try to keep moving through all of this, I kept picturing the four of us on Saturday standing at our little table in the middle of Red Square, this tiny, inadequate gesture of support for students in Gaza, and for one student in particular, a student who is also a member of the WWU community. This tiny inadequate gesture of solidarity and support was deemed objectionable. While the killing of babies is not.
I have spent nearly three decades of my life, both as a student and as a professional working in higher education, at Western. To have a presence on campus in honor of Mohammed, in honor of the many students in Gaza, on graduation day was truly to me the very least that could be done. The very very least. When so much more is needed. And so much more is owed. And to my mind, we would be justified in asking Western for so much more. But we weren’t asking for anything. We were just taking up space in a community that we were already part of to do something so small. And even this was objected to, while Western Washington University has yet to publicly proclaim its objection to the genocide and scholasticide. It has yet to make any statements of solidarity in support of the students and educators in Gaza who have been violently targeted, attacked, killed and harmed.
Time and time again, the institution that has chosen "Make Waves" as its tagline, has shown its adherence to remaining institutionally careful, to retreat behind the illusion of objectivity through references to policies and their commitment to ensuring they are applied “fairly,” but without acknowledging that these policies, actions, and words reflect and preserve the dominant power structures already in place, and that they are slanted in favor of protecting those who are not in need of protection, while pressuring those who are the victims of institutionalized racism and bias.
This is a longstanding pattern. And it is one that is allowing such conditions to worsen.
As recently as this past April, Western hesitated to prevent a harmful event from taking place on campus. It was an event designed to give a platform to those who seek to justify the murder of the family and friends of Palestinian students in Gaza. When the event was eventually moved off campus in response to much public outcry expressing concerns for the safety and well-being of those who were most at risk, the institutional rationale for requesting that the event take place off-campus was not because of this, but rather it was framed as a matter of adhering to policy, and a concern for the safety of the event organizers. Or at least, this is the widespread perception of the rationale behind the change, as again, I am not aware of any public statement from the institution acknowledging the harm that such an event would have caused to Palestinian, Arab, Muslim, students, faculty, staff, community members, and their visible allies.
I make a distinction between what is public and visible, and what is private, as I have frequently encountered people who express their support to me privately, but are hesitant to do this publicly. And I understand people are often acting from a place of fear. But when we willingly cede our own personal responsibility and power in the face of injustice, we are actually less protected, not more.
I have been thinking a lot about how it can be that we live in a world where people can talk openly about wanting babies to be killed and then be welcomed, supported, and respected, while those who are being targeted by the violent reality of such genocidal language are the ones treated as threats. We have seen the Palestinian people be abandoned time and time again by the people and the institutions that could and should support and protect them in this upside-down world. This is not a world I want. This is not a world I will ever willingly participate in upholding. This is a world I reject and will continue to reject with every fiber of my being.
Every person has a choice in every moment and every place we are in to do what we can from within the spaces where we are present. And what we do and say matters. It matters a great deal. It matters more than we may know. While nothing we are doing is enough, everything we do matters. And I urge everyone reading these words or listening to my narration of them to think about this, to look around, to ask yourself questions that help you understand: How are the actions I am taking today helping? And how are they causing harm? Who is being supported? And who is being hurt? Who is being protected? And who is being excluded?
Our answers can help guide our actions. Our actions can be aligned with our values. And if we are honest with ourselves we will recognize that there is so much more we could be doing, both as individuals, and together in our communities.
I will close this lengthy piece of writing by offering you something you can do right now, something that will make a difference, something that those of us in the United States, particularly those of us who are in Washington State, and those of us who are connected to WWU, those of us who are in Whatcom County, and in Bellingham, and those of us who are working in education especially could and should do, and this is:to give Mohammed our support.To help him pay off his education debts and support his efforts to keep moving forward in pursuit of his education and his future, despite everything.
This is one thing we can do right now. And it is important that we do it.
What can I say about my friend Tamer, and where should I begin? Maybe I should start by telling you about some of the things he loves. About how these things are also a part of him. About how generous he is to share them with us. Tamer loves beauty and beautiful things. Like his dear cousin, my wonderful friend Ashraf, Tamer also has a kind and sensitive nature, and he is highly attuned to what is lovely, life-affirming, and pleasing.
I also want to tell you about his gift of creating beautiful moments, of finding the pieces of sweetness and life that can be hidden and obscured by heaviness, uncertainty, and chaos. Whether it is making and enjoying a cup of coffee, appreciating the sight of a beautiful flower, or finding a way to entertain and bring joy to his nieces and nephews, he nurtures and appreciates these small moments, these little things that are not actually little, especially when seen clearly for all that they are and all that they represent. He finds these moments, creates these moments, and shares these moments.
Tamer has a wonderful smile, a smile which is both reassuring and contagious, a smile that you can’t help but smile back when you see it, a smile which brings hope and happiness, a smile that radiates love. Tamer lets love guide and strengthen him,whether it is his love for his mother, his nephews and nieces, his wonderful wife, or his beloved cat, (who sadly, recently passed and who he still misses very much.) His love is what lights his path and helps him move through each sorrow and pain to a place of determination and faith, a place he inhabits with a generosity of spirit, a place to which he invites others through his sharing of whatever beautiful moments he can find and create.
As is the case with many of my talented and amazing friends in Gaza, Tamer is also a very good writer, even though he has told me before he does not think of himself as a ‘writer.’ But he feels things intensely and notices what's around him, and his sensitivity, awareness, and depth come through when he writes about a particular moment, place, or experience.
His kind heart is keenly aware of injustice, and again, similarly to Ashraf, being unable to alleviate the suffering of others upsets him greatly. His observant and insightful nature is often reflected in the questions he asks, questions which often strike a chord deep within my heart. Once, when we were talking about the state of things in Gaza, he was lamenting the lives of the many children who had lost so much, whose homes and schools had been destroyed, whose lives revolved around trying to find food and water, as did the lives of many adults in their family. We spoke about forgotten dreams, of lives put on hold, of wishes becoming hidden by the constant efforts and demands of trying to survive, and he said:
“We are enduring so much. But these thoughts come to me every day: When will the sun rise on our lives like it does for the rest of the world? When will I sit in my home, eat what I crave, drink what I desire, go wherever I love, and do all of this without fear?”
I told Tamer I did not know when this day would come. I told him his questions were good ones, and that they were also questions he should not have to ask. I said I was sorry it was taking so long, that I wish it could be now, that what is being done to him is unjust.
Over a year has passed since we had this conversation, and I still think of it every day. And I still do not know the answers.
Daily life in Gaza remains a constant struggle, as there is still no safety, no guarantee of survival, and not enough support. Tamer and his family have suffered many losses, and they are still enduring much hardship. Tamer has family members who have chronic health conditions that require regular medical treatment, and because of Israel's ongoing illegal blockade and targeting of the medical system, medication and treatment are expensive and difficult to find.
Nothing is getting easier, and this family still does not have enough support. But I admire and appreciate the many ways Tamer chooses life each day. And I have learned much from him about the importance and the means for doing this. And I look forward to the day when he can live his life again with his beloved family, the way he chooses and wants to live; I look forward to the time when he can fill his thoughts with remembered dreams and new hopes and all of the things that make him happy. And I believe this day will come, even if we do not yet know when it will be.
In the meantime, we owe this family our every effort, our every hope, our every support. And the material support we offer can help Tamer and his family get through these difficult days and nights. We must show them that we appreciate their efforts, that we are grateful to them for all they share with us, and we must do everything we can to bring the sunrise closer.
The next "Eight Families in Gaza: Amplifying Their Voices" presentation will be on Thursday, May 14, 2026 at 7pm at the Whatcom Peace & Justice Center. A special thank you to the WPJC for hosting this presentation again, and for understanding the importance of creating and sustaining networks of care that are critically important for survival amidst violence, injustice, and oppression.
I hope you can join me for this program, as it offers a chance for new people to get to know members of these beloved families who are trying to survive in Gaza through the presentation theyhelped me create, which includes what they have generously shared with us. And if you have previously attended past versions of this event, this latest version will give you an opportunity to learn the latest updates about the families you have come to know and care so much about.
This will likely be the last presentation like this for a number of months, so I encourage you to please come if you can, and I hope you will make time and space in your hearts and minds for those in Gaza who are being forced to endure so much for so long, and who are still doing everything they can to somehow find a way through this. As I have often said, we owe them everything.
When I first became involved in the efforts to help find support for families in Gaza as they tried to survive the genocide, I was not sure what would happen, what I would be able to do, or how long this would be needed. I am grateful for the support I have been able to find from my local and area communties, for the new friendships and relationships that have since formed, whether they are here locally, with friends in Gaza, or with others also involved in these efforts from a number of different locations throughout the world.
While I have been heartened by the support we have found, it is still not enough, and unfortunately, it will be needed for much longer, as conditions have not improved and in many ways are worsening. Because my commitment will last the rest of my life, I will continue to seek out new opportunities, and to expand our network of support in whatever ways I can.
In order to do this, there are some things that have changed that I want to tell you about today. Washington State requires that fundraising activities that generate funds above a certain amount be registered as falling under an official nonprofit structure. While I have always been more comfortable in mutual aid spaces that are external to these official mainstream structures, I also don't want anything to prevent me from continuing these efforts.
Therefore, I have had to file paperwork to establish a nonprofit registration, which I have completed. This means the fundraising activities I am doing for a number of families in Gaza who I am personally connected to will now be formally organized under the non-profit name "Eight Families in Gaza." Because of the amount of financial support that is still required, I had to make these structural changes in order to continue these efforts without any barriers. The impact of your donations remains the same, however, and 100 percent of all funds raised for campaigns I host or for families I support through funds raised in my community for specific families in Gaza will still go directly to these families in Gaza.
Additionally, I am hoping that what began as individual mutual aid campaigns might have the potential to build in more stability through regular, ongoing, recurring donations, and I hope you will join me in this effort. You can sign up to become recurring donors on their individual campaign pages, or you can sign up to make monthly recurring donations to a central pool of funds that I can pull from to help cover emergencies, rent, and other essential needs.
There is a platform called Zeffy, which is free to non-profits, and offers a mechanism for collecting contributions online that will be designated as a central fund for use for all of these families, to be dispersed and allocated as needed.
I will also be transitioning any of the campaigns I host the financial services for to new campaigns organized under the "Eight Families in Gaza" (EFIG) name, and I will be asking recurring donors to cancel their old recurring donations and establish new ones on the new campaign pages.
Thank you for reading this update, and for all of the support you have given to me and to these families these past two and a half years, and thank you also for everything you continue to do now and into the future. It means more than you could ever know. If you have any questions or need more information, you can contact me at my former personal email address, or at the new one, eightfamiliesingaza@gmail.com.
[And for those of you who have come to know and care about these families in Gaza through the "Eight Families in Gaza: Amplifying Their Voices" programs, featuring presentations that these families helped create, the next presentation will be on May 14, 2026, at 7pm at the Whatcom Peace & Justice Center in Bellingham.]
With gratitude once again to Mountain Meets Farm for hosting this amazing event. I am looking forward to seeing everyone who can join us! I will be on hand to share information and updates about the beloved "Eight Families in Gaza," and I am very grateful for this opportunity.
I am writing in response to the deeply disturbing news that Western Washington University is considering welcoming and hosting members of the Israeli Occupation Forces to speak on campus. I am writing because I have recently learned that the university where I attended school for both my undergraduate and graduate degrees, the university where I have worked professionally for almost twenty years, the university I had hoped would welcome a brilliant and hard-working student from Gaza, to whom they had accepted and awarded a scholarship, is now seriously considering giving a platform to those who are openly advocating for the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people.
If this event is permitted, Western will be making clear its decision to cultivate and support what is already a hostile and unsafe environment for many WWU students, as well as for faculty and staff members, especially for those with identities and relationships that are consistently targeted and harassed by zionists and their advocates, those who are marginalized, those who are not part ot the dominant culture, those who are already vulnerable to harm and who face personal risks every day simply by existing in spaces that are committed to upholding systems of oppression, injustice, genocide, and the racism that is embedded in our institutions, all of which fuels the ongoing violence and destruction of Palestine and the Palestinian people.
I write to you today from a place of disappointment that my words are even necessary, that what I am sharing with you now even needs to be said or explained. And I urge you to listen to the voices of the students who are asking you to not allow this event on campus, as I add my voice to theirs, speaking in alignment with their words, while also contributing my own.
As both an employee and an alum of WWU, I am deeply connected to this community, with my relationship with Western beginning when I was an undergraduate student around 30 years ago. Despite reasons which more and more frequently give me cause to doubt the aspirational rhetoric I once believed to be true– words about Western’s commitment to justice, equity, and providing access to education for all students– some part of me is still holding on to the hope that there remains a vestige of truth in these proclamations. However naively, I still want to believe that there are many among us who do believe in the values this institution has so long espoused and claimed to uphold.
I want to believe in this despite having been repeatedly let down and disappointed by this institution. I want to believe in this despite the fact that after over two and a half years of genocide, of scholasticide, of violence and destruction, there is no institutional response of solidarity with or expression of sympathy or commitment to our students and our colleagues in Gaza.
I want to believe this despite having seen time and time again the "Palestine Exception" play out without resistance in spaces throughout this university, having myself been told by members of this institution that my "advocacy for Palestine" makes "some" people at WWU "uncomfortable;" having once been told that there was a complaint submitted to Human Resources about my wearing a certain article of clothing that demonstrated my solidarity with the Palestinian people; having been told that “some” people may think that my doing such things was creating a "disruptive" environment, (to which I affirm my belief that every space should be one that actively seeks to "disrupt" genocide).
I have spent over two and a half years trying to find a way to exist in spaces at WWU that are invested in genocide denial, while simultaneously strengthening and maintaining my personal commitment in my own life to do everything in my own power to support those in Gaza who are trying to survive, while also working to end the genocide in whatever way I can.
I have done this on my own time and in every space I could find outside of my professional spheres, as with the exception of some students at WWU and a handful of colleagues, this has not been something this institution has welcomed, invited, supported, or wanted to be publicly involved with. For the most part, Western has intentionally cultivated an environment that is dependent on silence and looking away, and this is an environment that has caused intense moral injury to those of us who cannot do this. Working, existing, and functioning in this environment for so long has come at great cost to me personally, and has negatively impacted my own health, to say nothing of the cost to others who are more directly impacted by the genocide.
As Dr. Asfia Qaadir has explained in numerous venues when she has spoken about this injury, spaces of genocide denial are also hostile spaces--hostile to our bodies; hostile to our humanity. And when we are forced to work and live in these spaces, spaces where we are pressured to disconnect from what is happening and deny our own reactions, the distress we are already experiencing is exacerbated. Additionally, while these negative health impacts are causing harm, those of us who are experiencing them are actually having a normal response to something that is not normal and should not be normalized.
Some of the mental and physical effects on our health and bodies that occur as a result of this intense moral injury and moral distress include: memory problems; being in a constant state of heightened anxiety and panic; nightmares; increase in chronic pain conditions, cardiovascular illnesses, and inflammatory conditions--all of which can contribute to suppressing our immune systems, making us more susceptible to illness and sickness, which also makes it much harder to recover from illness. As Qaadir explains, this psychological and physical distress response indicates that we have refused and are unable to disconnect and turn away from our humanity, despite pressure around us to do so.
What I am describing here is specifically about a climate at Western that already exists, an unhealthy and dangerous climate that is already present, without the added harm of inviting perpetrators of genocidal violence to this university, to this university which could not find a way to help a WWU student be evacuated from Gaza but is now considering hosting people who would be coming here to speak about and justify the murder of this student’s family members, while he and his family continue to face injustice, danger, and harm every moment and every day. As I write these words now, I am overcome with nausea. The very fact that any of this even needs to be said is challenging for me to comprehend and respond to.
You cannot, you must not welcome this event at this university. I am not asking. I am stating this, unequivocally, clearly, and without hesitation. If you care about this community, you cannot invite this harm to this campus. There is already so much harm that so many of us who are not part of the dominant culture are trying to exist among and survive. And there is no need to look to “free speech” policies or to use as subterfuge some kind of regulation or statement intended to create the illusion of “neutrality” to mask this decision. If you allow this event to take place on this campus, you will be choosing to make an intentional space for supporting genocide. You will be deliberately choosing to allow those who are part of this community to be harmed. You will be making it very clear who is welcome here and who is not.
Thank you for reading this letter. I am trusting you to do the right thing.
Clarissa Mansfield
This letter was submitted to the President of WWU & his cabinet, and in that letter I also explained I would be publishing it online and sharing it with local contacts. I also gave them my permission to make it as available as they would like, and to share it as openly as they wish. I stand firmly behind my words.
As of this moment, I am still working on updates to this latest version of the presentation, hoping to be finished in time before tomorrow. I am again feeling deep appreciation and gratitude to the families who have shared so much with me, and who have given me so much to share with you.
It is always an honor for me to try to bring these families closer to you, and closer to those in my local community, even though I know my words are not enough to ever do them justice. I am grateful for this opportunity, and I hope there will be many people in attendance tomorrow, as I want for these families to have as much attention, support, and respect as there can be, and I hope you will help me find more for them.
If you are reading these words and are committed to attending and will be there tomorrow, I thank you in advance, and I look forward to seeing you there.
Sharing something beautiful my dear friend Yanis wrote about Gaza. His words affected me deeply and I asked if I could share them with you also, along with these beautiful photos of Yanis and Mahdi from years ago, from before all of this, when they still had their home in beloved Beit Hanoun.
Gaza is not merely a city on the map, nor a passing headline in the evening news. Gaza is the story of a land that breathes despite the siege, a heart that continues to beat despite the pain. Along its shores stretching over the Mediterranean, people stand each evening gazing at the horizon, as if searching for a less cruel tomorrow, or for ships carrying fragments of hope.
In Gaza, the scent of salt mingles with the smell of old houses, and the voices of market vendors intertwine with children’s laughter in the narrow alleys. Despite the destruction left by repeated wars, life insists on sprouting from beneath the rubble. Every broken stone holds a story, and every open window bears witness to long endurance.
Gaza has passed through difficult historical stages—from occupation to siege to wars that have left their mark on every home. Yet the will of its people has not been broken. You see a mother preparing bread for her children under harsh conditions, a father searching for work in a strained economy, and a young man dreaming of traveling abroad only to return one day and rebuild his city. These small details form the true image of Gaza: a city that resists through living.
The nights of Gaza are not always quiet; sometimes the silence is shattered by the sound of aircraft or the roar of explosions. But even in the harshest moments, you find those who raise their hands in prayer, those who rush to aid the wounded, and those who comfort the grieving. Solidarity there is not a slogan—it is a way of life.
Gaza is also culture, art, and literature. From it emerged poets, novelists, and artists who carried its voice to the world, and many have sung of it. In the poems of Mahmoud Darwish, the echo of homeland resounds, and in the works of painters and creative youth, hope takes shape despite the pain.
Gaza is not a number in news bulletins, nor merely a headline of war. Gaza is faces and names, schools and universities, fishermen returning at dawn with weary nets, and students studying by candlelight. It is a city that has learned how to turn pain into meaning, and loss into resilience.In the end, Gaza remains a lesson in holding onto life. No matter how deep the darkness grows, there is always a window that opens, a child who laughs, a mother who waits, and a land that never forgets its people.
Yesterday I shared an update about the latest with Mohammed's situation on the site for his online petition, "Support WWU Scholarship Recipient Mohammed's Evacuation from Gaza & Education at WWU." For a number of weeks, signatures had stalled, not quite reaching 1,000. We are still trying to do everything we can to get the word out about this petition, and to find more support for Mohammed. Today we happily passed the 1,000 mark, and at the time of this writing we are at 1,065. I am very grateful to everyone who has signed, and everyone who is helping us find more supporters.
In case there might be someone who has not yet signed the petition but wants to help, I am also cross-posting most of the information I shared in the petition update here, and letting anyone who might be reading this what the latest news is regarding these efforts. Below are excerpts from the petition update:
January 22, 2026
Winter quarter at WWU began on January 6, 2026 and Mohammed is still in Gaza. His scholarship has been deferred to spring 2026, and we are re-doubling our efforts to demand that the barriers preventing Mohammed from accessing his education at WWU be dismantled.
There is currently an application pending with the federal government requesting that they grant Mohammed Emergency Humanitarian Parole, which would allow him the U.S. to help facilitate his evacuation, and permit his legal entry and temporary residence in the U.S. even without a visa, on the basis of having secured sponsorship, which he has, and in the case of facing "urgent humanitarian crises" and/or for a limited duration for the purposes of something that constitutes a significant public benefit.
The application we submitted is strong in all of these areas, and was complete with documentation that could support our case. We are also hopeful they may also consider a request to expedite its processing, due to the time sensitivity of this opportunity for Mohammed, and the urgency of the ongoing emergency he is experiencing in Gaza.
All of this to say: there is a pathway forward that would allow Mohammed to come to Bellingham, Washington, receive the scholarship he has been awarded, and complete his undergraduate degree at Western Washington University.
Having a show of support in the form of this petition will further strengthen the requests and the application currently pending, and it will also encourage decision-makers to voice their support and give their approval in due haste. Over the next four weeks, we would really like to get as many signatures as possible, and we are asking for your support in helping us with this effort.
Please join us in trying to do all we can to make sure that Mohammed doesn't have this opportunity taken from him. To lose this scholarship would be yet another cruelty and injustice, and it is one we must try to prevent. Please share this petition with as many potential supporters as you can.
NOTE: The "Take the Next Step" button at the bottom of the petition update page on the Change.org site will ask you to make a donation to support this petition, but you do not have to do this. You can skip this and go directly to the petition. There have already been a number of generous people who have done this, to whom we thank. But further donations to this platform are not necessary or required, and if you do want to make a donation, you can also support Mohammed via a donation to his survival fundraising campaign.
Someone I know in Gaza, someone I’ve known for a long time, someone who is not part of the families I have been connecting to my local community but who is nonetheless important to me, posted on Twitter explaining how there are many people in Gaza who have survival campaigns, but the number of donors is very very small. He noted how every family in Gaza needs help. And he acknowledged that we may be feeling fatigued by this, and he apologized for any burdens that are on us because of this.
I responded by saying that any feelings of fatigue and exhaustion we may feel are not ours to feel, and that any apologies for this are not his to give. I said that it is the world that owes the families in Gaza everything, and that it is on us to do more. And that I appreciated all that he and others are doing to keep going, to survive.
While he is right about how there are not enough donors, it shouldn’t be this way. When you look at the numbers, there shouldn’t be this discrepancy. There are more than enough people of means in the U.S., let alone throughout the world, to adequately provide for every single family in Gaza. It is not the resources that are limited. It is the number of people who will actually help. (Just as we could disrupt all of our systems and end the genocide with a national strike, an action that though lacking the pageantry and spectacle of people wearing costumes and dancing in the streets, would be more effective than some of the demonstrations likely to attract large numbers of those who believe that all the horrors of the world only began with our current president.)
Yes, the needs of the families in Gaza outstrip the number of people outside of Gaza who have been and are still doing what they can to raise and send funds to the families trying to survive, the families who have been abandoned by this world. There are many of us who are working together, outside and in spite of our corrupt systems, to care for each other and help keep people alive, but our numbers are too few to meet the scope and scale of what is actually needed. And it doesn’t have to be this way.
After over two years of this, I can’t help but feel that it actually requires more effort to look away than it does to see what is in front of our eyes. And blaming the Western media propaganda machine can only carry us so far when Palestinians have been doing everything they can to reach us, to tell us, to get us to understand, despite the risks they face in doing this. And while there are many outside of Gaza, myself included, who have been changed forever, who have committed to unlearning the prejudice and bias and discrimination we have grown up immersed in, of pushing back against this wherever we find it-- for the most part, the efforts of the Palestinian people who continue to give us so much while also doing all they can to survive the genocide, have largely been met by people who speak over them, ignore them, insult them, disbelieve them, or lie about them. Again and again and again. And even among their so-called "supporters and allies," they have faced skepticism, racism, disappointment, betrayal, inconsistency, misunderstanding, and broken promises.
Yesterday, at an event that had the makings of an anti-imperialist rally, (while also unfortunately containing some of the damaging costumed theatrics and other trappings of the pro-establishment ‘indivisible’ nonsense), a woman stopped to ask me about the families featured at my table. I tried to explain how they were all families in Gaza who I am personally connected to, who I’ve been trying to connect to the local and area communities, in an attempt to raise more awareness and support for their survival. I explained how I’ve been doing this partly through presentations created in collaboration with the families. I said the support we had raised in Bellingham and beyond has been helping these families survive.
“Has it?” she demanded incredulously. “Yes, it has,” I tried to smile. “But how do you know?” “Because I do,” I said, still smiling, “I talk to them every day. And I have seen the impact of what we have been sending.” “But how do you know? Have you been there? How can they even get the money? How do you know it is getting to them?” “Because in many cases, I am the one sending them the money myself. Or I am familiar with the people and the families who are transferring funds. And I talk to the people who are receiving the funds every day. I just sent a transfer to one family two days ago, and another one just this morning. This is not an issue. They are receiving the money and it is helping them buy food and water and warm clothing. It is helping them receive medical treatment." “Well, I hope that’s true, but I just don’t know,” she said, still skeptical. “It is true.” I told her, still trying to smile but feeling myself growing increasingly exasperated. “Well, I hope it is. But I just don’t see how it could be. How does the money even get to them? I just don’t see how that is even possible.”
I started trying to explain that sometimes it was via international wire transfers, but that there were other methods too, that it could be challenging, and it varied depending on the family and what they had access to, but we managed to find a way. I explained how I had friends here locally who are also helping me with this, and I was about to explain a little more, but she cut me off by saying,
“Well, I just don’t see how that could be!”
“I don’t know what to tell you then,” I responded. “I do see how it can be. Because it is. And I am directly involved with this. I have been doing this for a long time. There are people all over the world doing this, without enough support or help, while others would prefer to just ask questions and do nothing.” I think my smile had faded by this point.
“Well I am sorry, this is all new to me, I just don’t understand. I don’t understand how they can even get the money. How can they get it? Are there any banks? Are there even any banks!?! These are the questions people should be answering!”
Over two years into this intensified genocide. And these are the questions people should be answering.
I sighed heavily and loudly at this point. I felt my eyes and feet sinking into the ground beneath me. I felt my chest constrict and as I tried to look around at my surroundings and take a deep breath. I saw a mixture of people and faces, many familiar and many not. And it struck me, harshly, how far we still have to go, as a country, as a world, to move away from this place where the default for the vast majority of people is to center themselves individually as the focal point of all knowledge and the beneficiary of all responsibility. Where genuine curiosity is all too rare, and community care and communal responsibility is an after-thought accompanied by suspicion, if it is even a thought at all. Where listening is replaced by one’s need to assert their opinion, as though their opinion should apply to everyone around them. As though because something is new to them, it is therefore the responsibility of those of us around them to carry the burden of their ignorance, while we also shoulder the weight of trying to address the injustice they don’t yet understand.
There was once a time when “all of this” was new to me too. But there are ways to learn that center those who we are learning about, and there are ways to learn which make demands upon the very communities we claim to want to understand and support. And sometimes ignorance is used as an excuse to do nothing. And sometimes doing nothing is exactly what enables violence and suffering and injustice to thrive.
I will spare you the rest of our exchange in more detail, while mentioning briefly the part where she questioned the validity of my telling her about how a number of people in this community had helped me raise emergency funds in less than 24 hours the previous day, enabling one of my friends to receive life-saving medical treatment, and how I spoke with my friend when he was in the hospital receiving the antibiotics he needed to fight a serious infection. And in response to all of this she did not ask me about my friend. She did not inquire about how he was doing now, whether he was ok now. She did not ask if he had what he needed to recover. She didn’t express any concern over his well-being or interest in him as a person, or regard for his family. Instead, she said she did not see how this could be true because she had not seen with her own eyes that there were any hospitals left in Gaza. So how could he have even gotten the treatment?!
This exchange was during the closest thing to an anti-imperialist rally Bellingham has ever had. And it was among people who are supposed allies to those working to challenge systems of oppression in support of collective liberation. Among so-called progressives who claim to care. But when it comes to Americans thinking about people who are not in the United States, there is a certain kind of pervasive nihilism that seeks refuge in a despair rooted in selfishness. And while I am still trying to reach as many people as I can, I will admit, I am losing my stamina for dealing with people like this. I just don’t have it anymore.
I've encountered something similar lately when I have tabled in public places. Sometimes it is like this, taking the form of those who stop to pepper me with questions they don’t actually want the answers to but who want to assert their own views while being resentful of my answers which challenge their own perceptions and beliefs. And sometimes I see it in the faces of the people who take great and obvious pains to make sure it appears they cannot see me as they walk by carrying their lattes, trying not to accidentally glance in my direction, lest I ruin their day by causing them to think for a moment about the genocide. And I also see it when someone casually says something like “Good for you!” with a patronizing smile or even an occasional thumbs up as they pass by me without stopping.
I’ve been thinking a bit about something Steven Salaita said during his remarks, The Meaning of Honesty in Academe, from the 2025 James Baldwin Memorial Lecture at UMass-Amherst this past April. Towards the end, he mentions how a question people frequently ask him is, “But what can we do?” And then he breaks down what he sees as being possible attributes of the person asking the question, noting that there may be some overlap among these categories, but explaining them as follows:
“1) They’re being disingenuous; 2) they’re seeking validation for a preexisting opinion; 3) they’re overwhelmed or confused by the gravity of the moment; or 4) they’re motivated and want to act on some issue of justice,” adding that he suspects some kind of combination between number three and number four are most common.
He goes on to explain that he thinks the people: “...who care enough to want to do something to improve the world in lasting and meaningful ways know deep-down exactly what needs to be done. They’re looking for ways for that action to be somehow compatible with job security, with personal freedom, or with notions of civic responsibility…” And he talks about how one thing we need to do is give up on the idea of “safety,” in the United States, noting that: “It doesn’t currently exist for opponents of U.S. imperialism (to say nothing of its victims). And it won’t exist until U.S. imperialism is defeated.”
Today I am very tired. I am weary. I am exhausted. But as I said to my friend in Gaza who apologized to us for our weariness, this fatigue is not the fault of the Palestinian people, or of any oppressed people throughout the world. And it is not the same as the exhaustion, weariness, or fatigue of those in Gaza, who have every reason and right to feel this way. My tiredness is of a different nature, one that I both feel and am part of, because since I live here, I am also part of this country. And I am tired because of this country, and because of the people in this country, and also the people in my local community, who are choosing every day to look away rather than take any responsibility. Or any action. Or even any ownership over their own learning. I am exhausted by those who are so concerned about their own comforts, they cannot be bothered to contribute to the survival of those whose lives are in danger because of this country. I am tired from the people I encounter in my daily life who refuse to recognize that what comforts we may have in this country come at someone else’s expense, and that we are not the ones who are "helpless." We are the ones who should be changing this.
For as many wonderful and amazing people there are who I have known and met, who I care about and rely upon and can count on to be here to help support the families they now care about too, there are still so many more people who do not care, who do not want to know, who do not want to even have to think about this, who would actually prefer to just give up and believe that everything is hopeless, because then they can justify doing nothing at all, nothing besides wallowing in their own feelings of how bad things are.
I am not trying to sound cold or negative, despairing or hopeless. I am at my core none of these things. I am just tired today. Sometimes it just hits harder than others. But I am also rooted in my resolve to continue. And I am grateful to those who are in this place with me, whether in Bellingham or elsewhere in this state, country, or around the world. And I am especially grateful to those in Gaza.
In addition to continuing the illegal blockade designed to inflict further harms upon Palestinian families in Gaza, Israel (with support and backing from the United States), is now implementing a ban on aid and medical organizations that have been operating within Gaza, further limiting what was already a severely restricted and hampered presence of support, in order to further isolate Gaza and increase its genocidal pressure and violence.
Families in Gaza need our support more than ever before. Direct donations raised by people outside of our systems and governments are even more critical than they have been these past two years.
But in addition to contributing to these donations, we also need to do more to raise our voices in every space and every way to exert the pressure that is required to change what is being done by our government as it expands its support for the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people. I hope 2026 will bring with it more Americans who will finally recognize and act upon their own responsibility, and understand that what comforts we may have come at a price of harms done to others throughout the world, others who are suffering because of actions taken by the United States government. And I hope this awareness will also be accompanied by a commitment to do more to change this.
I hope that demonstrations held by Americans in 2026 will extend beyond our own immediate environments, will go beyond our talk of 'no kings,' will abandon the exclusively U.S.-centric focus on "domestic" policy, and that we will finally understand the inherently irresponsible fallacy of this framing, which is so reliant upon navel-gazing, and that we will then alter our actions accordingly. It was almost a year ago when I expressed similar sentiments in our local daily newspaper, and I pray a year from now things will be very different.
This morning I shared something online that ended up being one of the most popular re-posts I have ever published, which I took to mean it resonated with many many people. It was an article written by the Palestinian reporter Hind Khoudary called "What Being a Woman in Gaza Means in this Genocidal War." I shared the article with this quote excerpted from it:
"Women screaming into the void, bringing life into the world while surrounded by death and destruction. And to think, if there were enough political will among Israel’s Western allies, none of this would be happening."
I have been thinking about this, this and the stories and descriptions of the women she included in her article. I have been thinking about this all day today, on this first day of the new year. I have been thinking about my friend Dina, sister of my friend Ashraf, and the many hardships and losses she has experienced, yes as a Palestinian in Gaza, but also as a woman. She has been going through things that would have completely broken me. And she has been living in extreme pain for months now, ever since the shrapnel wound to her jaw she sustained when they had to flee their shelter amidst gunfire and shelling during their last violent forced displacement. She literally had to grab her baby girl and run for her life, while the shrapnel entered her jaw and her face bled profusely.
She still needs surgery for this injury, and she is in constant pain. And we cannot even raise enough support through her current survival campaign for her to buy food and clothing for her daughter Areej, let alone have surgery.
And now, with medical organizations being banned from providing any assistance, the already targeted damaged medical infrastructure in Gaza will be even more fragile, more expensive, more inaccessible. "And to think, if there were enough political will among Israel’s Western allies, none of this would be happening."
I do think about this. I am thinking about this. And I will try to keep doing more than merely think about this. And I hope if you are reading these words, you will too.
May 2026 bring us an enhanced awareness, a renewed commitment, and new actions that will cause change. And may support for the families in Gaza who are trying to survive the unendurable grow. They have been surviving for so long now in the harshest most devastating circumstances, without enough support, without any justice, and without their most basic needs being met. May this change soon.
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