Once a “ceasefire” (but not really a ceasefire) was declared in Gaza last fall, the world’s attention was largely diverted by a news cycle on steroids. While I did my best to keep up with developments from Gaza and the West Bank, it felt like those headlines were on a deadly repeat. IDF kills another journalist, Bombing kills 24 in Gaza, Israeli Settlers destroy Palestinian homes and bulldoze olive trees. I want to stay engaged, and it’s also hard.
Then I read a story by Mariam Mushtaha called “Our garden’s plants saved us from hunger”, I felt a flicker of hope. I sought out more such stories* and found them.
As a part of the Regina-based group Art for Palestine, I wondered if we might offer an afternoon looking at gardens and food production in Gaza and the West Bank, sharing stories of hope like Mariam Mushtaha’s, while also acknowledging the devastation. We would offer Palestinian food and art activities where we could dream the garden of a liberated Palestine, even if that vision seemed way beyond present circumstance. Perhaps an afternoon like this would give us a chance to see beneath the headlines, to learn new things, to stay engaged, to feel some hope.
To prepare, I worked on the small art piece above. I began with with handmade rubber stamps of a ravaged Gaza City, then spilled coffee on top. Using watercolours and ink, I added people and animals as they rebuild and replant seeds of resistance and hope. I recalled Geneen Marie Haugen’s quote: “It is challenging to pull way from the narratives that are being determined for us, and to engage instead, with the wild earth or the deep imagination.” For a few hours over a few days, I fed the vision of the just and loving world I want to live in.
When it came to learning more deeply about the devastation in Gaza however, I was flattened. There are a lot of numbers, but I wanted to really understand more than just numbers. Although I had seen many maps of Gaza superimposed over cities like Edmonton, I wanted to relate this to right here in Saskatchewan. I found a site which placed Gaza over anywhere in the world, including Regina. I knew Gaze was tiny, but this tiny? I try to image that 2 million people lived here. That this is the small territory where some families were forcibly displaced 7 or 8 times. Using the most conservative estimates, one quarter of the current Regina population have been killed since 2023. The most recent report I could get (August 2025) cites that 98.5% of crop land has been damaged, contaminated, is inaccessible, or in some cases, both. That leaves 1.5% of arable land which is 232 hectares or 573 acres – less than a section of Saskatchewan farmland. You can be sure that there is no land marked for agriculture on the bogus Board of Peace’s map.
The relative size of Gaza superimposed over Regina and area. Source: https://ahmadnassri.github.io/gaza-everywhere/?center=31.407902,34.394186&zoom=10
When I met with my friends in Art for Palestine, I shared that I did not have the heart for planning this event at this time. I just needed to sit with my grief for a while. Of course, this beautiful group of women totally understood. I am grateful always for their acceptance, love and friendship.
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A few weeks later, I was reminded of what sparked my interest in learning and unlearning Palestinian stories and histories. It began with my friend, Valerie Zink. Val showed a group of us slides from her two sojourns in the West Bank and Gaza. Val was in Jenin in 2003 as part of an independent media project. She returned in 2005 volunteering as a medic with the Red Crescent and spending time in Jenin, Al-Khalil (both in the West Bank) and Gaza City.
Val’s slides and stories opened my eyes to the apartheid conditions Palestinians lived in. It’s fair to say that I had previously bought the myth that this struggle was too complicated for me, and really, knew almost nothing. Because I trust Val implicitly, I was open to perspectives I had never considered.
Valerie Zink with the Red Crescent. Photo Credit: Radwan Aljabari
I had been unaware of the 8 metre high Apartheid Wall running over 700 kilometres in the West Bank. I was shocked to see photos of Palestinians waiting in long lineups at one one of many Israeli administered checkpoints, often on their way to work or school. I learned that there were vastly different justice systems for Palestinians and Israelis. I learned that since 1967, Palestinians have no citizenship and most are considered stateless, requiring ID cards from the Israeli military to live and work in the occupied territories. Palestinians are barred from movement between Gaza and the West Bank and Jerusalem. And so on…..
Clearly, my learning about this subject was just beginning!
Photo of the Separation Wall. also called the Apartheid Wall and Palestinians waiting in line at a checkpoint. Photo Credit: The State of Palestine
Val’s slideshow came to mind once again when I recently joined a diverse group of people who came to hear Jeedah Musleh (a Palestinian Canadian from BC) share her experiences with the campaign called Apartheid Free Communities.
Jeeda said (and I am paraphrasing), “We were all out on the streets with our signs for first the two years of the genocide. We wanted to keep Palestinians visible in a world determined to invisibilize them. We reacted to the terrible atrocities which continue. It was important that we spoke out. But my work with Apartheid Free Communities is different, it is not a reaction, it is a response. It is long term, it works with the BDS movement (Boycott, Divest, Sanction) for structural changes, not just in Palestine but also here in Canada where both Palestinians and our allies are not treated justly. We begin with the grassroots – low hanging fruit so to speak – your local book club, your church, a local business – and invite them to sign the pledge.”
The Apartheid-Free network defines itself as “a coalition of communities who pledge to work together to end Israeli apartheid. This coalition formed in 2022, following the emerging consensus among the international human rights community that Israel’s treatment of the Palestinian people amounts to the Crime of Apartheid”.
In B.C., this network is growing organically and has resulted in many pledges being signed by faith groups, organizations, small businesses, unions, and collectives of artists and musicians , to name a few. The signatories include the city of Burnaby and Powell River. Jeedah came to encourage those of us in Saskatchewan to join the Apartheid free movement.
Like everyone who attended this event, I left feeling heartened and encouraged. Jeedah’s irrepressible humour, passion and smarts infected all of us as we gathered in small groups to discuss what could be done locally. Apartheid seems to me like a very helpful lense through which to work for long term structural change. People my age remember the decades long struggle against South African apartheid which finally ended in 1990. Even if you had your head in the sand during the late 1980s, you had to be aware on some level of the surging global anti-Apartheid movement and the difference it eventually made.
As bystanders, we do what we can. We feel angry and helpless, we are numbed by the unrelenting news, we are stricken by grief, we rest and return, we are heartened and challenged and loved by others, we learn and unlearn, we feel hope, despair and something in between, we laugh when we can, cry often, and still, we do what we can together. We are aware that our struggles matter but are so small compared to those who have lost their entire families, their homes, their goals and dreams, their sense of safety.
The journey continues, never alone, always made better by the wonderful and inspiring company of others who show us how care and love translates into many possible actions. Thank you Art for Palestine buddies! Thank you Val! Thank you Jeeda! Thank you to each and every person who shows up.
* * Some of the heartening stories collected
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