“It may seem like it’s someone else’s children [being killed] – but there is no such thing as  someone else’s children.”   Omar El Akkad

In early May, I was reading a news article about Gaza and I could barely continue to the end. The article contained some of what you see in this painting and more – including that people from Gaza would be sent to Libya*, the latest plan from the Americans who have bankrolled this genocide. I felt like I might explode.

So, I painted.

Partway through May, Canada, the UK and France issued a (relatively) strongly worded statement on the situation in Gaza and the West Bank. Finally – something that went beyond the protracted and continued silence from  G7 countries. I could feel my body relax a little, but not completely. It is one thing to say we will take further concrete actions, including targeted sanctions  – and another thing entirely to actually do it.

I feel grief at the horrific suffering of so many Palestinians. I feel another kind of grief about the silent  and not so silent complicity of so much of the world.

In Omar El Akkad’s remarkable book One Day Everyone Will Always Have Been Against This, he writes, “It is a disorienting thing to keep a leger of atrocity. Alongside the ledger of atrocity, I keep another.”  He lists a number of brave acts of resistance.

“Every small act of resistance trains the muscles used to do it. Even the smallest acts matter.  If we call for justice in one instance, we might do it again and again,” he writes.

Like Omar El Akkad, I keep a second ledger. Here are just a few of the people in my ledger whose actions lend me courage:

• Sayd is about 8, a small boy who attends rallies in Regina with his family.  He is, without question,  the most passionate, the loudest yeller, the most impish and mischievous little protester around weaving in an out of the crowd, suddenly appearing right beside you with his twinkling eyes and wide smile.   Just thinking about Sayd makes me smile! Sayd brings to mind why we are out here – he keeps the children of Palestine front and centre as we bang our pots and pans a few days after food and medicine was blockaded. Sayd reminds me that “there is no such thing as someone else’s children.”

Jeff’s handmade sign, which kickstarted the UNB-SJ encampment, June 2024

• When I was visiting Saint John last year, I met many incredible  people speaking out for Palestine, including Jeff Houlahan, a professor of biology at UNB-SJ who has since retired. What I remember about Jeff is that he was so distraught about Gaza, he painted this sign, and set up in a lawn chair outside his offices at UNB. And so began the UNB – Saint John encampment. Now,  Jeff is joining the Global March to Gaza  from Cairo to Rafa taking place in mid June. “Watching the kids protesting on campuses… was inspirational,” Houlahan says. “The courage and compassion those kids brought every day in the face of indifference left me ashamed to be sitting on the couch watching. It felt like my generation was leaving them to fight alone. Some day our children and grandchildren will ask us — what did we do when Israel was imposing a final solution on the Palestinians?” You can follow Jeff’s Journey here on Instagram by following @women._for._palestine
• My friend Diane came to a quiet Sunday Art for Palestine when she couldn’t erase a photograph she had seen in the news from her mind’s eye. The photo was of male patients and medical staff at a hospital in Gaza, blindfolded, almost naked and standing in a line. She acknowledged this horror by painting it, making a sign that could be used by others in rallies. This coming together to share the ways our hearts break by creating art lifts my spirits.
• I met my Irish friend, Ruth Smith at Kenosee Lake Kitchen Party where she taught violin and sang. An amazing person, Ruth is also a broadcaster, a bodyworker, a poet, a yoga teacher and retreat leader. Teaching yoga at Aida Refugee Camp in Bethlehem in spring 2023 opened Ruth’s eyes to what apartheid looks like in the West Bank.  Ruth is an active member of Pals for Palestine. Together with her husband, Fergall Schill, and Palestinian artists Mohammad Kahla and Abed Alqam, they recorded this beautiful song. Be sure to watch the video and listen right to the end when Ruth’s marvelous laugh will give a taste of her amazing vitality and enduring resistance. Follow Ruth on Instagram at @theruthsmith

I will stop here, but it is so heartening to realize how many people, how many anecdotes – both big and small – I could add to this list. Yelling with passion, banging pots, walking from Cairo to Gaza, singing your heart out, acknowledging the heartbreak, writing about it, creating art in response are all acts of resistance which in turn, encourage the rest of us.

My friend Carla gave me a felted heart she made. The heart was broken and partly mended. This gift touched something in me. I began a small series of tiny paintings –  about the condition of my heart. Below is Carla’s heart, and the hearts that have so far followed.

*Last mention of moving 1 million from Gaza to Libya was May 19, 2025.

Carla’s felted heart – in hawthornes, the tree that cures the heart

“Heart Weary”, Tea stains, watercolour, ink, 4″ x 5.5″

“Willow Heart”, Tea, watercolour, 3″ x 4″

“Heart in a Vise”, 4″ x 4″. “Heart in a Vase”. 2″ x 3″, Watercolour and Ink

“Heart Attack”, handmade rubber stamps, 4″ x 6″

“With Heavy Hearts”, tea, watercolour, ink, 3.5″ x 5″