September 10, 2025

Iqraa 20: From the Sea to the River

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Iqraa alum Ramsey (2024) shared poems for this week, enveloping the prosaic Iqraa messages. Ramsey’s book Fugitive Dreams (2022) and other works are available here.

From the Sea to the River

I cannot talk about the house of my grandfather

In Lydd

That’s too contro-vers-ial!

I cannot tell you about my cousin

Who “died in an airstrike”

Nor can I name the killer.

I will be banned if I showed you a picture

of his charred toddler,

Deported! if I held a vigil in their honor.

Such actions surely diss-comfort another.

I cannot dispute the forty headless babies,

Rape-lies, or other October horrors.

I cannot name the land of my mother

I cannot say, “From the river…”

The sea, I cannot see

Without the jailer’s letter

Never mind,

This land freely flows in my blood—

Every inch of it

Every tree, every flower

From the Sea,

To the River

It is Palestine—Falasteen

Forever!

In solidarity with Mahmoud Khalil and all

others being persecuted for the defense of human rights.

~Ramsey Hanhan (March 2025)

Ok, the Iqraa prose… First, this Saturday’s run is a 10- and 20-miler from Carderock, the training version of the MCC’s former Revenge of the Penguins race (MCC email has details).

  •  It’s one of two 20-milers on the schedule for marathon trainees and is meant to be a simulated race, so for all our runners: please come if you’re in town!  

Short notes on the importance of fundraising:

  • Most directly of course, it’s our mission: Support education for Palestinian youth.
    • You know what they say when someone messes up? “You only had one job.” Ok, we do have more than one job—and we’re not messing up–but the “brightness” in Running for a brighter Palestine relies completely on us.
  • Our outreach is a genuine opportunity to educate people on what’s happening in Palestine—oppression–and what should be happening: Education toward liberation.
    • You know your audience and yourself; it’s simply a matter of saying what you think and tailoring your message to the recipient. 
  • Finally, an important aspect of asking for support is ensuring sponsors know how to support you. For that, you[‘ll need a fundraising page, so click on the following link and Become a Fundraiser 

And last call for “Why do I run for Iqraa” quotes.

  •  Guidelines: A few sentences, no more than a paragraph
  • Please indicate whether your name can be used: first, first and last, or no name.
  • UPA plans to use the quotes in its outreach, so it’s an opportunity for us to boost fundraising: tuition for university scholarships.

Last week/this week. Last Saturday at Lock 6, Cathy sent photos with Bill and Reza, while I walked near Fremont CA where Shobi and I are vacationing with her cousins. This Saturday, is the simulated race from Carderock. Each of the charities, including Iqraa, is providing an aid station.

And now, back to Ramsey…

Airplanes

The morning of October 7, we woke up in Ramallah to a confusion of news. By afternoon, we were bracing for Israel’s blows. The videos from past Gaza bombings, three in the past two years, reeled in our heads: Whole buildings tumbling down on the lives and families inside.

So everyone in Ramallah understood what that airplane sound above us that night meant.

What do I pray for when planes roar overhead?

That the pilot will have a heart,

And not push the button?

That the plane will malfunction?

Fall from the sky,

Perhaps on a stolen city?

That somehow a homemade rocket will intercept an F-35?

That the bomb

Will not

Kill

Children,

Like every time before?

The planes roar overhead.

What is there left to pray?

~Ramsey Hanhan (October 7, 2023)

Praying for a brighter Palestine.

 

September 3, 2025

Iqraa 19: Iqraa Calling

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First, thanks again to Shobi and Siva for helping with hosting last Saturday. 

Second, UPA asks for quotes from Iqraa runners: Why do you run for Iqraa? Guidelines:

  •  A few sentences in length, no more than a paragraph
  • Please indicate whether your name can be used: first name only, first and last, or no name.

Third, a reminder: Cathy is participating in the reading of We Are Not Numbers (by Ahmed Alnaouq and Pam Bailey, 2025) at Busboys and Poets on Sept 4th at 6 pm.

And today’s focus is on Fundraising, which we all need to launch into. Here’s my message from this week—Iqraa Calling—as one example.

  • My style may be too political for some–around what’s happening in Gaza and the role of education in that context. But what’s important in outreach is to understand the cause and speak your truth, so take your message where you want to go.
  • One reminder: in the 21st Century, you need a page to fundraise. Click here to start.   

Dear Iqraa friends,

Two years ago—the last time I competed in a race before my hamstring injury—I was driving to Lake Anna on October 7 at 0530 as reports came across the radio of a massive Hamas attack across the heavily militarized Gaza-Israel border. By that afternoon, the extent of the surprise attack was becoming clear as was expectation that Israel would launch a disproportionately vengeful response.

Even with this foreboding, who could have imagined the ongoing genocide—for almost two years, despite the ICJ’s warning of genocide 20 months ago—in which even from space Gaza is a different color. And in recent days—emboldened by the absence of a moral or political counterweight–Israel and the United States have developed a plan to expel Palestinians to make way for a “Gaza Riviera.”  

The humanitarian needs are so overwhelming. Many Iqraa friends ask or have been asked, why do we still focus on education?

Simply put, this humanitarian disaster exists, drowning us in unending lists of needs because the injustices behind it—including the 1948 Nakba and displacement, the 1967 occupation, decades of oppression, and now the genocide of Gaza and ethnic cleansing of the West Bank—have not been challenged with authority.

Education is the key to any civil society’s ability to challenge injustice and oppression. First, education is necessary for self-transformation. We must free our own minds of the binding emplaced by the Western Establishment’s embrace of the Zionist narrative, which privileges the lives of Israeli Jews over all others.  

Then, when we are educated, we can educate others.

But truly, for Palestinians as for all, including Americans, education is the foundation for all achievement. Education provides a livelihood and the wherewithal for self-sustainment and resilience.

Beyond this, it enables achievement and, collectively, the development of a civil society that is aware and creative, able to choose leaders, initiate reforms, and challenge oppression.  

An illustrative passage in Brian Barber’s No Way But Forward: Life Stories of Three Families in the Gaza Strip, tells of Hussam—who grew up to be an educator—after he turned sixteen (in 1989, during the 2nd Intifada). Hussam’s father, Fares, gives him a coming-of-age talk (p. 147):  

  • You must not let your political activity interfere with your studies. Above all else, your education will equip you to serve your people, your cause, our cause. Our struggle will likely go on for a long time in the future, so you need to strengthen yourself with the knowledge and skill that education will provide.

The Palestinian struggle for freedom has been long, and the resolution is not yet in sight. However, the evolution of Zionism under the racist burden of 6 decades of occupation has exposed the injustice of the Israeli state’s founding ideology.

It is in this environment, with the faintest whiff of change, that I ask for your support so Palestinians can earn the education that will serve them individually and as a community, enabling them to participate on more equal footing in determining their own future.

Our partner in this is United Palestinian Appeal, a 501(c)3 charitable organization with the maximum 4-star rating from Charity Navigator. To help, you can contribute at my page, Iqraa: Scholarships, or by writing a check payable to United Palestinian Appeal (UPA) with Iqraa/Kirk in the Memo line and sending it to me or UPA.

Our slogan—on every Iqraa jersey–is Running for a brighter Palestine. I thank you for everything you do to make the world and Palestine a brighter place, and thanks again to those who’ve already contributed

—End Message—

Last week/this week. Last Saturday at Candy Cane City, Cathy, Basel, Bill, Peter, and me—(and Shobi and Mazen, not pictured)–ran or walked. On Saturday, the team’ll be at Lock 6 on the C&O towpath, with marathoners and half-marathoners running 12 miles—almost as rare as a double eclipse! Shobi and I will be away, visiting her cousins in Cali, but back on Sept 13.

It’s Iqraa calling to the faraway towns…

Kirk

 

August 13, 2025

Iqraa 16: Every Life has a Meaning

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This week’s message highlights a Palestinian whose life story epitomizes decades of the very incomplete struggle for justice for Palestine…and underscores the need to hold fast to “radical” equality–radical meaning simply that we won’t settle for less.

First, three public service announcements…

  •  Remaining host dates for Iqraa are Aug 30, Sept 20, Oct 4, and Oct 18 (Basma). Let me know if you can help!
  • Field trip to Museum of the Palestinian People: Aug 23 at 1 pm. Inshallah, the new Iqraa jerseys will be available for a shirt-museum twofer.
    • Museum address: 1900 18th St NW, Washington DC 20009  
  • Here are the UPA-supported universities—with our significant (48 scholarships in 2024) assistance—in the Mahmoud Darwish university scholarship program. Thanks, Tabitha!
    • Gaza: Al-Azhar University and University College of Applied Sciences
    • West Bank: Al-Quds University, An-Najah, Bethlehem University, Birzeit University, Dar al-Kalima, and Palestine Polytechnic
    • Jordan: Al al-Bayt University, Al-Balqa Applied University, Jerash University, Jordan University of Science and Technology, The Hashemite University, the University of Jordan, Jerash University, the World Islamic Sciences & Education University, and University of Petra
  • Last week/this week. Last Saturday at Columbia Island Marina, Basma, Cathy, Basel, Imad, Reza, and me ran or walked (photo) and Cathy talked about the Mental Game. This Saturday we’re at Reston, where marathoners will run 16 miles while half-marathoners run 9.   

Every life has a story and Awdah Hathaleen’s epitomizes so much of the injustice inherent in Zionism’s treatment of non-Jews. In 1948, with 750,000 other Palestinians, Awdah’s (his name means “Return”) grandparents were displaced from the Naqib/Negev to the Masafer Yatta area south of Hebron.

  •  Awdah, born a year after the Oslo Accords—the “two-state solution”—saw his family home demolished periodically for lack of a permit, while the illegal Carmel settlement continuously expands.
  • Awdah was inspired to nonviolent activism by his uncle, Haj Suleiman, a nonviolent activist killed by Israeli police in 2022. Awdah also taught English in the village school so the children could tell their story to the world, according to his cousin, Eid.   
  • Awdah documented settlers’ efforts to displace his family and village, and ultimately filmed his own killing on July 28 at the hands of a settler. The Israeli killer was freed within 3 days, while Awdah’s body was held for 10 days, and not released until the women of his village went on hunger strike, while many of his male relatives were detained.
  • Awdah contributed to the Oscar-winning No Other Land(2025)documentary, made largely of hand-held video that chronicled in fearsome intimacy the settler violence aimed at ethnically cleansing Masafer Yatta.   
  • Awda’s killer, Yinon Levi, was a known threat, sanctioned in 2024 by President Biden, who since October 2023 also ensured an uninterrupted flow of US arms and 7 US vetoes/no’s on Security Council resolutions seeking to constrain Israel’s cruel and deliberate violence in Gaza. Within days of his election, Trump, who campaigned—among many depravities–on deporting pro-Palestine activists, lifted the sanctions on Levi.  

What it means for Iqraa. It’s a salient point, made at dozens of Iqraa info sessions since 2008, that Iqraa is non-partisan: agnostic toward political parties and peace solutions; however, we’re not indifferent toward injustice.

For the many of us who prioritize a brighter Palestine in every arena—not solely through running:

  • We must stand for radical equality—if it’s “radical” to insist that Palestinian lives are equal to those of Israeli Jews—because every person has an equal right to life, freedom, and education.
  • For our moderate progressive friends who understand that racism is wrong: Zionism is racism. It privileges the rights and lives of one only people over all other people.
  • As we oppose racists, we must also oppose Zionists.
  • We needn’t fear offending our Jewish friends because those who are truly moral venerate the sanctity of life instead of worshipping the state of Israel.  
  • “Progressive except on Palestine” is racist and hypocritical. PEP does not take human equality seriously—radically—and progressives cannot selectively oppose racial supremacism.  

As Americans, our primary touchpoint for opposing Israel’s destruction of Palestine is through the tools of American foreign policy. This includes political movements, politicians, and activists. Our allies in this are not Zionists; in fact, they are anti-Zionists.

Running—and working—for a brighter Palestine…with freedom and justice for all.

 

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