on palestine, food and the violence of starvation

it’s been a minute since i’ve written here.

to be honest, i’ve found it difficult — even inappropriate — to send out words in the midst of so much loss. the idea of offering musings on nourishment, joy, or ritual in this moment has felt, at times, narcissistic. navel-gazing. i’ve questioned what it means to write about food and care while people are being denied even the most basic means of survival.

there is no version of nourishment that can exist outside the political. food is never just food. it is land, water, power, access, dignity. it is memory and culture. it is a system. it is a weapon. it is a right. 

right now, in gaza, food is being withheld — strategically, deliberately — as a tool of war. this is not an abstract issue. it is not a distant crisis. it is the active starvation of a people. families cut off from bread, from water, from fuel to cook with. fields razed. aid blocked. children dying not from lack of medicine, but from hunger. not from some unfortunate circumstance, but by design.

to speak of nourishment in this moment is to speak of gaza. 

we cannot talk about food as healing, as joy, as ritual, as resistance and then separate it from the systems that enable this kind of suffering. we do not get to celebrate heritage while others are being starved of theirs.

every time we speak of food as care, we must ask: who is being cared for? every time we invoke community, we must ask: who is being left out of that circle?

i keep turning over this contradiction: how can we speak of nourishment, of care, of radical hospitality, while remaining silent as a people are starved, displaced, dehumanised? 

what does it mean to share meals and celebrate culture while knowing our tax pounds are funding a military siege that denies people food, water, power, and shelter?

what are we digesting, emotionally, spiritually, politically, when our comfort is funded by another's deprivation? 

what does it mean to nourish ourselves inside systems that are actively starving others? 

if food is how we love, how we remember, how we resist,  then what does it mean when food is used to erase, to punish, to erase memory?

as the unflinching melek erdal asks, where does this moral rot go in our bodies?

these questions sit heavily. and they should. they are not comfortable. but they are necessary. i’m still figuring out what it means to live my values in times like these and what accountability looks like in practice, but i know that silence is not it. 

here are some practices i have been integrating. i’m not claiming moral authority, just a desire to act with integrity, and to not look away. 

• sitting with discomfort

  let the contradictions surface. hold them. don’t rush to resolve them. let them deepen your understanding of what care actually costs.

  
  

• speaking, even softly

  even a single sentence is a refusal. it’s a reminder to yourself and to others that silence is not neutrality.

  
  

• re-evaluating my rituals

  whether it’s how you give thanks before a meal, where you shop, or how you teach, cook, or share food, ask what your habits uphold. ask what they can challenge.

  
  

• redirecting resources

  support humanitarian efforts, mutual aid, and palestinian food sovereignty projects. if you have a platform or an income stream from food, consider how you can redistribute. please let me know how i can better use my platform.

  
  

• staying present

  keep paying attention. keep learning. keep returning to the question: what kind of nourishment resists complicity? what kind of care includes everyone?

if food is how we remember, how we love, how we resist, then let it be that fully. let us create a culture of care that doesn’t stop at the edge of our own comfort.