Reprinted from a speech virtually delivered on February 24, 2024 to the And Still We Rise festival in the UK.

When my dear friend Asad Rehman asked me to help close this gathering, his specific instructions were to speak about the political situation today and to do it in a way ‘filled with hope’. A bit of a tall order and I’m not entirely sure I can deliver. Let’s see what we can do instead….The last time I was in London, it was late September. Just five months ago. But five months that feel like a hundred years. One hundred years of Palestinian parents wailing over their murdered and maimed children. One hundred years of bombed schools and raided hospitals and desecrated mosques. One hundred years of Israeli soldiers making TikToks of their war crimes.  One hundred years of teens trained in fascism blocking trucks filled with food.  One hundred years of open calls to annihilate more than two million captive, occupied, ghettoized people. One hundred years of giddily expressed plans to turn Gaza into a parking lot. An Israeli beach town. A museum. A slaughterhouse. A buffer zone.