Author Archives: Kenn Maurice Orfanos (Orphan)

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About Kenn Maurice Orfanos (Orphan)

Kenn Orphan is a social worker, artist, and human and environmental rights advocate.

A Eulogy for the Geneva Conventions

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The Geneva Conventions have died. We are entering a new era where the vaunted “rule of law,” long peddled as the unassailable mantra of the West, is rapidly being considered a quaint set of guidelines from a bygone era.

Of course, the Geneva Conventions were long abandoned decades ago. Dousing children in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos with napalm, carpet bombing entire villages, and spraying Agent Orange on pristine rainforests did away with them early on. Successive campaigns of invasion, juntas and death squads, targeted assassinations and drone wars, from Honduras to Congo to Iraq, Libya, Somalia and beyond, demonstrated how toothless these rules actually were. But there was always the pretense of caring about them. Those days are no more.

After a year and a half+ of Western supported and funded genocide, the crumbling facade of “Human Rights” has collapsed into dust. In short, no one in the Global South believes the West anymore when they spout platitudes regaling their record of morality or ethics.

The Trump regime is now blatantly attacking and deporting anyone who is not a natural born citizen for protesting this crime. Not to be outdone by Netanyahu, Trump has ramped up his own genocidal rhetoric. But there is no hiding the fact that it was Biden who led us to this point. All Western leaders have played their part too. Those on the margins of Western hegemony know this very well, even if the denizens of the West remain in denial. They will never trust us again. Nor should they.

Each new day, a new horror is revealed. And not only by the victims or what is left of the journalists on the ground. This carnage is boasted about by the perpetrators themselves, through live feeds and TikTok reels. And why shouldn’t they? Their confidence in impunity has been well tested. There is no sign in the foreseeable future that this reality will change.

This is the last chapter of this bloody and needless dive into depravity. In these pages, we will likely see even more cruelty and more horrors we cannot begin to fathom. But when it is finally closed, we would be foolish to breath a sigh of relief. The moral price we have all paid for this will be immeasurable.

And the powerful have proven something far more terrifying to themselves. They have shown the world what they can get away with. Anyone they deem disposable can be dealt with in a similar fashion with little to no outcry from those who feel indifferent. If there is anything we can glean from this hideous orgy of death is that in a world where the folly of billionaires and fascists is paramount, we are all Palestinians.

Kenn Orphan, April 2025

To be in this timeline

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This past week I realized something. It was after I saw a video of a father tenderly holding the severed head of his child. He gently caressed the boys hair as he sobbed. He was killed by an Israeli airstrike on the tents where this family was forced to live. Forced to live because their entire neighbourhood had been carpet bombed. I also saw a young girl on a stretcher, her head cracked opened by shrapnel to the point that part of her brain was seeping out. Another one showed a girl in agony, burned from head to toe from a different airstrike. There were no pain meds to soothe her. And no parents to comfort, as they had been killed in the blast.

Over the last 17 months my Instagram has become a parade of horror and death. Of mothers wailing, fathers unable to speak. Of children shot by snipers. Of starving babies and amputees who had to endure their pain without anesthesia. Of dogs ripping at corpses in the street. Needless to say, it has taken a toll.

I have been involved in human rights for many years. And I have stood in solidarity with Palestinians who have endured occupation and apartheid for 76+ years. I’ve seen a lot of terrible and gruesome things. But even I have not seen anything like what we have been witness to for the past 17 months.

A livestreamed genocide. Shown to us partly by the victims. but also by the perpetrators themselves. Men and women in uniform donning women’s lingerie or riding on children’s bicycles. Women and children who had been forced to flee their homes or who had been killed by those same men and women in uniform. Men and women in uniform making marriage proposals in front of devastated schools or ruined mosques or gleefully detonating bombs to level entire apartment blocks or universities.

We have been told that this is all justified. That it is the consequence for the crimes of October 7th. But they never talk about the decades preceding that day. About the occupation. About the blockade and siege. About the home demolitions. About the tens of thousands of civilians, including thousands of children, who have been locked up in Israeli gulags over the years without charge. About the settler violence or the army that protects them as they rampage. About the indiscriminate bombings on Gaza long before that day in October. About a cruel, violent and entrenched system of apartheid.

They only talk about the murder of 1200 Israelis and foreign nationals. A terrible crime. But it is as if the complete destruction of a people is commensurate with that crime. As if the slaughter of tens of thousands of people, mass starvation, sniper shooting children, dropping 2000 lb. bombs on tents and hospitals and bakeries and universities and schools is a rational response.

I came to realize the other day that I am a changed person. Bearing witness to such crimes inevitably changes you. It wounds the soul. I cannot go to sleep or wake up without hearing the cries of little Hind. The child who sat in a car with the dead bodies of her family around her. Who called emergency services on the phone to come and save her as she bled. Of her voice, trembling with fear. Of the kindness of the operator as she tried to calm her. Of the sound of the Israeli tank in front of her and the gunfire that silenced her cries forever, along with the lives of the paramedics who came to help her.

I realized that I will never be the same. But also that I wouldn’t want to be the same. Because I don’t want to be like the people who have defended this. I don’t want to be like the people who have twisted their faces in laughter at human misery. Or like those who have witnessed this, yet have chosen to remain silent. To normalize it all for the sake of civility or safety. Or out of fear of being falsely accused of bigotry.

At first, I admit I was gravely disappointed by so many. Even angry at times. After all, I am not special. I am far from being a saint or virtuous. But I often wonder how so many others cannot see what I see. And I think you have to forfeit a great piece of your humanity to turn your eyes from one of the greatest crimes of this century. You have to become something else. A shadow of a person. A hungry ghost that seeks comfort in empty platitudes, distractions and the trappings of our age, yet cannot be sated. An apparition mimicking human form. Going through the motions, but unable to feel the full depth of what it really means to be flesh and blood and bone.

I never wanted to see or hear what I have. To be in this timeline. To bear witness and to be unpopular for recording it. Many of us feel that way. But I would rather do that, than lose the part of me that makes living in this world bearable.

Kenn Orphan, March 2025

*Photo is of a child killed by an Israeli airstrike while celebrating in their Eid clothes. The strike targeted a tent camp of displaced people in Mawasi Khan Younis, southern Gaza.

A Dark Chapter of American Cruelty has Begun

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This is the United States Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, standing proudly in front of a concentration camp in El Salvador. It is the place where at least 200 men were disappeared by the Trump regime without Due Process by its militant arm ICE. It is the largest concentration camp in the world with a capacity for 40,000 human beings. It has at least 14,500 there now.

Many of the 200 men there were ambushed by masked men in unmarked cars and vans, targeting them simply because they were Brown, Latino or had tattoos that ICE goons did not understand. A gay makeup artist and a man with an “autism awareness” tattoo are among them.

This image is jarring, not only because of the fact that these men never had their right to Due Process. Not only because the image clearly shows inhuman living conditions with beds crammed full of human beings, stacked to the ceiling. But because of its historical weight.

The Nazi regime disappeared millions of people into concentration camps. First because of their supposed “crimes.” Then because of their political leanings or opinions. Then because they were Jewish. Then because of their sexuality or ethnic identity. The Pinochet regime also disappeared thousands of Chileans, taking them to stadiums to be shot or tortured, or deporting them from the country, or on to helicopters to be dropped into the ocean. Israel, which has been carrying out a Western-backed genocide for the past 18 months, is also currently locking up thousands of Palestinians, many of them children, in prisons where rape, violence and starvation are used as collective punishment.

But we need not look to the history or even current practices of other nations. The United States has done similar things in its past. From forcing Indigenous people on death marches as in the Trail of Tears, to locking up thousands of Black men in prison labour camps for merely being on the white side of town, to holding Filipinos in concentration camps in their own land, to sending thousands of Japanese Americans to internment camps in the desert. Or in recent times, the soldiers photographed torturing and terrorizing Iraqis at Abu Ghraib. Indeed, the US has plenty of examples of its own barbarism.

This latest chapter of American depravity is in keeping with its tradition of cruelty. But it may very well be the darkest yet. Years from now, this photo (or the accompanying video) may be used in classrooms, much like the ones used today depicting SS guards in front of Auschwitz. That is, if this dark chapter is finally forced to close forever.

Kenn Orphan, March 2025

When our song began to die…

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Perhaps the beginning of our disconnect was the moment our ancestors started killing these giant inhabitants of the sea for fuel to light the lanterns in their homes and cities.

These behemoths, appearing weightless in a vast blue sea, who sing to each other from thousands of kilometers apart and who sleep vertically. Together, quietly, like trees in the forest. Pointed upward toward the stars.

Perhaps dreaming the universe into existence. And then intricately sewing life together thread by thread with their song.

Maybe this was more than our kind could comprehend. The land walkers who slithered out of the blue to ascend to the trees. Then descended from the green canopy. Made tools and fashioned weapons to fight and subjugate each other. And made up stories about sky gods who play with our suffering for sport or jealousy or penance for sins we’ve never committed. Maybe we told them to make our oppressors feel better about themselves and ease some of the guilt.

Perhaps our disconnect from the only home we’ve ever known is the moment we saw the living loam of the earth as a commodity to be ruthlessly sourced, exploited, fought over and traded for coin.

And perhaps it was at that moment when our own song began to die.

Kenn Orphan, 2025

Gal Gadot is Shocked

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Oh Gal, you were shocked? Honestly, how utterly disconnected are you from the reality of being a settler? How can you continue to claim ignorance about the Nakba? How can you continue to pretend you have no idea how this all started?

Here’s the deal, Gal. I know I am a settler. I am not indigenous to North America. I know that this one fact does not make me an evil person. It doesn’t mean that I do not belong here either. But I know that being a settler requires my attention and action to work toward justice. A justice that was violently robbed of the Indigenous people here. It caused generational trauma. And I have a responsibility to acknowledge that. To listen and to act in a way that heals and restores what was lost. It won’t erase the crimes committed against Indigenous people here, but it is literally the least I can do.

Gal, you served in the IDF even as it carried out heinous acts of oppression and cruelty against millions of people. You ignored the ongoing apartheid implemented by your government. You defended them even as they commit genocide. You even took a role in a movie that showed you saving children from a missile attack. Yet you defended Israel even after it slaughtered four boys with a missile on a beach in Gaza who were merely playing football.

Gal, do you know how many Palestinian children have been targeted and killed by the IDF? Before AND after the tragic events of October 7th over a year ago? There were terrible things committed on that day, but do you know that there were no “beheaded babies” on October the 7th? That that was a lie? Or that there have been many beheaded babies in Gaza from airstrikes over the last year+?

Have you heard of little Hind? How she sat in a car with her dead family for hours through the cold night? How she desperately called emergency services to save her? How she was terrified and badly injured? And how an Israeli tank killed her and the paramedics who came to help her?

And yet, after almost a year and a half of endless airstrikes, imposed starvation, complete destruction of hospitals, clinics, bakeries, water treatment facilities, shelters, apartment buildings, universities, you are shocked by a backlash to you claiming you are Indigenous to a land that is being mercilessly emptied of its actual Indigenous population?

Gal, the backlash you received was not hatred. It was disgust. It was rage. It was the reaction from people who have just seen videos of children limp or burned beyond recognition. Mothers wailing. Torn bodies upon the scorched earth. And yet you stand in this moment of historic weight and claim you are the real victim here?

You are wrong, Gal. We know. We have an idea of what is happening here. And we also realize you probably never will. 

Kenn Orphan, March 2025

The End of American Higher Education

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It seems that education in the United States is becoming something of a bygone era. And it isn’t just about the impending demise of the Department of Education, which the new Secretary, Linda McMahon, has vowed to eradicate. She has already fired 50% of its staff. It also appears to be the end of American higher education as well.

In the last few weeks there has been growing uncertainty and chaos on college and university campuses. Just recently, Harvard University announced hiring freezes as they wait for the Trump regime to implement massive federal funding cuts. Schools like the University of Washington, North Carolina State, Cornell, Emory, and Notre Dame, have issued similar hiring freezes. Northwestern is introducing preemptive cost-cutting measures. Several colleges and universities have drastically decreased the number of graduate students and have rescinded many offers to PhD candidates. Scores of students are now scrambling to figure out their next move as their future plans have crumbled before them.

In its culture war, the Trump regime has suspended funding to the University of Maine because the school refused to discriminate against transgender athletes. Last week, the administration revoked $400 million in federal funding to Columbia University over bogus claims of antisemitism during this past summer’s student-led protests. That university has been ruthless in its crackdowns and has collaborated with ICE in persecuting students who opposed the schools investment in Israel as it commits genocide. And the Department of Education has threatened schools with massive funding cuts if they don’t eliminate Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs and related language in their curriculum.

All of these cuts affect far more than the universities themselves. For instance, the Trump regime also stopped $800 million in grants to Johns Hopkins University. Officials at the school and local business owners are saying that these draconian funding cuts will not only ravage current research projects but the entire state’s economy since the university is the largest private employer. And the long honoured tradition of national endowments are also in jeopardy. Congress is looking to raise the current 1.4% tax rate on university endowments to 10%–20%, essentially ending them for most programs.

It appears that the Trump regime has taken notes from Putin’s crackdown on higher education in Russia following its war of aggression against Ukraine. The result of this was catastrophic as scientific research programs were shuttered, the humanities were rendered toothless, and scores of Russian intellectuals fled the country.

Donald Trump once said, “I love the poorly educated.” It appears he intends to expand that love to the entire country.

Kenn Orphan, March 2025

Forced Disappearance is a Classic Fascist Tactic we Cannot Ignore

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The Trump regime is trying to deport Mahmoud Khalil, a legal resident and student of Columbia University, because he led protests against Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Because he opposes Zionism. Because he opposes US foreign policy. They are trying to deport him because he exercised his legal right under the constitution to free speech. This is unprecedented and downright terrifying.

Firstly, Zionism is a political ideology. It is not Judaism. There are many Jews who are not Zionists and there are many Zionists who are not Jews. To conflate the two is actual antisemitism.

Secondly, political speech is protected speech in the US, or at least it is supposed to be. Of course, there are multiple examples of how this is suppressed or even outlawed. For instance, many states have laws banning participation in the BDS Movement.

To be sure, the US has deported many legal residents before, and under Democratic presidents. Obama was known as the “deporter in chief.” It has spirited them away to undisclosed locations and kicked them out of the country often for relatively minor offenses. But the difference here is a stark one.

The Trump regime is sending a clear message that speech itself can be an offense worthy of deportation of any non-citizen. Essentially, any speech that the dear leader doesn’t agree with. And if we think he will stop at deportation, we are not grasping the scope of this plan. In short, the worst is yet to come.

Prior to the election, Trump warned that he would send US troops into “Democratic cities” to stop the “enemy from within.” These “enemies” were, according to the orange coated fascist, “leftists, Marxists” and anyone with blue hair. I added the last bit for comedic effect, but the point is that it is anyone whom the president does not like. This plan was to be implemented after mass deportations.

The abduction and forced disappearance of Mahmoud Khalil is the canary in the coal mine. Fascist regimes use this tactic to instill fear and suppress dissent. And historically, this tactic has often worked. But there have been many protests since this incident and it is important that these continue in order to show the regime that the people will not be intimidated.

That the Trump regime has used combating antisemitism as the reason for this authoritarian and lawless act is ironic to say the least. From a sieg heiling Musk and Steve Bannon to a neo-Nazi supporting Vance, this regime has demonstrated its glaring lack of creds in the struggle against bigotry and hatred. But we should look to Khalil himself for the proof that he is being wrongly targeted for hate speech or supporting terrorism.

Prior to his forced disappearance, Mahmoud said: “As a Palestinian student, I believe that the liberation of the Palestinian people and the Jewish people are intertwined and go hand-by-hand and you cannot achieve one without the other.”

Kenn Orphan, March 2025

A Warning for those of us on the Margins of Empire

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Last nights atrocious spectacle was a wake up call. And we may not have many of those left. The speech Trump gave before the US Congress was a glimpse into the madness he has in store for all of us. The United States is rapidly falling into the maw of fascism before our very eyes and there is little organized political opposition from the anemic Democratic Party to stop any of it.

For those of us on the margins of American Empire, we cannot afford to ignore this. Trump’s imperialistic fantasies are not only disgusting, they are serious. He is demolishing the current arrangement of power on the global stage, not to empower the people, but to consolidate even more power and wealth into the hands of a few oligarchs and despots.

Like all US presidents, he has opened the coffers for Israel to continue its apartheid and genocidal project. When he shared a vulgar AI-generated video of a Trumpified Gaza, complete with casinos and an enormous gold statue of himself, he gave us insight into his depraved narcissism. He has no capacity for empathy or grace.

This was also on display with the shameful shakedown of Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office by him and his sniveling side kick. His admiration for dictators and war criminals, from Putin to Netanyahu, should be seen as the cruel template he plans to implement against his neighbours in the Americas.

For those of us here in Canada, Trump’s continued ridicule and threat of making our sovereign country the 51st state is no joke. As in Greenland, he is eyeing Canada’s rich resources, from petrol to timber to minerals to water. He sees the imperial benefit of a melting Arctic Sea. And no matter how unhinged these threats may seem, he intends to make good on this by attempting to collapse the Canadian economy with draconian tariffs.

If there is any silver lining in any of this, it is that there is still some time to resist. The Trump regime is not all powerful. Fascism is gaining ground, but has not taken complete control… yet. And they have demonstrated a striking aversion to facts which will likely lead to their downfall.

In addition to this, the American Empire is in steep decline. Its economy is no longer the only dominant one on the world stage. Its infrastructure is crumbling. Its military is over-extended as its soft power around the world wanes. All while others rise, namely China and the BRICS coalition of nations. Most of its leaders are fatally corrupted, duplicitous and stupid. And its populace is struggling while a wealthy minority blames them for their plight and laughs in their faces. They are getting more and more angry, and things are likely to boil over soon.

For the world, the downside of all of this is a that we inhabit a very different portion of human history now. One with the looming existential behemoth of climate chaos on the horizon, the specter of artificial intelligence, and the constant threat of nuclear annihilation. As it descends, the American Empire will lash out even more violently to regain its former glory, even if it is merely a myth. And this makes the next few years the most dangerous in all human history.

Like all empires, the American variation will eventually collapse. We can only hope that when it does, it won’t take everyone down with it as it goes.

Kenn Orphan, March 2025

The Madness of Fascism is the Point

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Like many of you, I watch the implosion of the United States in horror. It seems like madness. And on one level, it is. But on another, it is not. What I mean by the latter is that what is happening isn’t some random craziness. It is a calculated plan. It is the “tear it all down in order to build it up” approach, similar to how other fascist and authoritarian regimes operate.

These regimes see any democratic institution as an impediment to the glory of the state or the empire. Consolidation of power is viewed as the only way forward for saving it. Thus, the oligarch Elon Musk has been tasked with the unraveling. He has been given the keys to the kingdom. And like a petulant and sociopathic child, he has gone inside, turned over the crockery, fired all the servants and dumped out the treasure chest.

And this brings me to the Maga phenomenon. Because this is the heart of this particular iteration of fascism. “Make America Great Again” is of course a silly and sophomoric bit of nonsense. Which era of “greatness” do they mean? Indigenous genocide? Slavery? Lynching? Jim Crow? Red Scare? Bombing dozens of nations?

In reality, the only “great” part of America has been the magnitude of its scope, scale and power. If there is any noble greatness, it has come from its oppressed peoples. From Indigenous, Black, Brown, working class women, LGBTQ, and other marginalized communities who resisted the brutality of the American boot on their necks. Certainly not the ruling class that runs corporations and both political parties.

To the leadership of this cult of Maga, it is not only about demonizing, otherizing, scapegoating and persecuting anyone who is not white, cis-male, Christian, capitalist and heterosexual. This part is an essential characteristic of fascistic rule. But it is also about bullying the vassal and client states of the American Empire into submission. It knows it can’t do this with its own oligarchy, so it focuses on tributes, concessions and relinquishing of territory from rivals and allies. Its “great” past was one brimming in arrogant and unmerciful dominance. And this is the one they want to return to.

The problem is that the world is different now. The American Empire is in steep decline. Its prominence and prestige are waning. Even its vaunted dollar is increasingly tenuous. The unilateral hegemony it once knew is crumbling while other empires and coalitions rise. So, it is doing what all dying empires do. It installed a madman to restore its greatness.

And we should not think this madman is holding the US hostage. His approval rating among Americans has been mostly positive in these first few weeks. He embodies the very worst characteristics of the American stereotype. He is boorish, intolerant, anti-intellectual, averse to facts, arrogant and ruthless. And he is admired for this. This should not be surprising as all fascist leaders share similar traits and they enjoy cultish devotion because of them.

The problem with madmen is that they have a tendency to burn things down far greater than they build or rebuild things. And once fascism makes a home in a country it becomes exceedingly difficult to remove it. 

Kenn Orphan, February 2025

*title image is from the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC.

Trump’s plan for Gaza is in keeping with American Tradition

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So, Trump wants the US to “take over” Gaza. And he isn’t opposed to using American troops to make that happen. That is all over the news today. Trump is being essentially the scrubby New York real estate dealer that he is. He sees this as a sweet deal. “We’ll make it the Riviera of the Middle East,” he said.

He isn’t troubled by the bodies under the rubble or the half-starved population still there. He spoke unemotionally about forcibly relocating over a million people. Unspoken were the hundreds of thousands of Gazans now gone from the equation. A genocide not spoken of in polite society. “Why would they want to return?” he asked, “the place has been hell”. He described their predicament as if it were a natural disaster. As if their suffering were caused by some tsunami or monsoon and not by the bombs and drones and snipers supplied by the world’s most powerful nation under an administration run by a Democrat.

The shift comes as a shock to many, as US official policy has always aimed for a two-state solution. Anyone who has followed this issue closely has understood this has always been a farce, one repeated by both Democratic and Republican regimes alike for decades, even as they bolstered the settler-colonial project that is Israel. The Palestinians have always represented a thorn in this project’s side. A problem to placate and pacify with endless amounts of platitudes and apartheid, promises and brutality. And it all ended where it was destined to end, in genocide.

Trump’s plan isn’t really that shocking when one considers that the American project, itself, has always been a real estate deal. It has always framed the living earth as a commodity to be bought, developed ruthlessly, then sold to the highest bidder. In this worldview, land is not something to be cherished. No tree is sacred, as the olive tree is to the Palestinians. It holds no existential weight. It is not beloved even though it freights our souls through this vast galaxy. It is a monetized unit of wealth to be wrapped up tightly in plastic and shipped over night to the consumer.

This is America at its rancid heart. A project that slaughtered millions of buffalo to stick it to the Indigenous people of the land. That enslaved millions of Africans to harvest cotton. That nuked two civilian populations, the only nation to do so thus far. That doused thousands of hectares of farmland and rainforest in Southeast Asia with napalm and agent orange. That scorched the deserts of Iraq and Afghanistan to avenge a crime they had nothing to do with.

A nation that gleefully blows off the tops of ancient mountains in Appalachia for a few buckets of coal. That sullies the groundwater for a few gasps of “natural” gas. That digs its pincers into marshland to suck out the last bits of the earth’s primordial blood. And which has belched out the most warming gasses into our atmosphere of all nation states thus far.

Trump’s plan for Gaza is in keeping with this tradition. It is disaster capitalism at its zenith. And it is in keeping with how the American project views the living mantel of this planet. The life-giving loam that we all depend upon. It is in keeping with how it sees its Indigenous peoples. A problem to be dealt with by administering the appropriate, surgical military strikes accompanied with a boatload of platitudes. A minor bump in the road on the way to development.

Gaza is a mirror. And it is staring back at us all. It is the modern manifestation of a long, bloody legacy of colonial greed, exploitation and cruelty. And like all other stolen lands, it will not cease to exist just because its buildings and orchards and people were mercilessly leveled or because some greasy real estate dealer now has his eyes set on it.

Kenn Orphan, February 2025

*Title piece is a painting by the Palestinian artist, Heba Zagout. Heba was killed along with her children in an airstrike on their home in Gaza in October, 2023.