The Glittering Stone

CrossFireArabia
Culture
February 11, 2025

By Khaled Nusseibeh

Perchance a demolition site

Is the breeding ground of a great culture

Areas decimated and people maimed

The sin being the will to be

And they are evincing prodigious resilience

Persevering in conditions of great harshness

The ceiling might have collapsed

But the earth is ready for rapid reconstruction

Undertaken by the brave men and children

Evincing invincibility in the face of great odds

One could not withhold a humble salute

To the women of legendary resistance

The targets of an unjust battle

To usurp, uproot and expel

But the roots are too deeply entrenched

In the beloved Gaza of Palestine

Truly, the bloodletting has been too profuse

Of people baffled by the extent of rancor

The great lengths of guileful plotting

To exacerbate a tragic diaspora

However many a time the uprooting

The displacement is supplanted by a will to live

To restore the broken tents

To water a tiny garden of life

Supporting families that were abandoned

To a fate knowable only to God

Perchance illusory peace may become a reality

Perverted by an inordinate penchant for war

And you Gaza are a glittering stone

With a sparkle that will outlive the morbid plots

Khaled Nusseibeh is a translator, writer and a poet with several published poetry collections to his name. He holds a BA and MA Degrees from Colombia and Princeton universities in the USA. Mr Nusseibeh was born in Amman in 1961 and is a Jordanian of Palestinian origin.

CrossFireArabia

Dr. Marwan Asmar holds a PhD from Leeds University and is a freelance writer specializing on the Middle East. He has worked as a journalist since the early 1990s in Jordan and the Gulf countries, and been widely published, including at Albawaba, Gulf News, Al Ghad, World Press Review and others.

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Husnieh Ghanayem posted: Good morning, welcome back!

We were, and how wonderful we were!

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Vanessa Redgrave: ‘Fighting Till The Last Minute’

CrossFireArabia
July 23, 2026

Vanessa Redgrave؛

“She sold her home to help produce a film about Palestine”

We, as Palestinians and as people who believe in freedom and human rights, owe our gratitude and appreciation to the British actress Vanessa Redgrave, who stood with the Palestinian people at a time when the Palestinian narrative was largely absent or marginalized in much of the Western world, while the Israeli narrative dominated public discourse.

Vanessa Redgrave was not only an Academy Award-winning actress; she believed that fame should be used in the service of justice and human rights.

She sold her home to help finance the documentary The Palestinian (1977), co-produced it, and narrated it to bring the Palestinian story to Western audiences.

In 1978, after winning the Academy Award for Julia, she used the Oscar stage to respond to the intimidation and protests she faced because of her support for Palestinians, condemning what she described as “a small bunch of Zionist hoodlums.”

At a time when supporting Palestine came at a high personal and professional cost, Vanessa Redgrave chose courage over silence. For that, we remember her with deep gratitude and thank her for helping ensure that the voice of the Palestinian people was heard.