Writer’s note: If this sounds familiar, check your own horizon. You might be living inside the perimeter too.

1:17 AM Barcelona, Spain | 2:17 AM Gaza, Palestine | What a Regime Chooses to Fund

When you lose everything, what do you grab first? Not blankets or flour. You reach for whatever proves you are still here. That you still deserve something beautiful.

My grandmother wore pearls long before 1948. When Zionist militias forced her from Yaffa she lost the house, the orange tree, the life she’d rooted in that soil. The Nakba reduced her to a fragile body carrying a long memory. Years as a refugee in Gaza made survival a daily calculation. Yet when she finally had a few coins, she bought another string of pearls.

She wasn’t wealthy. Maybe a little particular about looking nice, sure. But she understood something the Israeli colonial state never will. Joy is infrastructure. It isn’t decoration. It can’t wait until the dust settles.

I’ve carried her pearls ever since. Not just keepsakes, but as a receipt. A tiny, defiant line item in a refugee’s ledger. And honestly, that’s exactly what my work is about. I just look at bigger ledgers. I move between photographing human rights violations, digging up erased histories, tracing paper trails of power. I read defense budgets. I track policy shifts. I watch where regimes pour their money and where they deliberately starve the rest. You learn to read a system by what it refuses to fund. Just like you can read my grandmother’s life in those pearls, you can read a regime’s soul in what it chooses to build and what it lets decay.

Why Israel’s Biggest Amusement Park Is So Tiny

Between military reports and fear politics, a pattern. A settler-colonial regime marketing itself as a “start-up nation,” backed by billions in foreign aid, has almost no civic leisure infrastructure. Superland, billed as the largest amusement park, covers under twenty acres. Fewer than twenty attractions. Barely municipal fair size.

This isn’t about space. Israel has the land. The engineering. The capital. What it lacks is the political will to build places where people can simply gather without surveillance, checkpoints, or sirens. Why refuse to fund public joy? Because the architecture of control serves a different project. Settlement expansion. Permanent occupation. Apartheid. You don’t build sprawling civic spaces when your system depends on separation. The state doesn’t build parks. It builds perimeters.

In 2024, the military budget jumped 65% to $46.5 billion. Roughly 8.8% of GDP. Steepest increase since 1967. Weapons R&D consumed 65% of national innovation funding, crowding out schools, infrastructure, leisure. Tel Aviv’s guarded tech sector flourishes while civic spaces decay. Billions flow into illegal settlements and campaigns documented by UN agencies and Israeli human-rights groups as involving widespread war crimes and genocide.

For decades, governments ruled through manufactured dread. Conscription at eighteen. Emergency drills in schools. A media ecosystem fed on existential threat. Leaders weaponize Jewish trauma, tie resistance to a specter of annihilation to consolidate power. Even former officials admit operations serve a political calculus not security.

10:45 PM
A panic economy needs perpetual crisis. Every act of resistance framed as proof of unavoidable threat. Pretext for deeper occupation.

Public opinion mirrors the machinery. June 2025: 82% of Jewish Israelis support expelling Palestinians from Gaza. Nearly half 47% endorse actions scholars call genocidal. Asked about forced starvation, 79% said they weren’t troubled by mass famine. On collective guilt, an overwhelming majority agreed there are “no innocents in Gaza.”

When majorities openly endorse structures of genocide, the regime doesn’t just commit atrocities. It institutionalizes them, then exports the blueprint.

And while we know well that joy doesn’t come from budgets, because apparently, “basic survival” wasn’t in the fiscal plan, it arrives when the people are free from supremacy and when children don’t fear hell falling from the sky. In Palestine, joy persists in small tent weddings, classrooms, dabke songs. But it’s not a victory lap, it’s a pattern. The laughter happens in the gaps between airstrikes, sometimes the song stops because the power goes out, or because someone has to run. The joy is real, but it’s tired, It’s scared and it costs everything.

My grandmother's pearls rest in a small wooden box. I open it sometimes just to watch them catch the low light. They don't glitter like state propaganda, they glow like memory. She bought them after losing everything because joy is not a luxury, it is a weapon they cannot confiscate.

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القصف يستعر، والطغاة لا زالوا يسمّونه «هدنة». وكأنّ للموت أدبًا في الاستئذان، يقرع على أبوابنا بقنابل الموت.

ضوء الهاتف الأزرق يلطخ السقف كجرح لا يندمل. أكتب جملة فتمحوها أصابعي قبل أن تكتمل، كأنّ الك…

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25 March 2026. 1:45 AM Dublin. 3:45 AM Gaza. Rain in both places.

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Ouzi is a Levantine rice dish that traditionally involves lamb, patience, and a grandmother who will judge your technique from three generations away. This version? It's the rebellious cousin who shows up with ground beef, frozen peas, and zero apologies. It's for when you want the soul of the dish but don't have three hours to whisper prayers over a pot.

For the Rice (The Foundation of All That Is Good)

• 1½ cups basmati rice, washed like you’re trying to remove the stains of history (soak 20 mins, then rinse until the water runs clear. Yes, really)

• 2 tbsp oil (olive, vegetable, whatever your ancestors used to survive)

• 1 cup frozen carrots and peas (add them straight from the freezer; defrosting is a capitalist plot to waste your time)

• 1 medium yellow onion, minced ( yalla cry freely, it’s therapeutic)

• 5 large garlic cloves, minced (if you don’t smell like garlic afterward, did you even cook?)

• 1½ tsp garlic powder (because fresh garlic wasn’t enough, this is excess, and we support it)

• 1 tsp onion powder (the introvert cousin of fresh onion, quiet but essential)

• 2 tsp 7-spice (baharat, if you don’t have it, improvise, like get allspice, cinnamon, cloves, coriander, cumin, black pepper, nutmeg.

• 1½ tsp coriander powder.

• 1 tsp Aleppo pepper (optional, but recommended, it’s like a gentle, smoky hug for your tongue)

• 1 tbsp chicken bouillon powder.

• 1½ tsp salt (or to taste, your ancestors salted their food with tears, but you do you)

• ½ tsp turmeric (just for color, because we eat with our eyes first.)

• 3 cups hot water (boiling, like your rage, handle with care)

For the Beef (The Plot Twist)

• ¾ lb ground beef (any fat content, lean is for people who have never known struggle)

• 2 tbsp oil (see above)

• 1 small yellow onion, diced (yes, another onion. Onions are the backbone of Palestinian cooking and also of crying in the kitchen)

• ¾ tsp 7-spice

• ¾ tsp coriander powder (repeat after me: coriander is not cilantro, fight me)

• 1 tsp garlic powder (because fresh garlic is a mood, but powder is a commitment)

• 1 tsp onion powder (the reliable friend who always shows up)

• ½ tsp Aleppo pepper (optional)

• 1 tsp salt

• ½ tsp black pepper (for that little kick, like a reminder that life isn’t bland)

• ½ tsp cinnamon (yes, cinnamon in savory beef. Trust the process. Trust your teta.)

For the Grand Finale

• Toasted almonds, pine nuts, or whatever nuts you can afford (fry them in butter or ghee at the last second, this is non negotiable.

• Fresh parsley, chopped (for color, for freshness, for the aesthetic of “I have my life together”- yani even if you don’t.

The Method (Or: How to Channel Your Rage Into Something Edible)

Step 1: The Beef (The Loud Part)

1. Heat oil in a pan over medium heat. Add the diced onion and sauté until translucent. This is your moment to vent. Talk to the onion, tell it about the algorithm. It won’t judge.

2. Add the ground beef. Break it up with a spoon like you’re dismantling oppressive systems. Cook until browned.

3. Add all the spices: 7-spice, coriander, garlic powder, onion powder, Aleppo pepper, salt, black pepper, cinnamon. Stir like you’re mixing a protest chant. Cook for another 2-3 minutes until fragrant. Set aside.

Step 2: The Rice (The Quiet Revolution)

1. In a separate pot, heat oil over medium heat. Add the minced onion and sauté until soft. Add the garlic and cook for 30 seconds until it smells like home.

2. Toss in the frozen carrots and peas. Saute for 2 minutes without defrosting. Do not apologize. Frozen veggies are a triumph of modern logistics.

3. Add the washed basmati rice and all the rice spices: garlic powder, onion powder, 7-spice, coriander, Aleppo pepper, bouillon, salt, turmeric. Stir gently, like you’re arranging words on a page.

4. Pour in the boiling water. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer for 15-20 minutes. Do not lift the lid. Do not stir. This is not a suggestion; this is a law.

5. When the water is absorbed and the rice is fluffy, remove from heat. Let it sit, covered, for 5 more minutes. This is the “resting” phase. Even rice needs to process its trauma.

Step 3: Assembly (The Act of Defiance)

1. Spread the rice on a large platter. Make it a mountain. Make it a work of art.

2. Top with the seasoned beef. Let it cascade like a promise.

3. Scatter the toasted nuts over everything. This is the crunch of hope.

4. Garnish with parsley. Because green is the color of resistance, and also of “this looks good on Instagram.”

Serving Suggestions

-Serve with plain yogurt or cucumber-yogurt salad (khiyar bi laban) for a cooling contrast. Life is hot; your food can be cool.

-Pair with a simple salad: tomatoes, cucumbers, lemon, olive oil. Freshness is a form of protest.

-Eat it with your hands if you want. Eat it with a fork if you must. Eat it standing over the sink if that’s your vibe. No judgment.

Notes From the Writer (Who Is Also a Cook, Apparently)

1)Washing the rice is non-negotiable. Unwashed rice = mushy rice = sadness. Rinse until the water runs clear.

2)Don’t skip the nuts. They’re the exclamation point at the end of a powerful sentence.

3)Turmeric is for color, not flavor. But also, everything golden feels like hope, so maybe it is flavor.

4)If you use canned veggies instead of frozen, reduce the water slightly. Canned veggies come with their own baggage (aka liquid).

5)Cook the onions until translucent, not browned. We’re building flavor, not burning bridges.

6)This recipe serves 4, but honestly, you’ll want to eat it all yourself. I won’t tell.

Why This Recipe?

Because Rand said so, and honestly, if Rand can make it, so can you. :)

Also, full disclosure: I didn’t add the dough. Not because I’m lazy (okay, maybe a little), but because I don’t actually know how to make it. I’m a terrible baker.

So make this Ouzi as is, or be an overachiever and make it with dough, and share it wide. If someone asks why you put cinnamon in the beef, just smile like you’re holding state secrets and say: “Because I contain multitudes.”

(Then immediately change the subject before they ask about the dough.)

How to Roll Warak Enab Without Losing Your Faith in Humanity

Let’s be clear: making warak enab (stuffed grape leaves) is not cooking. It is a test of whether you love your family and friends enough to spend two-four hours rolling rice into leafy cigars they will inhale in twelve minutes while complaining about the lemon balance.

If you are looking for a “quick weeknight dinner,” close this tab. Order pizza. Pizza does not judge you.

But if you are stubborn, or Palestinian, or both, here is how you proceed.

The Ingredients (And The Baggage)

• Grape Leaves: Fresh if you have a vine in your backyard and a life of leisure. Jarred if you live in exile and understand compromise. If using jarred, rinse with warm water.

• Rice: Short grain. Not because it tastes better, but because long grain will unravel your life story during boiling.

• Meat: Optional.

• Tomatoes, Onions, Garlic: The holy trinity, chop them finely. If you cry, it’s not the onions, It’s the memory of your auntie watching you roll too loosely and yelling at you.

• Lemon Juice & Olive Oil: The only things that can save a disaster.

• Patience: You will need more than you have, so borrow some from a neighbor.

The Process (Or: How to Accept Imperfection)

1. The Blanching Boil the leaves for exactly three minutes. Two minutes and they tear. Four minutes and they turn into mush, like every plan you made for 2024. Then drain them, lay them flat. This is the last moment of peace you will experience during this recipe.

2. The Filling Mix the rice, meat, herbs, and spices in a bowl. Taste it. It should taste like potential. Do not overfill, overfilling is a sign of greed, and the pot will punish you. Underfilling is a sign of insecurity, and your family will notice (they always do.) Aim for the narrow middle path of dignity.

3. The Rolling (The Trap) This is where careers go to die. Place a leaf vein-side up. Cut the stem then add a teaspoon of filling. Fold the sides and roll tightly. Note: “Tightly” is subjective. Your mother will say it’s too loose, your sister will say it’s too tight, your uncle will say the rice looks anxious. Ignore them all and roll it like you’re sealing a secret you intend to keep forever.

4. The Arrangement Line the bottom of the pot with tomato and potato slices and leftover stems(If you want a sour taste). This is called “the bed.” It is meant to prevent burning and it tastes delicious. Place the rolls seam-side down. Pack them snugly. If they rattle, they will unravel, like us.

5. The Cooking Add water, lemon, and oil. Place a heavy plate on top of the rolls to keep them submerged. This is crucial. Without the weight, they float. With too much weight, they crush so again find the balance. Simmer for 45-55 minutes. Do not lift the lid, curiosity burns the bottom layer.

The Serving

When you lift the lid, the smell will hit you. It will smell like kitchens in Gaza before the bombing. It will smell like holidays where everyone was still alive.

Serve them warm and Squeeze more lemon, if you wish. Watch your friends/family eat them in two bites. Watch them nod and say, “These are so good.” They will not know about the burned fingers. They will not know about the leaf that tore and made you swear in three languages. They will not know that you spent an afternoon negotiating with rice so they could feel full for an hour.

This is the contract habibi, you make the net and they eat the safety.

A Final Note

There is no perfect roll. There is only the roll you made, with the hands you have, in the kitchen you managed to find. Eat it. And next year, when someone suggests making warak enab, remind them that pizza exists.

Then buy the grape leaves anyway. Because we are stubborn and because sometimes, the only way to hold things together is to roll them tight and hope they survive the heat.

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The se…

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Yes, it’s green, calm down.

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Ingredients

• 500g molokhia, fresh if you have patience, frozen if you have bills and a schedule

• 1 whole chicken, cut up

• 1 onion, halved

• 3 to 4 bay leaves

• 6 cardamom pods

• 1 cinnamon stick

• Salt and black pepper

• Enough water to cover everything

For the garlic situation:

• 5 to 8 cloves garlic, crushed

• 1 tablespoon ground coriander and/or parsley

• 1 green chili, optional but spiritually recommended

• Olive oil

To serve:

• Rice

• Lemon

• Confidence

About fresh vs frozen Molokhia, let’s be honest

If you’re using fresh molokhia, congratulations! You have time. You will sit there plucking every leaf from every stem like you’re in a 1950s village scene. Then you chop it so fine.

Or you pulse it in the processor because you like having fingers and you’re not trying to lose one to tradition.

If you’re using frozen, like Rand, respect. Frozen molokhia is the diaspora MVP. It is already chopped. You drop it straight into the broth and move on with your life.

No shame, we are surviving habibi, not auditioning for a documentary.

Step 1: The broth

Chicken in a big pot+ Onion, bay, cardamom, cinnamon, salt, pepper. Cover with water.

Bring to boil then lower to simmer. Let it cook until the house smells like someone just yelled, “Yalla, dinner!” If it foams, skim the foam, don’t be lazy.

Take out the chicken and keep the broth. That broth is your base, your inheritance, your argument with anyone who says this is “just soup.”

Step 2: The green drop

Add the molokhia to the hot broth.

If frozen, don’t fully melt it. Just drop it in and stir like you’ve done this before.

If fresh, make sure it’s chopped fine enough that you’re not chewing leaves like a salad gone wrong.

Lower the heat and cook on low, Molokhia does not like aggression. Hard boiling turns it bitter and stringy, we dont want that. We need to keep it calm.

Stir gently and watch it thicken into that famous texture people either love or pretend to hate until they go back for seconds.

Step 3: The garlic moment

Heat olive oil in a small pan, then add crushed garlic. Golden, not burnt.

Add coriander+ chili. The smell will travel through the house and suddenly everyone remembers they were hungry.

Pour the sizzling garlic into the molokhia. It should hiss, if it doesn’t hiss, you rushed it.

Stir once then turn off the heat.

Step 4: Serve

Rice in bowl+Molokhia on top. Chicken on the side or shredded in. Squeeze lemon like you mean it.

Eat (Sahteen) صحتين Say “I’m full” while taking more.

Final note والله

Whether you plucked every leaf by hand or opened a frozen bag like a responsible adult, molokhia is molokhia. It’s thick, it’s garlicky, it stains your spoon green, and it survives every border you cross.

صحة وهنا

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The first time I tried to read a Pentagon contract database, I thought I was doing it wrong. The page looked like a tax form designed by people who hate eyes. Rows of numbers, vendor cod…

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If you’re new here, welcome.

If you’ve been reading for a while, thank you for staying.

This space is called دَّفْتَر Daftar. In Arabic, the word refers to a bound record, something kept carefully and meant to be returned to. Entries are made in sequence, not to impress, but to account for what has happened. A daftar is used where continuity matters, where memory carries responsibility rather than nostalgia.

I’ve been following an investigation since late 2023, and I’m still following it now, across the region. It’s the kind of work that resists speed. Some stories only reveal themselves when you stay with them long enough, when you refuse the pressure to summarize before the truth has finished unfolding.

The writing here moves deliberately. The work is built over time because I work on features, not spot news. It isn’t designed to arrive first, but to arrive with depth. Sometimes it sits under embargo. I keep my copyrights, and I share the work when I can. If you’re looking for a list of publications or formal credentials, that information lives elsewhere, in my bio. What matters here is what happens after the world’s opinion has already failed to move the needle.

I write in Arabic first, where my thinking is most exact. What you read here is often my own English translation. Meaning shifts in the movement between languages, and I leave those shifts visible. Precision matters to me, but so does honesty about how words behave under pressure. I sound smarter in Arabic, so I’ve learned to plan accordingly.

I think a lot about time, because my family lives inside its consequences. They’re from Gaza. Most remain there. Others have been displaced to Egypt, Turkey, and Ireland, learning new streets while carrying old ones inside them. Displacement doesn’t end with geography. It shows up in paperwork, waiting rooms, and the slow administrative violence of being exiled.

Posts arrive on Sundays. That rhythm leaves space to sit with what’s written before it moves behind the paywall.

Sincerely,

Eman

- If questions surface as you read, you can leave them here.

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3:37 PM Dublin | 9:37 AM Louisiana

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The identity of the woman in the footage has not been independently verified, and she is not Nasra Ahmed, the Somali American U.S. citizen whose detention and injuries were reported in Minnesota. What matters, though, is not the name but the mechanics. This is what ICE enforcement looks like when it enters ordinary life, stripped of policy language, legal euphemisms, and courtroom distance.

And it doesn’t stop with adults.

In Minnesota this month, ICE agents detained a five-year-old child and his father as they arrived home from preschool. The child was taken along with his father and transferred hundreds of miles away, despite the family having an active immigration case and no criminal charges. School officials said agents used the child to pressure family members and described the impact as terrifying for students and parents alike. A superintendent asked the obvious question out loud, why is a five-year-old being detained.

This is not enforcement gone wrong. This is enforcement doing exactly what it is allowed to do.

What connects a woman cuffed on a sidewalk and a child used as a bait after preschool is not error or confusion. It is infrastructure, funding, contracts and a system designed to operate with impunity and without consequence.

ICE is not just an agency. It is an ecosystem.

If you want to boycott ICE, you boycott the companies that make this possible.

Who Profits From ICE

This is not theoretical. These companies are named because they make money from detention, surveillance, deportation, and the infrastructure that allows ICE to function at scale.

Private prison corporations

They are paid per detainee, per bed, per night, so detention is their business model.

• GEO Group

• CoreCivic

Surveillance and data technology

ICE does not “find” people by accident. It uses software to track, flag, and map lives long before an agent ever steps onto a sidewalk.

This is where Gaza enters the picture, not as metaphor, but as method.

The same surveillance logic used by ICE, mass data collection, predictive targeting, network mapping, was refined through decades of monitoring Palestinians under occupation. Gaza, in particular, has been treated as a testing ground for population control technologies, where entire communities are turned into data sets and risk profiles.

Palantir Technologies sits squarely in this pipeline. The company provides data analytics tools used by ICE, while openly aligning itself with military and security operations elsewhere. These systems are designed to do one thing well, collapse human life into coordinates, relationships, probabilities.

This is the digital infrastructure that comes before arrests, before raids, before cuffs.

What you see on a sidewalk in the U.S. is not separate from what has been normalized in Gaza. Borders are where these technologies are perfected. Other people’s lives are where they are stress-tested. Once proven effective, they travel.

Transport and enforcement contractors

Detention and deportation require logistics. Movement is outsourced and monetized.

• MVM, Inc.

This is how removal becomes a service.

Institutional investors

This system survives because it is profitable to capital.

• BlackRock

• Vanguard

• State Street

These firms sit at the center of it, financing ICE linked detention and surveillance while also investing heavily in weapons, defense, and tech companies tied to Israel’s war machine and the genocide in Gaza. The same capital moves through borders, prisons, and bombardment. Different sites, one system.

Fortune 500 companies with ICE contracts

Infrastructure, logistics, communications, consulting, and hardware.

• Amazon

• AT&T

• Booz Allen Hamilton

• CACI

• Charter Communications

• Comcast

• Dell

• Ecolab

• FedEx

• General Dynamics

• L3Harris

• Motorola

• Thermo Fisher Scientific

• UPS

If ICE relies on them to function, they are part of what must be boycotted.

What Boycotting Actually Looks Like

If you have a pension, a retirement account, or a workplace plan, your money is likely invested through firms that hold shares in detention, surveillance, and ICE contractors. You don’t need to understand finance to intervene here, you just need to ask: do you invest in GEO Group, CoreCivic, Palantir, or companies that contract with ICE, and if so, can I opt out or move my money. That question creates a record, and records matter.

Naming matters. These companies rely on staying invisible, and naming them calmly and consistently strips those contracts of cover.

If you work in tech, logistics, finance, or security, ask internally whether your tools or services support ICE or DHS. Many of these contracts survive simply because no one wants to look too closely at them.

Push institutions where you already have access, schools, nonprofits, religious institutions, unions, city councils. Institutions move money faster than individuals, and when they move, contracts get reviewed.

Boycotting ICE is not only about money. It also means refusing to normalize a system that depends on violence becoming routine. That includes denying ICE presence and partnerships in public and professional spaces, no recruitment, no panels, no legitimacy laundering, and refusing forgetfulness by documenting cases and returning to the same companies instead of chasing the next headline. Enforcement slows when cooperation dries up.

Another part of boycotting ICE is refusing the debate altogether. Not arguing whether they had grounds, not litigating paperwork, not entertaining the fiction that this is a good-faith institution. Denying ICE legitimacy means denying it access to “common sense.” You do not debate terror. You name it, isolate it, and withdraw cooperation.

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Now what?

A woman handcuffed on a sidewalk and a child detained after preschool are not anomalies or errors. They are the predictable outcomes of a system built to move quickly, operate without accountability, and treat human lives as manageable risks.

ICE does not need belief, debate, or the benefit of the doubt. It knows the harm it causes and continues because it is funded to do so.

What sustains this system is money, contracts, and corporate partnerships that allow violence to be administered as routine procedure.

Boycotts disrupt that flow. They make violence expensive, partnerships uncomfortable, and silence harder to maintain. They expose the machinery behind enforcement and force corporations to reckon with what they enable.

ICE is criminal, and so is the economy that sustains it. The companies that profit from this system rely on invisibility and public quiet to survive.

Silence is a choice and money is leverage.

May the money dry up before another body is taken, and may our refusal be louder than their force.

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Gaza City, al-Sabra neighborhood, January 20, 2026

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