Hello, and happy Friday!
It’s officially been one month since I joined Reuters as digital features editor, in what has been my first foray out of the magazine world and into a 174-year-old news agency made up of more than 2,000 journalists across the globe.
Needless to say, it’s been a big change—but an incredibly exciting one too! I’m really looking forward to sharing some of the cool projects we have in the works with you all soon.
But in the meantime, I want to talk about Mo.
This week, I finished Netflix’s second, and reportedly final, season of the semi-autobiographical series starring Palestinian-American comic Mo Amer. If you haven’t seen the show, I would highly recommend making some time for it—not just because it’s genuinely hilarious, but because it offers a rare portrayal of Palestinian-American life at the timeliest of moments.
The new season premiered less than two weeks after the Gaza ceasefire went into effect, marking a much-needed reprieve for those who have survived 15 months of near-constant bombardment. For some viewers, watching Mo and its depiction of the generational trauma experienced by many Palestinians across the diaspora (some of whom are old enough to remember the Nakba, or catastrophe, that led to their mass displacement in 1948) would have neatly coincided with President Donald Trump’s recent proposal that Gaza’s 2 million Palestinians should be resettled outside of the enclave, which in turn could be transformed into a “Riviera of the Middle East” or, as The Atlantic dubbed it, “Gaz-a-Lago.”
Longtime readers of this correspondence will understand why this idea is such a nonstarter for the people of Gaza and the wider region, to say nothing of international law. As I wrote in this piece for TIME in 2023, permanent displacement from their homeland is a perennial fear for Palestinians. A “relocation,” even if temporary, would be seen as history repeating itself.
But back to Mo. What I most appreciate about the show is how it celebrates Palestinian culture and identity as something greater than the hardship and suffering that so many typically associate with it.
“We’re more than our pain and suffering, Mom,” Mo’s sister Nadia (portrayed by Cherien Dabis) says in one scene as she pleads with their mother Yusra (played by Farah Bsaiso) to stop obsessing over the news coming out of the Israeli-occupied West Bank. “You wouldn’t know that watching this news.”
This show, in its own brilliant way, shows just how much more. In one of my favorite scenes, Mo and his family are participating in the olive harvest with their relatives in the West Bank while singing traditional Palestinian folk songs. In another, Yusra is seen scolding Mo (as Palestinian mothers are wont to do) while in the same breath encouraging him to eat more of his favorite bamya, a traditional okra stew.
In one of the most moving scenes, she tells a tearful Mo: “The world will always try to tear us down. And when they do, we smile. Because we know who we are.”
And thanks to Mo, I think a lot more people have a better idea of who Palestinians are too. If you do end up watching the show, hit ‘reply’ and let me know what you thought of it.
What I’ve worked on
In my role as digital features editor, one of the projects I’m working on is called City Memo, a weekend feature that gives readers an insider’s look at cities from around the world where Reuters journalists work. Last week’s City Memo took us to Taipei, with its authentic Burmese biryanis and thriving arts scene. You can find more cities in our archive.
What I’ve read
This essay on the desperate struggle by Palestinian engineers to repair a water system destroyed by the war in Gaza:
As an administrator—until recently, the head of the Gaza Program Coordination Unit of the Palestinian Water Authority—Bardawil has for 30 years had one main focus: the water system of the Gaza Strip. In cities around the world, an intricate lattice of pipes connects homes, businesses, and public facilities to sophisticated systems that deliver clean water and take away dirty water. Turn on a tap, and water flows. Flush a toilet, and water disappears. All of this is at once an engineering feat and a mundane luxury. But it was always precarious for the 2.2 million people crowded into Gaza’s 140 square miles. Now, after 15 months of war between Hamas and Israel, the water system in Gaza has gone from hardscrabble and tenuous to virtually nonexistent.
This piece on the state of Hamas, beyond the latest bravado and brutality:
Hamas is rushing to reassert control over the territory it has ruled since 2007. Its leaders are exuberant—at least in public.
In private, they are arguing bitterly. The war has deepened a longtime struggle between the group’s political and military leaders and has saddled it with enormous challenges. Gaza is in ruins; reconstruction will need tens of billions of dollars in aid. Israel is unlikely to treat Hamas with the same forbearance as it did before the October 7th massacre. The group has never been in such a fraught situation.
This investigation into how the Israeli military targeted Gaza’s underground tunnels, to devastating effect:
The investigation, based on conversations with 15 Israeli Military Intelligence and Shin Bet officers who have been involved in tunnel-targeting operations since October 7, exposes how this strategy aimed to compensate for the army’s inability to pinpoint targets in Hamas’ subterranean tunnel network. When targeting senior commanders in the group, the Israeli military authorized the killing of “triple-digit numbers” of Palestinian civilians as “collateral damage,” and maintained close real-time coordination with U.S. officials regarding the expected casualty figures.
What I’m thinking about
How the British opposition leader Kemi Badenoch, in an apparent bid to showcase her Conservative Party’s continued hardline on immigration, suggested that the length of time immigrants to the country wait for citizenship should be more than doubled, from 6 years to 15.
What I often think is missing from these kinds of policy discussions is just how difficult it already is for people to become British. It’s drawn out, it’s bureaucratic, it’s expensive. It requires passing a citizenship exam that, despite their penchant for pub quizzes, most Brits would fail.
I’m not sure what extending the timeframe does to benefit Britain, or those who are already going through so much trouble and expense to be a part of it. Perhaps that’s what’s really worth discussing.
Until next time,
Yasmeen