[[link removed]]

MAHMOUD KHALIL’S LETTER FROM JAIL TO HIS SON  
[[link removed]]


 

Mahmoud Khalil
May 11, 2025
The Guardian
[[link removed]]


*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

_ To my newborn son: I am absent not out of apathy, but conviction.
Deen, the grief I feel being apart from you is one drop in a sea of
sorrow Palestinian families have drowned in for generations _

Mahmoud Khalil at the Columbia University protest encampment in New
York City on April 29, 2024., AP Photo/Ted Shaffrey

 

Yaba Deen,* it has been two weeks since you were born
[[link removed]],
and these are my first words to you.

In the early hours of 21 April, I waited on the other end of a phone
as your mother labored to bring you into this world. I listened to her
pained breaths and tried to speak comforting words into her ear over
the crackling line. During your first moments, I buried my face in my
arms and kept my voice low so that the 70 other men sleeping in this
concrete room would not see my cloudy eyes or hear my voice catch. I
feel suffocated by my rage and the cruelty of a system that deprived
your mother and me of sharing this experience. Why do faceless
politicians have the power to strip human beings of their divine
moments?

Since that morning, I have come to recognize the look in the eyes of
every father in this detention center. I sit here contemplating the
immensity of your birth and wonder how many more firsts will be
sacrificed to the whims of the US government, which denied me even the
chance of furlough to attend your birth. How is it that the same
politicians who preach “family values” are the ones tearing
families apart?

Deen, my heart aches that I could not hold you in my arms and hear
your first cry, that I could not unfurl your clenched fists or change
your first diaper. I am sorry that I was not there to hold your
mother’s hand or to recite the adhan, or call to prayer, in your
ear. But my absence is not unique. Like other Palestinian fathers, I
was separated from you by racist regimes and distant prisons. In
Palestine, this pain is part of daily life. Babies are born every day
without their fathers – not because their fathers chose to leave,
but because they are taken by war, by bombs, by prison cells and by
the cold machinery of occupation. The grief your mother and I feel is
but one drop in a sea of sorrow that Palestinian families have drowned
in for generations.

[Baby Deen, in a photo provided by Dr Noor Abdalla and Mahmoud
Khalil.]

Baby Deen, in a photo provided by Dr Noor Abdalla and Mahmoud
Khalil. Photograph: Rafiya Alam

Deen, it was not a gap in the law that made me a political prisoner in
Louisiana. It was my firm belief that our people deserve to be free,
that their lives are worth more than the televised massacre we are
witnessing in Gaza, and that the displacement that began in 1948 and
culminated in the current genocide must finally end. This mere belief
is what made the state scramble to detain me. No matter where I am
when you read this – whether I’m in this country or another – I
want to impress upon you one lesson:

The struggle for Palestinian liberation is not a burden; it is a duty
and an honor we carry with pride. So at every turning point in my
life, you will find me choosing Palestine. Palestine over ease.
Palestine over comfort. Palestine over self. This struggle is sweeter
than a life without dignity. The tyrants want us to submit, to obey,
to be perfect victims. But we are free, and we will remain free. I
hope you feel this as deeply as I do.

Deen, as a Palestinian refugee, I inherited a kind of exile that
followed me to every border, every airport, every form. Borders mean
something to me that they may not mean to you. Each crossing required
me to prove my docility, my identity and my very right to exist. You
were born an American citizen. You may never feel that weight. You may
never have to translate your humanity through paperwork, countless
visa applications and interview appointments. I hope you use this not
to separate yourself from others, but to uplift those who live under
the same circumstances that once constrained me. But I won’t pretend
this citizenship protects you. Not completely. Not when you have my
name. Not when those in power still see our people as threats.

One day, you might ask why people are punished for standing up for
Palestine, why truth and compassion feel dangerous to power. These are
hard questions, but I hope our story shows you this: the world needs
more courage, not less. It needs people who choose justice over
convenience.

It is nothing but the dehumanization and racist disregard for
Palestinians that renders their lives forgettable and that dares
describe Palestinian fathers who love their sons as “terrorists”.
Perhaps that is why the world so quickly forgot the killing of
four-month-old Iman Hijjo
[[link removed]] in Gaza in
2001. Why did Ahmed Abu Artema
[[link removed]]’s beloved
son Abdullah die hungry for bread? Who recalls the children lost in
the Flour Massacre
[[link removed]]?
Where is the justice for the fathers in the West Bank who carefully
dress their sons for prison? Why does liberty not visit the bodies of
Palestinian children whose limbs are missing, whose ribs are exposed
under thin skin and who are born lovingly only to die under an Israeli
bomb?

On this first Mother’s Day for Noor
[[link removed]],
I dream of a world where all families are reunited to celebrate the
incredible women in their lives. Many years ago, on one of our very
first dates, I had asked your mother what she would change in the
world if she could. Her simple response was: “I just want people to
be nicer to each other.” Deen, you were born to a mother as gentle
as she is fierce. I pray that you live in a world shaped by that
kindness. I hope, with all my heart, that you will not witness the
oppression that I’ve known. I hope that you never need to chant for
Palestine, because it has long been free with dignity and prosperity
for all. Should that day come, know that it was ushered in through the
courage of those who came before you. I am certain that in this new
world, you and I will visit Tiberias together, drink from the river
and marvel at the sea. There, in a free and just Palestine, you will
see the fruits of our struggle.

Deen, my love for you is deeper than anything I have ever known.
Loving you is not separate from the struggle for liberation. It is
liberation itself. I fight for you, and for every Palestinian child
whose life deserves safety, tenderness and freedom. I hope one day you
will stand tall knowing your father was not absent out of apathy, but
out of conviction. And I will spend my life making up for the moments
we lost – starting with this one, writing to you with all the love
in my heart.

_*Yaba Deen: “Yaba” (يابا ) is an affectionate term meaning
“dad” in Arabic. In Palestinian Arabic, yaba is often used
self-referentially to center the father-son bond in the greeting
itself. So when a father says “__yaba”, he’s using a tender,
fatherly voice to address his child, somewhat like saying: “From
your dad, Deen” or “My son, from your __yaba (dad)__”._

* Mahmoud Khalil
[[link removed]]
* Letter from Jail
[[link removed]]

*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

 

 

 

INTERPRET THE WORLD AND CHANGE IT

 

 

Submit via web
[[link removed]]

Submit via email
Frequently asked questions
[[link removed]]
Manage subscription
[[link removed]]
Visit xxxxxx.org
[[link removed]]

Twitter [[link removed]]

Facebook [[link removed]]

 




[link removed]

To unsubscribe, click the following link:
[link removed]