A clear picture without the distraction of UK muddled news commentary and what passes for balance these days. Oxford Professor Avi Shlaim, an Arab Jew, lays out the Palestinian story with a clear account of the history behind this ongoing horror. #avishlaim #palestine @irishpages.bsky.social

“If one recognizes as I do that the root of the problem is the Jewish supremacist character of the state of Israel, it follows that ending the occupation is not enough; Israel, too, needs to be decolonized.” ~ Avi Shlaim irishpages.org/product/geno... @naamoduk.bsky.social @pscupdates.bsky.social

wow I loved Peter Hujar's Day on the big screen. I know it's a film about talking, but the light, body language and colours! A radical response to Last Tango in Paris?

Gorgeous hard back copy of this issue available here, everything Irish Pages produces is a work of art. irishpages.org/product-cate...

“Heaneyʼs prose brought new energy to contemporary critical writing on poetry: brilliantly accurate, it assumed that poetry was an indispensable part of culture, serving to bring current concerns to the fore and to recreate, in free play, the fabric of language.” ~ Helen Vendler

Peter Oborne in discussion with Aaron Bastani: the absence of people like Avi Shlaim and Ilan Pappe on the BBC is deliberate

“Our bewilderment about her past life gradually lessened as on occasions she began to speak more openly about her wartime experiences. Only when she began to choreograph did it finally make sense.” ~ Maddy Tongue, ‘Helen Lewis: Shadows Behind the Dance’ irishpages.org/product/hele...

Håbet for palæstinenserne kommer ikke fra de vestlige regeringer, men fra civilsamfundet, mener den kendte irakisk-israelske historiker Avi Shlaim. Han er ikke i tvivl om, at Israel har begået folkemord i Gaza.

Den israelske historiker Avi Shlaim: »Trumps fredsplan er klassisk kolonialisme« Håbet for palæstinenserne kommer ikke fra de vestlige regeringer, men fra civilsamfundet, mener den kendte irakisk-israelske histo... #democracy #usa #gop #fascists #fascism 👉 Vote 'em Out!

“Authentic peace is no more passive than war. Like war, it calls for discipline and intelligence, but it calls also for higher principles and aims. If we are serious about peace, then we must work for it as ardently and bravely as we have ever prepared for war.” ~ Wendell Berry (2002)

150 pages in and, in a surprise to nobody, this @markcousinsfilm.bsky.social book is proving to be a stimulating delight (and making me wonder why I hadn’t started it earlier). And I did listen to Sun Ra as I began it… 🤣❤️

My new year's resolution is to dance every day. Join me if you like

“What other wealth is there / than that which is drawn out by the dew: / scents of dogrose and wild raspberry?” ~ from Ben Dorain: a conversation with a mountain (by Garry MacKenzie) irishpages.org/product/ben-... @asls.org.uk @byleaveswelive.bsky.social

“I listen for peace, or the absence of war...” ~ Kerry Hardie (from our ‘Belfast Agreement’ commemorative issue) 🕊️ irishpages.org/product/the-... @irishlittimes.bsky.social

Professor Avi Shlaim #ApartheidState #Israel youtu.be/krOE1QOWziA

Summer reading suggestions: • Genocide in Gaza - Avi Shlaim newsouthbooks.com.au/books/genocide-in-gaza • World of War Crimes - Geoffrey Robertson penguin.com.au/books/world-of-war-crimes-9781761621598 #Israel #Palestine #GazaGenocide #HumanRights #WarCrimes #BookSky #EndTheOccupation #FreePalestine

Palestinian-British novelist Selma Dabbagh pays tribute to Avi Shlaim “as a person who has lived in three worlds — Iraqi, Israeli and British, with a Jewish religion and an Arab ethnicity.”

Years ago I watched film clips with Terence Stamp from his great career: Fellini, Pasolini, Priscilla, The Hit, Superman. He was elegant, reflective, generous, insightful. The conversation is back on the BBC www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/epis...

A beautiful poem by @kathleenjamie.bsky.social 🍃 We were delighted when she and Don Paterson agreed to co-edit our 'Scotland' issue earlier this year 📚 irishpages.org/product/vol-... @byleaveswelive.bsky.social @northseapoets.bsky.social @paperboatswriters.bsky.social

We were lucky enough to be able to publish Helen's reminiscences of Seamus Heaney in our tribute issue some years ago (now also available on our website): irishpages.org/second-thoug...

Anyone hoping to catch up on some podcast listening over the holiday season may like to check out this interview with Avi Shlaim for the 'From Ireland to Palestine' series 🕊️ www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdjN... Full info about his book, 'Genocide in Gaza', at: irishpages.org/product/geno...

Solstice II by Kathleen Jamie

“You are standing in a high, dim stone vault. There is a thick soundlessness, as in a recording studio, or a strongroom.” —Kathleen Jamie visits Maeshowe chambered cairn at midwinter, for the @lrb.co.uk, 2003 #midwinter #solstice #Orkney #archaeology #prehistory 1/5 www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v2...

Angus at midwinter or near as makes no odds – faint shadows raxed over fields of dour earth, every fairmer’s fenceposts splashed with gold. —Kathleen Jamie, “Solstice II” in SELECTED POEMS (Picador 2018 #poem #poetry #midwinter www.panmacmillan.com/authors/kath...

Wishing all our contributors, friends and supporters a safe and peaceful Christmas 📚 Pictured, an extract from the poem ‘Dúchas’ by Moya Cannon (included in our War in Europe issue) 🍃 irishpages.org/product/vol-... @irishlittimes.bsky.social @poetryireland.bsky.social @byleaveswelive.bsky.social

“Most days I think I’m split in two. A spirit yearning for the light And a body of delinquent appetites...” ~ from ‘St Symeon Stylites’ by James Harpur irishpages.org/product/dark...

We’ll be taking and processing pre-Christmas orders until close of business today! Check out our full selection of titles (including a vital range of contemporary Balkan fiction, in collaboration with Fraktura) at www.irishpages.org 📚 @irishlittimes.bsky.social

There’s still time to get your Christmas book-orders in! 📚 www.irishpages.org All orders over £18/€22 (excl. p&p) will also receive a free copy of ‘Phantom Gang’ by Ciarán O’Rourke 🌲 Recent poems by Ciarán can be read here: www.ragpickerpoetry.net/poetry/ragpi... @irishlittimes.bsky.social

Anyone looking for a Christmas present for the book-lover in their life may like to check out our online shop 📚 Spend over £18/€22/$32 (exc. shipping) before Dec 18th & you’ll also receive a free copy of Ciarán O’Rourke’s wonderful ‘Phantom Gang’ 🎄 www.irishpages.org @irishlittimes.bsky.social

“Perhaps we can embrace the Japanese philosophy of ‘wasi sabi’, discovering the beauty in the imperfect, the worn, the already used. This is as much a battle-cry for the persistence of craft as it is a Gregorian chant for behavioural change.” ~ Muireann Charleton irishpages.org/product/the-...

💥NEW EPISODE!💥 This special bonus episode Tim is joined by @markcousinsfilm.bsky.social to discuss the legacy of Orson Welles. Available from wherever you get your podcasts.

“and all the noise of the universe stills / to an oboe hum, the given note of a perfect / music…” ~ from ‘Canticle’ by John F. Deane💫 irishpages.org/product/dark... @irishlittimes.bsky.social @poetryireland.bsky.social

Delighted that @sundance.org will world premiere 1st chapter of The Story of Documentary Film, about non-fiction cinema from 1880s - 1929! 4 years in the making, shot around the world, we hope to world premiere the different eras of the film across 2026 fests. festival.sundance.org/program/film...

“... if you listen to the way a blues singer varies the rhythms of his lyrics across a steady four-to-the-bar guitar beat, it might come close to how these songs once sounded.” ~ Brian Holton 🍃 irishpages.org/product/aa-c... @byleaveswelive.bsky.social @iassl.bsky.social @asls.org.uk

“The Nazi dehumanization of the Jews was a major factor in paving the way for the death camps. Israeli demonization of the Palestinians is a similarly dangerous dynamic that can be used to justify the ethnic cleansing of Gaza.” ~ Avi Shlaim irishpages.org/product/geno... @naamoduk.bsky.social

“... life is unquestionably impoverished if you do away with bluebells, conkers, larks and other common words denoting nature and natural forces.” ~ Patricia Craig 🍃 irishpages.org/product/kilc...

Jafar Panahi's It Was Just An Accident probably cost less than the catering budget on bigger films, but outruns them in imagination. Dynamic yet modest, like a western or film noir. I could imagine James Stewart in the lead. Or John Garfield.

“The placename can be the incantation that turns a tract of space, a mere location, into a place… the totality of the world’s placenames constitutes humanity’s full address; if we knew it we would know where we are.” ~ Tim Robinson (2005) irishpages.org/product/the-...

“What, do we imagine, is the smell of the Braan? The water of the falls of the Braan must surely smell of schist and granite-gravel, peat and fish, alder, microbes and leaf-rot, earth, silage, moss and oxygen...” ~ ‘The Braan Salmon’ by Kathleen Jamie 🌊 irishpages.org/product/the-... @asls.org.uk

“The consumer is essentially somebody who feels or is made to feel lost unless he or she is consuming. Brand names and logos become the place names of the Nowhere.” ~ John Berger (2006) irishpages.org/product/the-...

Read poet Garry MacKenzie on his long poem Glacier: An Icebound View of the Firth of Forth, published by us here at Wind&Bones Books.

Pause a moment, and read... • Kathleen Jamie •

It was winter, near freezing, I’d walked through a forest of firs when I saw issue out of the waterfall a solitary bird… —Kathleen Jamie, “The Dipper” published in POETRY (June 2004) www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazi...

If you're in Edinburgh and interested in my films, I'm doing a talk about them tomorrow - 4th Dec: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/a-snapshot...

“If we are going to look for historical antecedents for this grossly unequal contest, it would make more sense to update the biblical image of David & Goliath: a Palestinian David facing an Israeli Goliath.” ~Avi Shlaim, ‘Israel & the Arrogance of Power’ (2015)

I've loved movies since childhood - 50 years. And now? More than ever.

“People are not numbers. We must ensure justice for all, regardless of who the victims are, their social position, the type & level of cruelty they’ve endured, & whether international organizations or media are interested in their case. We must return people their names.” ~ Oleksandra Matviichuk

If the questioning cry of the moorland curlew met no reply but the wind's cold sigh, what kind of poetry would you write? 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 Kathleen Jamie

“... which soon will shake / the mountains, like / the olive tree in leaf.” ~ from Ciarán O’Rourke’s ‘Phantom Gang’ 📚 irishpages.org/product/phan... With thanks to The Irish Centre for Poetry Studies.

‘reports from the human soul, from the depths of being – not factual dispatches such as would appear in newspapers, but “facts of art”, attesting to the truth of the human experience.’ - such a powerful and sad essay on art and war