The Texan from Gaza Does Yoga in Prison

By: Noor Elashi

Narrated by: Luci Christian

The author spends two days with her father in “Guantánamo North”—the federal government’s Communication Management Unit, in Marion, Illinois, where Ghassan Elashi is a sixty-five year sentence received as part of the most extensive terror-funding case in U.S. history. McSweeney's is a literary journal based in San Francisco.©2013 Noor Elashi (P)2017 Audible, Inc.

The dehumanizing treatment of Palestinian people did not just start in 2024,

I found this little mini-story by accident. It was written in 2017, and at that time I was completely unaware of the struggle of just being Palestinian. Our legacy media in the US controlled the narrative of who is the oppressor and who is the oppressed. During COVID-19, I was spending more time at home, and it happened upon the escalation between Gaza and Israel. As I watched one video on YouTube I decided I needed to learn more about what was at the core. So I started to dig in with credibly sourced books and documentaries trying to get an informed idea from both perspectives. Once you see, you can never look away again. I still struggle to this day with knowing we are no better than Josef Goebbels in 1940s Germany, with the dissemination of propaganda. I truly believed we lived in a country where, even though I know politicians lie and stretch the truth, I never thought we'd outright lie and teach false truths. To this day I remember as a child seeing the soldiers in green in the Gaza strip and being terrified after hearing the news about them. It was only they wanted to kill Israelis just because they were Jewish. I can't imagine how bad it must feel to have a boot on your throat while the boot wearer cries that the person suffocating MADE THEM have to do such a thing. Once you know, you can't turn away.. Now, in 2025, the same treatment is. In fact, just protesting that we don't want OUR tax dollars to fund and defend a country that shoots five year old girls and the ambulance drivers that came to rescue Hind Rajab. They are deporting people who protest now. When did we lose our first Ammendment rights for the feelings of a foreign country?! It's outrageous. I don't know if the author will see this but a tact for your father's defense might be to have the court look at the Israeli government and Netanyahu giving Cash payments to the Qatari government to give to Hamas. His security senior leadership and Shin Bet warned him against such a tactic. They warned him it was dangerous and they blamed him for strengthening Hamas military with those funds so they could prepare and attack those poor people as they did on Oct 7. Your father was donating to help PEOPLE in Gaza, Netanyahu was actually PAYING their sworn enemy Hamas. Read up on Qatari Gate and the Bibi Leaks. Senior aides are arrested over it and Netanyahu is all tangled up in it
Netanyahu is the one that should be in jail, not your father. Bless your family and I pray for his safety and well being. This is an absolute injustice. Regarding the story, I loved everything but the end. It kind of just dropped off.