This article provides a concise analysis of the root cause of the violence that erupted in Amsterdam, Netherlands, leading up to and in the aftermath of a soccer match between Ajax, a Dutch team, and Maccabi Tel Aviv, an Israeli club, on November 7, 2024.
“For three and a half weeks, Israeli forces have been besieging the northern Gaza Strip. Israel has almost completely blocked the entry of humanitarian aid, thereby starving the hundreds of thousands of people who live there.” That’s how the lead editorial in the October 29, 2024, Israeli daily Haaretz begins. “Given this, it’s no wonder that grave suspicions have arisen that Israel is effectively perpetrating ethnic cleansing in northern Gaza and that this operation is intended to permanently empty this area of Palestinians,” it continues, giving an accurate description of the latest stage in Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.
This article was authored by Bashir Abu-Manneh, who teaches in the School of Classics, English, and History at the University of Kent, in Kent, United Kingdom. Abu-Manneh addresses issues on strategy and tactics that are of vital importance to those working to end Israeli aggression and in support of the rights of the Palestinian people.
Just over a year since the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led attacks, the war launched on Gaza by Israel in response is unrelenting: more than 43,000 Palestinians have been killed, over 100,000 injured, nearly all of Gaza’s entire prewar population of 2.3 million has been displaced, and much of the territory reduced to rubble. Most Gazans blame Israel for this devastation. But a growing number also blame the leadership of Hamas for giving Israeli authorities the opening to unleash this onslaught. In addition, some Gazans point to the often-brutal punishment Hamas metes out to Palestinians who voice any criticism of the organization. Such opinions are expressed in this column written by a Palestinian in northern Gaza, and corroborated by other similar reports.
This is the second part of an interview with Rashid Khalidi, the Palestinian American author of “The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine.” In the interview, Khalidi discusses two key points — among other important ideas. The first concerns the U.S. role in enabling Israel’s brutal war in the region that has now spread far beyond the Gaza Strip. The second is about the state of the Palestinian national movement.
In this interview, Rashid Khalidi, the Palestinian American author of “The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine,” discusses two key points — among other important ideas. The first concerns the U.S. role in enabling Israel’s brutal war in the region that has now spread far beyond the Gaza Strip. The second is about the state of the Palestinian national movement.
On October 1, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) invaded Lebanon, the fourth time Israel has done so since 1978. The ground invasion followed a brazen Israeli escalation: exploding personal electronic devices, intense airstrikes, and the assassination of an array of Hezbollah leaders, including the group’s general secretary Hassan Nasrallah. Hours after the invasion of Lebanon, Iran launched 181 ballistic missiles at Israel, escalating the shadow war between the two countries. These events have posed the genuine danger of an even wider regional war that could spread beyond the Middle East.
This article was first published on August 6, 2024, by +972 Magazine, “an independent, online, nonprofit magazine run by a group of Palestinian and Israeli journalists,” as its website says. The author, Mahmoud Mushtaha, is a Palestinian journalist from Gaza who was forced to flee his home and now resides in Cairo, Egypt. Mushtaha is also affiliated with We Are Not Numbers (WANN), “a youth-led Palestinian nonprofit project in the Gaza Strip,” per the organization’s website, which also says that WANN “tells the stories behind the numbers of Palestinians in the news and advocates for their human rights.”
“Sexual-Abuse Case Rocking Israel’s Military Broke After Doctors Sounded Alarm” read a front-page headline in the August 6 Wall Street Journal. “Wounds to alleged Palestinian victim were so severe they needed surgery, triggering Israel’s rare decision to investigate their own reservists,” the subhead continued. As appalling as this incident is, it is only one of many now coming into public view. This post includes an article from the Israeli daily Haaretz: “Torture, Sexual Abuse and Humiliation |Dozens of Testimonies From Palestinian Prisoners Describe Conditions in Israeli Jails During Gaza war.”
This is the last part of an article that appeared in the June 20, 2024, issue of the London Review of Books (LRB), a magazine based in the United Kingdom. Its author is Adam Shatz, LRB’s U.S. editor. Shatz’s essay begins with a list of recently published books that discuss Israel, Palestine, and Zionism. In reviewing those books, Shatz raises important issues that deserve further discussion in light of the gruesome October 7 attack led by Hamas that targeted civilians in Israel, the genocidal war Israel unleashed in retaliation on the entire population of Gaza, and a new wave of violence by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and Zionist settlers against Palestinians in the West Bank.
This is the second part of an article that appeared in the June 20, 2024, issue of the London Review of Books (LRB), a magazine based in the United Kingdom. Its author is Adam Shatz, LRB’s U.S. editor. Shatz’s essay begins with a list of recently published books that discuss Israel, Palestine, and Zionism. In reviewing those books, Shatz raises important issues that deserve further discussion in light of the gruesome October 7 attack led by Hamas that targeted civilians in Israel, the genocidal war Israel unleashed in retaliation on the entire population of Gaza, and a new wave of violence by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and Zionist settlers against Palestinians in the West Bank.
This is the first part of an article that appeared in the June 20, 2024, issue of the London Review of Books (LRB), a magazine based in the United Kingdom. Its author is Adam Shatz, LRB’s U.S. editor. Shatz’s essay begins with a list of recently published books that discuss Israel, Palestine, and Zionism. In reviewing those books, Shatz raises important issues that deserve further discussion in light of the gruesome October 7 attack led by Hamas that targeted civilians in Israel, the genocidal war Israel unleashed in retaliation on the entire population of Gaza, and a new wave of violence by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and Zionist settlers against Palestinians in the West Bank.
After months of U.S. opposition to a ceasefire in the war on Gaza, the United Nations (UN) Security Council adopted a U.S.-sponsored ceasefire plan in a near-unanimous vote on June 10. Yet no end to the war is in sight. Israel’s relentless assault grinds on. The number of Palestinians killed in Gaza has passed 37,000 with over 85,000 wounded. On June 12, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, head of the World Health Organization, warned, “A significant proportion of Gaza’s population is now facing catastrophic hunger and famine-like conditions.”
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are fleeing Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city, as Israel steps up its bombardment and threatens an imminent, even more massive invasion.Meanwhile, opposition to Israel’s genocidal war continues to grow. It includes encampments and other protests by students on campuses across the United States. Many of these student actions have been violently suppressed by the police on the request of university authorities. Faculty members and others across the country have issued statements condemning this crackdown and defending the students’ right to free speech. They include a statement by the Academic Advisory Council of Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), “An Open Call to Fellow Jewish Academics,” which World-Outlook is sharing in this post.
HAVANA, Cuba — Keffiyehs and Palestinian flags were among the most visible symbols as Cuban workers began massing at 4:30 a.m. on May 1 for the 200,000-strong rally hosted by the five municipalities closest to the U.S. embassy here. It was one of several May Day rallies in Cuba’s capital. Ten other mass gatherings took place in Havana alone. More than 4 million Cubans celebrated May Day — the international workers’ holiday — in avenues, town centers, and plazas across the island. They gathered within walking distance of their homes and workplaces instead of joining a single, massive march in each city, in order to save fuel, which is in short supply due to the ever-tightening U.S. blockade.
An important and increasingly sharp debate is taking place today on what is antisemitism, or to use a more accurate term — Jew hatred. The Statement from Concerned Jewish Faculty Against Antisemitism we are publishing below, now signed by more than 1,000 Jewish faculty members across the United States, is a welcome and important contribution to this debate.
Palestinian American Rashid Khalidi is the Edward Said Professor of Modern Arab Studies at Columbia University. He is also the author of “The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine” and other books. In this interview, he explains the causes of the current war in Gaza and outlines his views on how the conflict in Israel and Palestine can be resolved. He also answers the smears of “antisemitism” leveled against the student protests demanding a ceasefire in Gaza.
Iran’s theocracy took power through a counter-revolution in the 1980s. The clerics crushed the independent struggle of Iranian workers and peasants who had carried out a popular uprising in 1979. That social revolution had reverberated across the region and the world. The mobilization of working people toppled the U.S.-backed monarchy of the shah — a brutal and hated regime. Since it tamed the mass struggle, the theocracy has held on to power through periodic brutal crackdowns on any expression of opposition to the Islamist regime. This article sketches the origins of this regime that underlie its current trajectory, including the damage it has inflicted on the Palestinian struggle.
Iran and Israel traded direct airstrikes on each other’s territory, for the first time, in a confrontation in April that raised the danger of a full-blown regional war. Both governments, however, stepped back from the brink after Israel chose to launch a limited strike in response to Iran’s large but ineffective rocket barrage aimed at Israel. Having avoided further direct military conflict, both countries returned to their long-running shadow war, in which Iran’s strategy is to arm and direct allied militias such as Hezbollah. These developments also shed light on Tehran’s pretentious “support” for the Palestinian liberation struggle. The clerical regime uses such posturing to prop up its dictatorial hold on power in Iran and its reactionary reach through proxy armies across the Mideast. Many Palestinians in the occupied territories, as well as working people and others in Iran, are beginning to see through such grandstanding and now openly oppose it.
This statement appeared today on the Substack page Zeteo. The author is Johnathan Ben-Menachem, a graduate student at Columbia University and a participant in the recent protests on that campus. The ongoing student actions oppose Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza and demand that Columbia “Divest all finances, including the endowment, from corporations that profit from Israeli apartheid, genocide, and occupation in Palestine.”
This article is based on interviews with Palestinians in Gaza, describing attitudes of Gazans toward Hamas.
Graça Machel published this appeal on April 4, 2024, in Project Syndicate (PS), a magazine in South Africa. Machel is a member of the Elders, “the group of independent global leaders that I co-founded with my late husband, Nelson Mandela,” as she explains. She is also the founder of the Graça Machel Trust, a women’s rights organization based in Johannesburg, South Africa. Machel was born in Mozambique. She is the widow of Mozambique’s former President Samora Machel (1975–1986) and South Africa’s former President Nelson Mandela (1998–2013).
In early March, Pramila Patten, United Nations Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict (SRSG-SVC), issued a report on the Official visit of the Office of the SRSG-SVC to Israel and the occupied West Bank. The report concluded that “there are reasonable grounds to believe that conflict-related sexual violence occurred at several locations across the Gaza periphery, including in the form of rape and gang rape, during the 7 October 2023 attacks.” It also stated: “The mission team was unable to establish the prevalence of sexual violence and concludes that the overall magnitude, scope, and specific attribution of these violations would require a fully-fledged investigation.”
The March/April issue of Against the Current features the essay by Alan Wald “Frantz Fanon and the Paradox of Anticolonial Violence.” World-Outlook is reposting Wald’s essay with the author’s permission. Our views are not identical to all of those expressed in it. But we believe the main issues Wald raises deserve further discussion in light of the gruesome October 7 attack led by Hamas that targeted civilians in Israel and the genocidal war Israel unleashed in retaliation on the entire population of Gaza. This is the second of two parts.
The March/April issue of Against the Current features the essay by Alan Wald “Frantz Fanon and the Paradox of Anticolonial Violence.” World-Outlook is reposting Wald’s essay with the author’s permission. Our views are not identical to all of those expressed in it. But we believe the main issues Wald raises deserve further discussion in light of the gruesome October 7 attack led by Hamas that targeted civilians in Israel and the genocidal war Israel unleashed in retaliation on the entire population of Gaza. This is the first of two parts.
It is an old axiom that the truth is a casualty of war. This article details how Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza, enabled by the U.S. government, confirms this day after day.
his article appeared in the Israeli daily Ha’aretz. It reports on an antiwar action organized by the group “Standing Together.” Made up of Palestinians, Jews, and others, this organization is among the most prominent in Israel campaigning to end the war on Gaza and calling for a ceasefire and an end to the occupation of Palestinian territories. Amidst Israel’s genocidal war and catastrophic conditions of famine spreading in Gaza, this action is an important example of solidarity with the victims of the assault.
On February 28, The Intercept published the article we are sharing in this post, “‘Between the Hammer and the Anvil’ – The Story Behind the New York Times October 7 Exposé.” In detailed reporting, The Intercept revealed that the December 28, 2023, Times story, “‘Screams Without Words’: How Hamas Weaponized Sexual Violence on Oct. 7,” was based on faulty reporting and intended to support the political viewpoint of the Times’ editors.
In the face of ever-growing world condemnation of Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza, a new massacre unfolded February 29, resulting in the deaths of 104 Palestinians and injuries to more than 700 others. Each day the humanitarian crisis created by Israel’s relentless assault grows more dire. This was captured in a February 29 New York Times essay, excerpts of which are included in this post. The article also includes a Jewish Currents report featuring interviews with three displaced Palestinians in Rafah who “describe unlivable conditions in a city bracing for imminent Israeli invasion.”
This open letter was initiated by U.S.-based anti-Zionist Jewish feminists. It has since gained support across the United States and internationally. As its preamble notes, the signatories “believe we have a particular responsibility to speak out in support of Palestinian rights and against the current genocide.”It also states clearly, “We support the investigation initiated by the highly-qualified members of the U.N. Commission of Inquiry into the entire range of war crimes committed during both the October 7 Hamas attack and the Israeli state’s subsequent assault on Gaza.” The letter is a response to efforts to discredit supporters of women’s rights who speak out against rape but also oppose Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza.
In the wake of the October 7 Hamas-led attack and Israel’s brutal retaliatory invasion of Gaza, new challenges have been raised to the right to free speech. Across the United States, restrictions on the democratic right to express one’s views on the conflict in the Middle East center today on college campuses. But precedents set there will be extended, with dangerous consequences for free speech, if they are not answered and opposed.
On February 7, 2024, a significant group of Israel-based civil society and human rights organizations issued this statement calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.
PPalestinian members of the national leadership of Standing Together released this statement on the social media platform X on January 30, 2024. Standing Together is one of the most prominent organizations in Israel — made up of Jews, Palestinians, and others — campaigning against Israel’s war on Gaza, calling for a ceasefire and an end to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories. The statement was issued in response to a January 25 statement by the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI), a group affiliated with the Boycott, Divest, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel. PACBI accused Standing Together of “serving apartheid Israel’s propaganda.” The Palestinian leaders of Standing Together vigorously oppose PACBI’s charges.
This article, originally published in the Israeli daily Ha’aretz, reports on a debate among those who oppose the decades-long Zionist occupation of Palestinian territories and Israel’s current genocidal war on Gaza, launched in response to the gruesome October 7 attack led by Hamas. It refers to the Boycott, Divest, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel. One of the organizations affiliated to this international effort, the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI), issued a statement on January 25, titled “Standing Together: Serving Apartheid Israel’s Propaganda.” The statement attacked Standing Together, the most prominent organization in Israel — made up of Jews, Palestinians, and others — that has been campaigning against Israel’s war on Gaza, and calling for a ceasefire and an end to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories. The Ha’aretz piece reports on Standing Together’s response.
This article, which first appeared in the Israeli daily Ha’aretz, reports on the activities and growth of Standing Together. This is an organization in Israel that includes Jews, Palestinians, and others who are campaigning against the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories and the current assault on Gaza.
Does the victory in overthrowing the racist apartheid system in South Africa hold valuable lessons for the Palestinian national liberation struggle, and more broadly, today? This discussion with our readers column takes up this question.
This is a discussion with our readers column on the Palestinian national liberation struggle and lessons from the movement to overthrow the racist apartheid regime in South Africa.
This is an article originally published in the January 18, 2024, edition of the Israeli daily Ha’aretz. It reports on an important action that day in Israel’s capital, Tel Aviv, calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. The Israeli government launched its war on Gaza with substantial domestic popular support. The war is coupled with extreme Zionist rhetoric, police and mob attacks on many of those who dare to question any aspect of Tel Aviv’s conduct of the war, and a crackdown on the democratic rights of Palestinian citizens of Israel that includes arbitrary firings and indiscriminate arrests. Under these conditions, public protests involving Israeli Jews and Palestinians calling for a ceasefire, and an end to the war or Israel’s brutal military occupation of millions of Palestinians are rare. But they offer a much-needed glimpse of hope for the future.
This is a review of “Farha,” a 2021 film written and directed by Darin J. Sallam, a Jordanian of Palestinian descent; 92 min., in Arabic & Hebrew with subtitles, available to stream on Netflix. “Everyone needs to see ‘Farha,’ because it is… my story, it is the Palestinian story,” Leila Giries told CNN. Giries is an 82-year-old Palestinian refugee who survived the 1947-48 Arab-Israeli war, which resulted in the creation of Israel as a colonial-settler state. “Farha” is based on actual events. It is inspired by the story of a young Palestinian girl and the violence she witnessed during the 1948 war, when about 750,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled from their homes by armed Zionist groups in what Palestinians have since called the Nakba or “catastrophe.” It is also a movie Israel tried unsuccessfully to censor.
This is a Discussion with Readers column on the character of the October 7 attack on Israel led by Hamas. “I’ve noticed that you keep referring to the Hamas Oct 7 attack as ‘gruesome,’” Meryl Lynn Lombardi wrote. “Why would this be needed in the face of the over 18,000 murdered Palestinians, nothing but genocide and ethnic cleansing. And the wholesale destruction of Gaza.” World-Outlook’s editors explain why they do not think that the attack by Hamas has become less gruesome because Israel — with its exponentially greater military power — has outdone Hamas in barbarity.
This is a Discussion with Readers column on the views of Marxist scholar Isaac Detutscher on Jew hatred and the Palestinian national liberation struggle.
In June 1967, following the “Six-Day War” with several Arab countries, Israel emerged victorious. It captured large areas, including Gaza, the West Bank, and two-thirds of the Golan Heights — territories it continues to occupy decades later. At the time, New Left Review — a political journal based in London — conducted an interview with Marxist scholar Isaac Deutscher. Originally titled “On the Israeli-Arab War,” the interview is being republished today by World Outlook. Even though the interview took place more than 50 years ago, many of Deutscher’s insights remain timely and of striking political value in light of the ongoing murderous Israeli assault on Gaza in response to the gruesome October 7 attack by Hamas. This is the last of four installments.
In June 1967, following the “Six-Day War” with several Arab countries, Israel emerged victorious. It captured large areas, including Gaza, the West Bank, and two-thirds of the Golan Heights — territories it continues to occupy decades later. At the time, New Left Review — a political journal based in London — conducted an interview with Marxist scholar Isaac Deutscher. Originally titled “On the Israeli-Arab War,” the interview is being republished today by World Outlook. Even though the interview took place more than 50 years ago, many of Deutscher’s insights remain timely and of striking political value in light of the ongoing murderous Israeli assault on Gaza in response to the gruesome October 7 attack by Hamas. This is the third of four parts.
In June 1967, following the “Six-Day War” with several Arab countries, Israel emerged victorious. It captured large areas, including Gaza, the West Bank, and two-thirds of the Golan Heights — territories it continues to occupy decades later. At the time, New Left Review — a political journal based in London — conducted an interview with Marxist scholar Isaac Deutscher. Originally titled “On the Israeli-Arab War,” the interview is being republished today by World Outlook. Even though the interview took place more than 50 years ago, many of Deutscher’s insights remain timely and of striking political value in light of the ongoing murderous Israeli assault on Gaza in response to the gruesome October 7 attack by Hamas. This is the second of four parts.
In June 1967, following the “Six-Day War” with several Arab countries, Israel emerged victorious. It captured large areas, including Gaza, the West Bank, and two-thirds of the Golan Heights — territories it continues to occupy decades later. At the time, New Left Review — a political journal based in London — conducted an interview with Marxist scholar Isaac Deutscher. Originally titled “On the Israeli-Arab War,” the interview is being republished today by World Outlook. Even though the interview took place more than 50 years ago, many of Deutscher’s insights remain timely and of striking political value in light of the ongoing murderous Israeli assault on Gaza in response to the gruesome October 7 attack by Hamas. This is the first of four parts.
It was a sober marking of Hanukkah Thursday night, December 7, as close to 1,000 Jews and our allies stood in the dark and cold to demand a ceasefire in Gaza on the first night of the holiday. Filling Columbus Circle, on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, participants held menorahs, candles and “Let Gaza Live” signs. We surrounded a giant menorah, 14 feet high, configured with the letters “CEASEFIRE” burning from the nine candles.
This is the second of a two-part essay that appears in the January/February 2024 edition of Against the Current. The author, Alan Wald, is an editor of that publication and a member of the Academic Advisory Council of Jewish Voice for Peace since 2016. Wald begins his essay as a review of the recently published book “A Day in the Life of Abed Salama: Anatomy of a Jerusalem Tragedy” by Nathan Thrall. From that starting point, he addresses some of the most urgent political issues arising from Israel’s increasingly genocidal assault on Gaza in response to the gruesome October 7 attack led by Hamas. Wald’s article will be of interest to anyone opposed to the current horror unfolding each day in Gaza as well as those interested in learning more about the history of the issues posed today.
This is the first of a two-part essay that appears in the January/February 2024 edition of Against the Current. The author, Alan Wald, is an editor of that publication and a member of the Academic Advisory Council of Jewish Voice for Peace since 2016. Wald begins his essay as a review of the recently published book “A Day in the Life of Abed Salama: Anatomy of a Jerusalem Tragedy” by Nathan Thrall. From that starting point, he addresses some of the most urgent political issues arising from Israel’s increasingly genocidal assault on Gaza in response to the gruesome October 7 attack led by Hamas. Wald’s article will be of interest to anyone opposed to the current horror unfolding each day in Gaza as well as those interested in learning more about the history of the issues posed today.
This is an exchange between Karen Lee Wald and Pete Seidman. Wald is a long-time Cuba solidarity activist in the United States; she publishes the “Cuba Inside Out” newsletter. Seidman is a member of the Miami Coalition to End the U.S. Blockade of Cuba. The discussion touches on important questions related to the Palestinian national liberation struggle. These issues are being debated by many today, as Israel is carrying out an increasingly genocidal war on Gaza in response to the October 7 atrocious attack by Hamas.
This is the last of a three-part series. The first detailed how Israel is carrying out a mass dispossession of Palestinians in Gaza — like the 1948 “Nakba,” or catastrophe, that led to Israel’s founding as a colonial settler state. The second documented how long-standing Israeli government policy made possible the the October 7 pogrom by Hamas. This concluding part focuses on what may be a way out of these dire conditions.