Tag: Israel

Labor Leaders, Jewish Groups Defend U. of Michigan Professor’s Pro-Palestinian Remarks

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At the University of Michigan May 2, 2026, commencement ceremony, history professor Derek Peterson delivered a short speech in which he celebrated many of those who have fought for social justice at the school. At the end of his remarks, Peterson also praised the “pro-Palestinian student activists, who have over these past two years opened our hearts to the injustice and inhumanity of Israel’s war in Gaza.” The backlash was swift. U of M president Domenico Grasso apologized for Peterson’s remarks, and the speech was condemned by pro-Israel Jewish organizations and outlets. But leaders of the American Association of University Professors and American Federation of Teachers, as well as other academics and Jewish groups, quickly spoke out in defense of Peterson. Four of these responses are published in this post.

‘I Discovered Anti-Zionism at the University of Michigan. I’m Glad It Lives on There’

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“At the University of Michigan’s recent commencement ceremony, history professor Derek Peterson delivered a five-minute speech in which he celebrated all those who have fought for justice at the university, my alma mater,” wrote Gayle Kirshenbaum in the May 8 issue of Forward, a “Jewish, independent, non-profit,” as it is self-described. “Invoking our legendary sports-focused fight song, he asked the crowd to ‘sing’ for suffragist Sarah Burger, who battled to get women admitted as students; for Moritz Levi, Michigan’s first Jewish professor; for all the students who fought for racial justice at Michigan as part of the Black Action Movement; and for the ‘pro-Palestinian student activists, who have over these past two years opened our hearts to the injustice and inhumanity of Israel’s war in Gaza,’” Kirshenbaum said. This is a thoughful article on why conflating anti-Zionism with antisemitism hurts the struggle to eradicate Jew hatred.

Trump Is Washing His Hands of Gaza

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Behind Trump’s headline diplomacy is a void: core questions on Israeli withdrawal, Hamas disarmament and Gaza’s future governance are postponed or outsourced. This isn’t a peace effort but conflict management, preserving the status quo and leaving Palestinians without a political horizon. — Jack Khoury, Haaretz

On the Character of the Oct. 7 Attack by Hamas

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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.

Israel’s West Bank Inferno & the Responsibility of Socialists (II)

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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.

Israel’s West Bank Inferno & the Responsibility of Socialists (I)

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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.

How Can the Jews Survive? A Socialist Answer to Zionism

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One might reasonably ask, what is the value of reviewing a brief pamphlet, written over 50 years ago, that its publisher has now taken out of print? The answer is quite a lot — in light of the brutal October 7 Hamas attack that left over 1,000 Jews and others dead, and the murderous Israeli response that has targeted the entire Palestinian population of the Gaza Strip. Even the title may strike some as jarring today. The Israeli siege of Gaza, the cutoff of food, water, fuel and other necessities, accompanied by a brutal air war, with a ground invasion apparently imminent, pose the real danger of the survival of the 2+ million residents of Gaza as an immediate concern to humanity. Is the survival of the Jews also posed? This review of the pamphlet, “How Can the Jews Survive? A Socialist Answer to Zionism,” delves into these questions.

End Israeli Assault on Gaza! An Eyewitness Account

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This an essay by Fadi Abu Shammalah, the executive director of the General Union of Cultural Centers in the Gaza Strip, written from the the Khan Unis refugee camp in southern Gaza. We are publishing it because it graphically depicts the dire situation the population of the densely populated territory faces, which “threatens Palestinians there with death and destruction that can become genocidal,” as a World-Outlook editorial, titled “Oppose Israel’s War on Palestinians,” pointed out two days ago.