The International Centre for Justice for Palestinians (ICJP) has today written to the Hungarian minister of justice, Dr Bence Tuzson, regarding the protection of Israeli war crimes suspect Benjamin Netanyahu by Hungarian politicians, flouting their obligations as a State Party to the Rome Statute. ICJP is committed to challenging any actions by the Hungarian government that violate Hungary’s international legal obligations.
Hungary harbouring a wanted war criminal
Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán invited Netanyahu to visit Hungary only one day after the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Israel’s defence minister Yoav Gallant, wanted for war crimes. The warrants, issued on 21 November 2024, include charges of Crimes Against Humanity of Murder, the War Crime of Starvation, and Persecution of Palestinian populations, citing Israel’s targeting of the civilian population of Gaza as part of a widespread and systematic government policy.
As a State Party to the Rome Statute, Hungary is obliged to cooperate fully with the ICC. This includes enforcement of arrest warrants for individuals suspected of crimes under international law, including Netanyahu and Gallant.
Under Article 86 of the Statute, Hungary is required to cooperate in good faith with the Court’s requests. Refusal to do so by Hungary would not only be a failure to uphold their obligations, but it would also undermine the very fabric of international justice.
Hungary has now announced that it will withdraw from the ICC, but under Article 127 of the Statute, Hungary’s withdrawal will take effect one year after the date of receipt of the notification.
In the meantime, Hungary is still bound by its Third State obligations, and it is obligated to enforce the ICC’s arrest warrant.
Netanyahu’s charges based on ‘credible’ evidence
The ICC’s arrest warrants are based on credible investigations and legal findings, and are not subject to political discretion by State Parties. The principle of equality before the law is fundamental to both international law and the Hungarian constitutional order.
The ICJP has called on all relevant Hungarian institutions—including the police, prosecution service, and judiciary—to fulfil their duties with independence and integrity, and to resist any political pressure that would undermine the fundamental principles of justice and accountability.
It has also reiterated its commitment to challenging any actions by the Hungarian government that violate Hungary’s international or domestic legal obligations. The ICJP said it “remains committed to advocating for justice for the victims of war crimes and crimes against humanity and ensuring accountability for those responsible”.
ICJP legal officer Zaki Sarraf said:
Orbán’s decision to withdraw from the ICC on the same day as he rolls out the red carpet for Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, a wanted war criminal by the ICC, is shameful.
Netanyahu has led a ruthless genocidal campaign in Gaza, which continues to brutalise Palestinians today. Orbán’s decision to circumvent international law for the benefit of his relationship with Israel, a rogue, pariah state, sets a dangerous precedent.
War criminals should not be provided with carte blanche and welcomed into states – accountability is necessary.
On March 18 Israel broke the Gaza ceasefire and recommenced its full scale assault, siege, and bombing of Gaza. Since then, over 1,000 Palestinians have been killed and the humanitarian situation is as desperate as ever. Watching mainstream media, however, one would hardly notice.
While US media outlets continue to report below the fold on the daily airstrikes, they are no longer treated as major stories meriting emphasis and urgency. This is especially true for the New York Times and TV broadcast news, which have all but forgotten there’s an unprecedented humanitarian crisis ongoing in Gaza–still funded and armed by the US government.
The paper of record, the New York Times, ran a front page story March 19, the day after Israel broke the ceasefire and killed hundreds in one day, but didn’t run a front page story on Israel’s bombing and siege of Gaza in the 13 days since. (They ran a front page story on April 3 that centered Israel’s military “tactics” in Gaza but didn’t mention civilian death totals.) The Times did find room on March 27 for a front page image of anti-Hamas protests in Gaza which, of course, are a favorite media topic for the pro-genocide crowd as they see it as evidence their “war on Hamas” is both morally justified and, somehow, endorsed by Palestinians themselves.
Like the New York Times, the nightly news shows–CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News, and ABC World News Tonight–covered the initial bombing and breaking of the ceasefire the day after (ABC News’s lede after Israel killed 400+ in under 24 hours: “What does this mean for the hostages?”), but have subsequently ignored Gaza entirely, with one notable exception. CBS Evening News did a 4-minute segment on March 26 on “allegations” Israel was using Palestinians, and Palestinian children in particular, as human shields and even this was front loaded with bizarre denunciations of Hamas “using human shields”:
check out the insane Official Hamas Condemnation throat-clearing required before gingerly reporting on widespread use of human shielding by Israel pic.twitter.com/shoO7gM78v
Most conspicuous of all was the total erasure of Gaza from the “agenda-setting” Sunday news programs that are designed to tell elites in Washington what they should care about. Gaza wasn’t mentioned once on any of the Sunday news shows–ABC’s This Week, CBS’s Face the Nation and NBC’s Meet the Press, and CNN’s State of the Union–for the weeks of March 23 and March 30. Despite Israel breaking the ceasefire on Tuesday March 18 and killing more than 400 Palestinians–including over 200 women and children–in less than 24 hours, none of the Sunday morning news programs that have aired since have covered Gaza at all.
Combined with the nonstop “flood the zone” strategy of the Trump White House as it attacks dozens of perceived enemies at once, the US-backed genocide in Gaza is now both cliche and low priority.
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said yesterday that at least 322 children had been killed and 609 injured since Israel broke the ceasefire on March 18.
All indications are that Israeli officials were banking on US news outlets normalizing the ongoing genocide of Gaza, assuming–correctly, as it turns out–that the death and despair would become so routine it would take on a “dog bites man” element. Combined with the nonstop “flood the zone” strategy of the Trump White House as it attacks dozens of perceived enemies at once, the US-backed genocide in Gaza is now both cliche and low priority.
Indeed, Palestinians reporting from Gaza say the situation is as dire as it’s ever been. Israel cut off all aid on March 2 and the bombings have been as relentless and brutal as any time period pre-ceasefire. Meanwhile, with Trump openly endorsing ethnic cleansing, “debates” around how best to facilitate this ethnic cleansing are presented as sober, practical foreign policy discussions–not the open planning of a crime against humanity. “You mentioned Gaza,” Margaret Brennan casually said to Trump’s envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, the last time Gaza was mentioned on CBS’s Face the Nation, March 16. “I want to ask you what specifics you are looking at when it comes to relocating the two million Palestinians in Gaza. In the past, you’ve mentioned Egypt. You’ve mentioned Jordan. Are you talking to other countries at this point about resettling?”
Witkoff would go on to say Trump’s ethnic cleansing plan for Gaza would “lead to a better life for Gazans,” to which Brennan politely nodded, thanked him and moved on. Watching this exchange one would hardly know that was being discussed–mass forceable population transfer–is a textbook war crime. Recent revelations by the UN that aid workers had been found in a mass grave have also been ignored by broadcast news. 15 Palestinian rescue workers, including at least one United Nations employee, were killed by Israeli forces “one by one,” according to the UN humanitarian affairs office (OCHA) and the Palestinian Red Crescent (PRCS). This story has not been covered on-air by ABC News, CBS News, NBC News, MSNBC, or CNN.
The ongoing suffering in Gaza, still very much armed and funded by the White House, continues to fade into the background. It’s become routine, banal, and not something that can drive a wedge into the Democratic coalition. This dynamic, combined with US media’s general pro-Israel bias, means the daily starvation and death is not going to be making major headlines anytime soon. It’s now, after 18 months of genocide, just another boring “foreign policy” story.
This content originally appeared on The Real News Network and was authored by Adam Johnson.
The ceasefire in Gaza has shattered, and Israel’s military has resumed the genocide. Simultaneously, organizations and activists in the US are sounding the alarm over Trump’s persecution of Mahmoud Khalil and other student activists. Palestinian American lawyer and activist Huwaida Arraf joins The Marc Steiner Show to discuss the situation in Gaza, and the urgency of ramping up the solidarity movement with Palestine to combat genocide and the rise of fascism.
Production: David Hebden, Rosette Sewali Post-production: Alina Nehlich
Transcript
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.
Marc Steiner:
Welcome to the Marc Steiner Show here in The Real News. I’m Marc Steiner. It’s great to have you all with us. We’re talking today with Huwaida Arraf, a Palestinian woman, a lawyer born in Israel, an international renowned human rights lawyer, trilingual and English, Arabic, and Hebrew. A nonviolent activist who co-founded International Solidarity Network fighting for Palestinian rights and nationhood. She ran for Congress in Michigan’s 10th congressional district writes extensively and which her mind, body, literally, and spirit on the line for Palestinian freedom and Hu to welcome. Good to have you with us.
Huwaida Arraf:
It’s good to be with you, Marc. Thank you.
Marc Steiner:
You have been, I mean, doing this for a while.
Huwaida Arraf:
Yeah, I had hoped it wouldn’t be this long, but the fight goes on.
Marc Steiner:
As we had this conversation today, I was looking at the news before I walked into the studio and Israel has resumed their operations in central and South Gaza. They’ve started their airstrikes, 20 Palestinians were killed. Almost all of them health workers for a hundred Palestinians were killed in airstrikes. Since the beginning is conflict. I mean, what’s happening in Gaza is almost unbelievable. I think it’s hard for people to fathom the extent of death and destruction that’s taking place. This is not simply a war.
Huwaida Arraf:
Absolutely. I don’t like to use that term at all because war implies you have two equal sites and that’s absolutely not what you have here. Have a population that has been oppressed and colonized for nearly eight decades and for the past almost two decades in Gaza specifically really has been caged and cut off from essentials. And you take that and over the years also every few years Israel bombs decimate the society, the infrastructure. You have a medieval siege that’s imposed on the entire civilian population that really leaves people not able to control even their daily lives. I mean, forget about just being able to leave the Gaza Strip to go get what you need to go to school, to visit family, to get the medical attention that you need, what you might be able to find food that day is completely determined by what Israel allows in and what doesn’t allow in.
And for the past two and a half weeks before it restarted, this barbaric bombardment of Gaza has been cutting off all food and medical aid and then just cut off also electricity, which means they can’t desalinate water. I mean people have nothing. It is truly a caged, beleaguered star population that Israel has also restarted viciously bombing from the air. So just in the past couple of days, nearly 500 killed so many children. At least the last number, and I don’t even like to say numbers because it changes by the minute, but over 180 children, babies, infants, and no one seems to be able to stop Israel. No one is willing to do it. And the reports are that the United States, the White House has given the green light. They were briefed on it, and the slaughter continues. It really, I am unable to find words these days to describe to the evil that we went missing.
Marc Steiner:
And you mentioned the United States. I mean the kind of lack of political will in the Biden administration to intervene and stop it. And now we’re faced with a government in this country which actively supports Israel in its destruction of Palestinians and the murder of Palestinians. It is really time for, I think those of us in America to step up and really heighten the protests and the confrontations with our own government to say, no, this can’t take place. So I’m curious as an activist here, where you see that going, where you see what our role is here in the United States to stop this kind of genocide taking place in Gaza.
Huwaida Arraf:
Absolutely, and that is the question, right? Because I worked for a long time volunteering in the occupied Palestinian territory and welcoming people from around the world to come see what’s actually happening in Palestine. And Palestinians would be so grateful for the international solidarity and for people leaving the comforts of their own home to travel to stand with them. But what we would hear over and over again from Palestinians is just please go back to your countries, especially the United States, and change the policies there because it is the policies of especially the Western countries led by the United States that’s enabling Israel. And so what we do here in the United States really, really matters. I mean, it’s not adequate to just say it’s not our problem, it’s not happening here. It’s thousands of miles away because we are so actively involved and complicit. It’s our tax dollars.
It is our elected representatives that are making these choices to continuously fund Israel’s genocide. So it comes down to us to create that political will to change policy. Now, how do we do that? It seems to be really overwhelming. A lot of it really comes down to educating people because for decades we have been programmed here in the United States by the mainstream media, by popular culture to dehumanize Palestinians and to think that Israel is the victim here. So there’s a lot of education that goes into it, opening people’s eyes in terms of what has really been happening and then changing that act or moving that education into mobilization and really pushing our elected representatives to make the right choices to stop funding genocide and colonialism and apartheid. And so that requires us making our voices heard, whether in the streets, in protests, to going to town halls, making appointments with our elected representatives, calling them, writing to them every day and letting them know that this is an issue that matters, that we care about, that we will vote on.
Yes, there are other issues that affect our daily lives, but this is also an issue that affects life, that affects life, and it affects our daily lives because it is not just about being what happens in Palestine. Yes, that’s horrible, but I have other concerns. What happens in Palestine and the extent in which the United States is funding and enabling what Israel is doing comes back here to affect us. If we look at the billions and billions of dollars that this government and the previous government and for decades, the United States has been giving of our tax dollars to Israel, that money can be spent in our own communities. I mean, $3.8 billion, that’s just yearly without all of the extra packages that Israel has gotten, which is now in the last 16, 17 months, has topped I think 30 billion. Billion. So yearly is 3.8 billion of our tax dollars.
And on top of that, the United States has authorized more and more money and weapon shipments to Israel that can be used in our own communities. Then when we talk about our own civil liberties here, the extent to which there is a crackdown on freedom of speech and on education, and that people are being doxed and fired from their jobs and silenced if they dare to criticize Israel. That affects our own civil liberties here. And I am involved in cases to defend students’ rights who have been persecuted, who have been kicked out of school. Their organizations suspended because they advocate for Palestinian rights. So if it’s not our tax dollars in our own communities and life in Palestine, it is our own ability to speak out and to exercise our freedom of speech that is being curtailed and actually really threatened all to protect a country that is committing a genocide.
It is really shameful. And I think that when we look back at this time, and I firmly believe there will come a time where we will look back and truly feel ashamed that we allowed this to happen. Those who were silent or those who advocated for this policy of supporting this genocide, it will be seen as a stain on US history. And I think what I keep saying is to everyone around me, this is happening in our lifetime on our watch. What are we going to say we did to stop it? And if we think about that every day, we will find our place what we can do. It could be joining a protest. I’m heading to a protest today, but it could be talking to your neighbor. It could be picking up the phone to talk to your member of Congress. Each one of us have a role to play.
And I think that if we understand that we can’t always be the top, we can’t always be at the front of those demonstrations, but if you do what you can from where you are and we each do that, it will build up. It will create that critical mass that we need to change policy. And I do believe that things have, in all of the years that you mentioned, I have been doing this, but we need to keep pushing. We need to keep pushing until we reach that tipping point. And I just seeing all the carnage, you just have to wonder how many more lives destroyed until we get to that tipping point where policy has changed. I mean, that motivates me every single day, and I hope we can all find it in ourselves to realize that there is something we can do about it.
Marc Steiner:
I hope so too. And I think that from your work, from helping to found a free gaze in 2006 with your co-founding international solidarity, the non-violent movement to fight for Palestinian rights, that we seem to be an precipice of the moment though, given what’s happening in Gaza, given the crackdown in this country on Palestinians who are standing up and given the crackdowns taking place inside Israel at this moment, people I’ve talked to who are both Jewish Israelis and Palestinian Israelis are talking about the intense pressure that they’re under every day. Some even being arrested because they’re standing up to the government saying, no, I don’t think people just really get and understand the depth of the repression that’s taking place on the West Bank in Gaza and in Israel itself.
Huwaida Arraf:
Yep, absolutely. I have family. So my family is partially from the West Bank and the other part is from inside 48, what is now Israel. And so,
Marc Steiner:
And you’re an Israeli citizen as well, or was were right,
Huwaida Arraf:
An Israeli citizen. Yes, of course. I mean, I always say I’m not the kind of citizen that Israel wants. Unfortunately, I’m considered a demographic threat because of, again, Israel’s project of really colonization. And when we call it apartheid, it’s not just throwing out words. It really is a government and a regime that wants to create a society and the state with specific rights for certain people based on your religion. So even though my village and my family was there before the state of Israel was created, we are not equal citizens. And the last time I talked to my family, I mean, they’re terrified. They can’t say anything in their place of work. If they like a Facebook post, they could be arrested, right? And they have Israeli citizens that are walking around armed, coming into their place of business, whether it is their clinics or their shops.
And you don’t know if what you’re going to say is going to get you injured, killed, arrested. And those are Palestinians who are citizens of Israel, who Israel likes to say are equal or have more rights than they would have anywhere else, which is just not true at all. And then when you talk about Israeli citizens, I mean, yeah, there are protests. People are not happy with Netanyahu, and there is, especially the families of the hostages and other people who are worried about the hostages are protesting and are getting arrested for these protests. And there is a crackdown. I wish I had something a little bit better or more hopeful to say about Israeli society because I spent so many years in the occupied territories and worked with some wonderful Israelis, Israelis who put their safety and their lives on the line and firmly believe in true equality and spend their time in Palestinian villages and standing up to their own soldiers.
But those numbers are so, so few, the polls are showing that a vast majority of Israelis support what their government has been doing in Gaza. If they didn’t have hostages in Gaza, they wouldn’t care at all about the Palestinian civilians there and what’s happening to them. And that’s really frightening. I mean, that’s frightening, just from a humanitarian perspective, that’s frightening when you think about any society to be supportive of such ruthless violence. And if it wasn’t for having some of your own people there wouldn’t care at all what happens to the population that your government is occupying, oppressing and killing. And so that is scary. And what we have been seeing in Israeli society is this decline, this decline towards more isolationism, fascism, violence. And it’s not good for anybody, certainly not good for Israeli society. And even the future where I say, I’ve always said that we need to live together in what we’re working to create.
We’re working to end Israeli colonialism and apartheid so that there can be a future where anybody and everybody who wants to live in historic Palestine in this land can do so as equals. Right. And what we have been seeing, again on the enormous violence unleashed on Palestinians and the almost complete disregard by Israelis except for where it concerns their own population, it means that it’s going to be very, very, very difficult to rebuild a lot of that. And this is, we’re talking about it because we don’t have too much time, but we shouldn’t just gloss over the amount of violence being used. And that’s not just in Gaza, that’s not just when we come to the death and dismemberment and amputations and the starvations, but the torture, the deliberate killings, the humiliation, the people, children who have seen their parents killed dismembered, the humiliated, what kind of psychological effect this has on people is really hard, really hard to fathom.
And especially when we’re looking at Gaza, but also the West Bank, this is all Palestinians have known most Palestinians for their entire lives is this kind of violence, is this kind of complete disregard by the international community and the rest of the world. And just this overwhelming oppression and this attempt really to get rid of you. You’re an undesirable, your life doesn’t matter. That’s all Palestinians have known. And despite this, they try to continue, they try to insist on, but what kind of psychological effect this has on people is really hard to know as of like 20 years ago, 20 years ago, before these massive bombing started in Gaza, there’s, it’s a Gaza community mental health program that was saying over 90% of Gaza’s children are traumatized. And that is back in 2006, you have seen at least five massive bombing campaigns since then and now an act of full-blown genocide if over 90% of Gaza’s children were traumatized before all this, what do we say now? So it is really, really dismal. But that doesn’t mean we give up. We have no choice but to keep going and fighting because we are fighting for the rights of people to live.
Marc Steiner:
It’s true. And those children now you talk about are now in their twenties and thirties and trying to survive.
Huwaida Arraf:
Yeah, trying to survive, probably trying to keep their children alive, probably trying to find a way to keep their children safe to find food. And these are children that have been traumatized themselves. In 2009, after Israel’s first major bombing campaign operation cast led on Gaza, this was 2008, 2009, I went in with a delegation of US attorneys to try to document and report on US weapons that were used in Operation Castlight to commit war crimes. And we did produce a report after that, but some of the stories that we heard, I mean one home that was bombed and Israel did not allow the Red Crescent or any rescue services to get to the home for three days. And when they got to the home, found a number, most of the adults in that home killed
And number of children who were still alive, injured, and forced to stay with the relatives, with the bodies of their dead parents for three days without food or water. Those children, that was 2008, 2009, if those children even survived, what they’re trying to do now in keeping their, they probably hope that their children wouldn’t have to endure the same. But not only are they doing the same, it’s so much worse now. It’s as bad as it has ever been. And that doesn’t even come remotely close to describing it. There’s a report that just came out from the un, and I’m almost, I’ve read the bullet points, but I can’t even bring myself to read it because even though the summary is so bad, it is so bad about the kind of torture, what people have been subjected to things that humans should never, ever do to each other. I can’t, as a human rights attorney, I’m almost embarrassed to admit I just can’t even bring myself to read it.
Marc Steiner:
What’s the name of the report?
Huwaida Arraf:
It was done by the, there’s a un fact finding patient. It’s an independent commission that is investigating what Israel is doing in the occupied policy and territory and in Gaza. And they came out, I’d have to pull up the report, but one of their findings is that Israel is committing genocidal acts. Israel has deliberately targeted the maternal wards, the ability of Palestinian, Palestinian women to reproduce in various ways. But part of that also covers the torture that Palestinian hostages also have endured in Israeli captivity and some of the torture tactics and the rape that is described is just horrific. And that’s just the summary. So I can pull the exact name of the report for you, but it was done by an independent fact finding commission.
Marc Steiner:
Well, we’ll add that just so people can access that, because I think that’s important. I mean, as you describe the reality that Palestinians face, and I mean, just think about you personally. I’ve been reading all the things you’ve been writing and I’ve been reading about you and the bravery you showed on the Flotillas and other, the places in the face of Israeli violence standing up to it, putting your life on the line. And you’re married to a Jewish man who’s thrown out of Israel because he stood up. I mean, this is something people have to understand. I think for us to get beyond this and to find this path to peace, and there are over one and a half to 2 billion Israelis who no longer live in Israel and live in Europe and live in the United States. Most of ’em would be the people who oppose this government that’s taking place in Israel at this moment.
Huwaida Arraf:
I mean, that’s what we’re hearing. And then the large number of Israelis who are leaving would be the more moderate ones, leaving the Israelis, more the ideological. This land was given to us by God. It’s only our land and everybody else needs to be kicked out, are the ones that are remaining. And we see the government that is now in power is a right wing fascist government. And that is the, as I said earlier, that the Israeli society where it has going and the fact that it’s become so extreme, it doesn’t bode well for anyone. But how do we break that? And for a lot of the work that I’ve done originally when I went over to Palestine in shortly after college, it was in the year 2000, it was to work for a conflict resolution organization that was bringing Palestinian and Israeli youth together.
Marc Steiner:
Seeds of peace.
Huwaida Arraf:
Yes, yes.
Marc Steiner:
Right.
Huwaida Arraf:
And I quickly realized the problem with these organizations, because they don’t actually get to the heart of the matter, they don’t do the work that needs to be done to dismantle the racist structures or the structures of oppression that tear people apart. And it’s more about getting to know each other and doing these normalization projects. Becoming friends is great. Obviously we lifelong friends, but when you don’t actually, or when you avoid the work that needs to be done to dismantle the structures of oppression, then you are just normalizing oppression, right? So I don’t necessarily support these organizations, but I went on, even in founding the International Solidarity Movement, it was bringing internationals, but also bringing Israelis and bringing everybody irrespective of religion, of ethnicity, of nationality. I mean, we are all humans and we are all standing for freedom and for equality and for dignity, for everybody.
And there is this attempt to also reach Israelis with the actions that we were doing. A lot of the protests I was face to face with Israeli soldiers and trying to say, look, what are you doing? You are here shooting at children. You are invading these people’s villages, maybe getting them to think about what role they’re playing in this violence. And then I think that we are so far from that right now. People just have been so siloed, I feel, and so hard. There’s those that are hardened and just don’t want to hear anything that has to do with Palestinian humanity. And then there are those, the ideological Israelis that are bent on having this Jewish state that was promised to them by God. And everybody else needs to either agree to be subservient or they can be killed or they can get out. And that is really what we are fighting here. We are fighting this idea that there can be any kind of religious or ethno religious supremacy for anybody. And we are fighting for a world, a region, a country, I mean everywhere, certainly in Israel, Palestine, but around the world where everyone is respected in everyone is equal. And we seem to be so far away from that. But I say this because there is this idea, and you probably know well, anytime that we in the United States or in other places speak up for Palestinian rights, we are automatically labeled as antisemites
Marc Steiner:
Or self-hating Jews
Huwaida Arraf:
Or yourself Jews, my husband celebrating Jews all the time. And we seem to just lost this ability to look at each other as humans. And it doesn’t bode well for where we are in this moment in time. It is very dangerous what is happening, certainly in the region. But then what is happening here, and I mentioned, we started talking also about the restrictions on our civil liberties here.
We know that we are creating certainly Trump’s policy, cracking down even more on those who speak up for Palestinian rights. But one thing that I want to say there is that it didn’t start with Trump, right? It has been US policy. And certainly I blame the previous administration, the Biden administration, for laying the groundwork for where we are now. For 15 months we were protesting trying to get the Biden Harris administration to put an arms embargo on Israel to stop the genocide. And they gaslit the American people in that Israel has a right to defend itself. That’s what we always hear. But Israel is not defending itself. Israel is fighting for a land that is free of the indigenous Palestinian population. And the United States has been supporting that. But what is positive, I don’t want to be all negative. What is positive is that so many people like yourself, mark, but so many also younger American Jews, and even when we started the International Solidarity Movement, so many of those who came to join us were young American or European Jews.
We look at the protests on college campuses, so many of them Jewish students who reject this notion that what Israel is doing and what the US is doing in cracking down on protesters in any way serves Jewish safety. Certainly not Jewish Americans. And where I am in Michigan, the University of Michigan, we have 12 protesters that are being prosecuted actually by the Attorney General in a shameful, really prosecution. But about half of those protesters being prosecuted for protesting in the encampments and for Palestinian rights are Jewish. So on one hand, there are those who are really pushing really hard to label all advocates of Palestinian rights as antisemitic and supporting this kind of crackdown, whether what Israel’s doing or what this administration is doing as fighting antisemitism or protecting the Jewish people when it’s just the opposite. And it’s heartening to see that so many young Jews, but also of all ages that are, I have a good friend who is well into her eighties Jewish activist, and she’s just so feisty and that I really consider my family, my family, and these are the kind of people that I always want to stand side by side with and fighting for everybody’s rights.
Marc Steiner:
So before we end, a couple of things. One is I’m curious, in your life now, you’ve been through a lot facing violence in the Israeli Army, Navy violence, dealing on flotillas, the work you’ve done over there, the work you’re doing here, educating your life to this, what are you in the midst of now? Where is the struggle taking you? Now,
Huwaida Arraf:
That is a good question because I feel like I’m torn in so many different ways because there’s so much work to be done, and I want to always do as much as I can. One of my most important roles right now, although my kids would probably beg to differ, is raising the next generation. But I frequently hear from them that I’m always busy and I’m always doing something for Palestine or some other social justice issues. So I might be not doing as well as I should be in that arena, but raising the next generation, my kids are 10 and 11, and if I impart anything on them, I want it to be a strong belief in their ability and their obligation to do something when they see that something is wrong, whether it is in their elementary classroom, if somebody is being racist or somebody is being bullied to stand up to, if it’s the president of the United States, you can get out and protest when something’s happening that is not right.
You are able to, and you should do something about it. If I impart anything on them, I want it to be that. So that is one of my most important jobs. But I am also an attorney and I’m also working with other attorneys both to defensive liberties here at home. So I am one helping with the defense of students who are being persecuted for standing up for Palestinian rights and also suing the University of Michigan for violating the constitutional rights of these students by treating them differently, by curtailing the First Amendment rights. Because these institutions and these state power that is cracking down on our students, on protestors, on citizens should not be allowed to get away with this. So it’s defense and offense there and activism. We are still trying to support people to go to the occupied Palestinian territory, to volunteer with the international Solidarity movement if they are able to.
And if somebody can, unfortunately we cannot get into Gaza, but people are still able to get into Jerusalem and the West Bank and the international solidarity movement there is trying as much as possible to be a presence, to witness, to document, to stand in solidarity with the people there who are being terrorized by settlers and soldiers. Just in the past month, over 40,000 Palestinians have been forcibly displaced from their refugee camps in and in Janine. So in these Palestinian cities, Israeli soldiers would come through and literally blow up their homes or demolish their homes. And those that are still in their villages are being attacked by settlers, supported by soldiers. So having people there to witness to try to deter some of the violence by saying to the state of Israel, like, Hey, we’re here and we see what we’re doing can help deter violence sometimes and can help let Palestinians know that they’re not alone.
So I encourage anyone who is able to travel to look up the international solidarity movement and see about volunteering there. At the same time, we are trying to stop the atrocities in Gaza in a variety of ways. I am still involved with the Freedom Flotilla and the Freedom Flotilla Coalition and that we have been trying for years to break Israel’s illegal siege on Gaza. We started, as you mentioned, I mean the first time we got into Gaza with two small fishing boats in 2008. And that was a deliberate action to challenge, to confront, to try to break Israel’s stranglehold and its naval blockade on Gaza. We were able to get through a few times, but then Israel started lethally attacking our ships, but we did not give up. And we, as of last year also, were pulling together if flotilla, unfortunately, some states sabotaged our mission, but again, we are not giving up.
We are readying ships to try to sail again. And we are encouraging these organizations that are being blocked from entering Gaza and from rendering aid to people to join us, to put their aid on these ships and directly confront Israel’s policy. Because Israel’s policy is illegal. A siege on an entire civilian population is illegal, and it is part of a larger genocide, a crime against humanity. But what is infuriating is that these organizations and world governments only talk, they do not do anything to actively confront Israel’s policy. So effectively, you have every single government in the world that is respecting Israel’s control over Gaza. They are complicit. They are complicit in the starvation and the genocide of the Palestinian people. I mean, the government of Turkey held back three of our ships that were supposed to sail to confront Israel’s blockade. Why isn’t Turkey itself sailing?
Why isn’t Greece sailing? Why aren’t these Arab countries sailing and daring Israel to confront them and to insist that we are getting to the people that you are trying to annihilate in Gaza. So we are still trying to do that as a civilian initiative and hopefully within the next few weeks or months, I hope it’s not longer, your listeners will hear about and are able to support the Freedom Flotilla coalition and try to break through this blockade. And here at home. Aside from the legal front, there’s also the political front and continuing to push our elected representatives and continuing to encourage people that really represent our ideals and our principles, our vision of human rights and inequality for everybody to run for office. I am trying to encourage young people, the Arab Americans, Muslim Americans, to actually get involved. And so our voices are represented and we are heard. So it’s a lot of work on a lot of different friends. Sometimes I feel like I’m trying to be in too many spaces and not doing anything particularly relevant. Well, we continue to try to do what we can. I think that that’s important just as continue to do what we can and there’s a space for everyone.
Marc Steiner:
I want to first say thank you, hued our off. You’re doing amazing work. I want to stay in touch with you to see how this Portilla gathering is growing and what the next moves are, so we can then support to that and bring those voices to the people in this country and across the globe. So I appreciate the work you’re doing, and thank you so much for being here today.
Huwaida Arraf:
Thank you for having me, and please continue to speak out because as we know, our freedom of speech is really being threatened right now. And I encourage your listeners to really follow the case of il, who is the government is trying to set an example by deporting him illegally for speaking out for Palestinian rights. And they’re again, trying to not only make an example of him, but silence speech by sending this chill through the communities, the pro-Palestinian community or anyone would dare to speak out. And it is, like I say again, the extent to which our own civil liberties, our right to the first amendment, our right to due process are really at stake right now is really hard to overemphasize. We need everybody to be watching, to be speaking out, and to be letting our elected representatives know that we will not stand for this and that they need to fight. So thank you for doing your part in continuing to speak out and bring voices of protests, of dissent to your listeners, and I would love to stay in touch.
Marc Steiner:
We will stay in touch. Thank you very much.
Huwaida Arraf:
Thank you.
Marc Steiner:
Once again, thank you to Huda Araf for joining us today. And thanks for David Hebdon for running the program and audio editor Alina Neek and producer Roset Sole for making it all work behind the scenes. And everyone here at The Real News for making this show possible. Please let me know what you thought about, what you heard today, what you’d like us to cover. Just write to me at mss@therealnews.com and I’ll get right back to you. Once again, thank you to Huwaida Arraf for joining us today and for the work that she does. So for the crew here at The Real News, I’m Marc Steiner. Stay involved. Keep listening, and take care.
Following an encampment and hunger strike, Glasgow University students “will continue to exhaust every form of protest until divestment is achieved”, according to one student who spoke to the Canary. This is despite University of Glasgow (UoG) management preferring to call the police and threaten students with suspension rather than end the institution’s complicity in Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
Massive support for divestment at Glasgow University
The student, whose name we will not reveal due to UoG attempts to punish students actively opposing genocide, said:
Divestment has overwhelming support from Glasgow staff and students, including from the student-elected Palestinian Rector Dr Ghassan Abu-Sittah, the staff unions (the University and College Union, and Unison), the QMU student union and the student representative council.
UoG students overwhelmingly voted outspoken medical expert Dr Ghassan Abu-Sittah rector of the university in 2024. He had made it clear that a vote for him would represent “opposition to Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza”, “pressure on the university to officially and unequivocally condemn” it, and a call for the institution to ‘cease its complicity’ in the genocide by divesting from the arms trade.
Two decades earlier, UoG students had voted whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu as rector. Vanunu had spent 18 years in prison, and 11 of those in solitary confinement, “for revealing Israel’s nuclear weapons programme”.
Another significant show of support for divestment also happened last week. As the student explained:
A high point of the encampment came when the result of the SRC referendum, which took place during the week of camp, was announced. The referendum asked whether the university should cease investments in companies that derive more than 10% of their revenue from arms. The referendum received a record high turnout – a massive 8,668 students voted ‘Yes’ which amounted to 89.3% of students who voted.
Senior management’s continued refusal to end its complicity is in clear opposition to its students and staff. Yet, management continues to ignore the voices of their students and staff who have time and time again spoken up for the past 15 months in favour of divestment. Divestment is inevitable. And when Glasgow university does divest it will be over 500 days too late.
UoG’s stubborn support for genocide is making student escalation necessary
The student added that the week-long encampment was “a part of our continued escalation on campus, in the face of increased repression from management”, saying:
UoG management have called police to campus 4 times in the past 2 weeks. Police have repeatedly threatened to arrest peaceful student protesters
The hunger strike, meanwhile, “lasted for 10 days” and “was an extreme and vital escalation which was taken to highlight the urgency of divestment”. With 15 students taking part, it:
was necessary in order to show management the commitment of their students to divestment and the fight for Palestinian liberation- the students literally put their lives on the line.
The university didn’t blink. But as the student told us:
the students will never be deterred, we will continue to exhaust every form of protest until divestment is achieved.
And with the encampment, they said, anti-genocide protesters were able to “engage with the wider student and staff body and grow our movement”. They added:
Through political education and community events we are walking out stronger, ready to continue escalation until victory is written.
They also stressed that:
The solidarity and support shown to the camp has been overwhelming – HUNDREDS of people came to donate food, camping gear and supplies, came to play instruments and give talks, and offer their help and support. We are so grateful to the community.
The struggle continues at Glasgow University
The student explained that, following on from last week’s camp:
We’ve started this week by making sure those attending the university’s offer holders open day are fully informed about this university’s complicity in genocide, by disrupting welcome talks and marching through campus. Once again police were called.
They also told us that management banned another student from campus on 2 April “on a precautionary basis with immediate effect, pending further investigation of the matter” following disruption of the 1 April open day. This student faces accusations of “chanting and speaking at open day engineering and physics talks”.
The recent escalation in police involvement, meanwhile, follows on from previous threats from the powers that be:
The university has threatened student protesters with disciplinary action, but we will not stop. We will not rest. On the 23rd of October 2024 students received an email threatening disciplinary action after holding banners and chanting at a STEM careers fair, where BAE systems and other complicit companies had been invited to recruit graduates.
A month later, on the 27th of November, students held a hard picket of the Rankine engineering building to draw attention to the research partnerships between our engineering department and arms companies. Shortly after, deputy vice chancellor, David Duncan, targeted 2 students, privately sending them threatening emails alleging they were present at the picket – with zero evidence – and stating that participation in further student action will lead to “sanction, up to and including suspension of studies.”
UoG threats and fines will not deter students
The student also pointed out that:
Less than a week ago, a student was fined £2800 for spraying red paint over a university building using fire extinguishers to demand the university divests from arms companies and UK government impose a complete trade embargo on Israel, including arms sales.
Hannah Taylor, the person facing a fine for spraying paint, had taken action because the institution had “blatantly ignored the will of the majority of its students and staff”. She told the Canary previously that UoG management’s harsh treatment of her was an attempt “to deter further protest”. As she later explained in a crowdfunder, however, “Student Conduct team have since agreed to allow me back on campus to complete my degree if I pay half the damages of the cleaning”. And thanks to a large number of small donations, she very quickly reached her target.
The UoG student involved in the encampment also insisted that the power of solidarity will not fade, telling us:
We will not be deterred by management’s repression. We do not get to choose whether to act when every single university in Gaza has been bombed and over 12,000 students have been killed and will never graduate. We do not get to choose whether to act when Gaza is home to the largest number of amputee children in modern history, when more than 10 children a day have lost one or both of their legs, many without anaesthetic and some as young a one-year-old babies. It is an obligation to act during Genocide.
They added:
If people want to support us, they can send emails to UoG management in support of divestment and in opposition to police on campus and threats to students and follow us on insta at GU_JPS to keep up to date with latest actions.
On 29 March 2025 Rabbis for Human Rights wrote: “This week, we took part in a moving Iftar meal-the traditional dinner that breaks the daily fast during the month of Ramadan-together with residents and activists from the Negev. The event was held in collaboration with the Regional Council for the Unrecognized Villages.
We sat together around one table, broke bread, listened to stories, and felt both the pain-and the hope. It was a moment of deep human connection between communities fighting for justice, equality, and a safer future.
But alongside the warmth and solidarity, we cannot ignore the harsh reality: In just the first half of 2025, more than 2,000 structures in unrecognized villages in the Negev have been demolished-a dramatic increase from previous years. The destruction of Umm al-Hiran last November still echoes-a whole community erased to make way for a new Jewish settlement.
True solidarity is not just a slogan-it is presence, listening, and action. We will continue to stand with these communities, amplify their voices, and work toward a future in which every person can live with dignity and security.
As Jews and as Rabbis, our commitment to justice is unconditional-it is at the heart of our identity.
As Ramadan draws to a close next week, we wish all our Muslim friends and partners a joyous Eid al-Fitr (Eid Mubarak).
May this holiday bring you and your families happiness, abundance, and blessings. We hope these festive days offer moments of comfort, renewal, and peace to all!”
This is not our Judaism.
Every day Rabbis from our organization are taking to the streets to protest against the government and for the protection of democracy. Rabbis for Human Rights’ staff and board members are on the streets every day, raising their voices to end the horrific bloodshed in Gaza, to bring the hostages home, and to call for an immediate ceasefire.
As rabbis and human rights defenders, we believe in the sanctity of every human life. This war must end now!
As the Trump administration escalates attacks on the pro-Palestine student movement and Israel continues the genocide in Gaza in full force, thousands are expected to partake in a mass demonstration for Palestine on April 5 in Washington DC, undeterred by repression.
Trump’s Secretary of State Marco Rubio has announced that he has signed off on the revocation of over 300 student visas for reasons related to pro-Palestine protest activity, raising alarms about free speech violations. We do it every day. Every time I find one of these lunatics, I take away their visa,” Rubio said at a press conference in Guyana on Thursday.
My journey into the realm of people’s history began during my teenage years when I first read Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States.
This initial exposure sparked my curiosity about how history is constructed and it led me to delve deeper into historiography — particularly the evolution of people’s history as an intellectual movement.
Over the years, a wide range of historians, from Michel Foucault and Marc Bloch to Lucien Febvre and Chris Harman, each offered unique perspectives on the study of ordinary people in history.
While political prisoner and Palestine activist Mahmoud Khalil remains in ICE detention in Louisiana, his lawyers are fighting for his freedom in New Jersey. On Friday, March 28 they were in Newark to argue for Khalil’s upcoming immigration hearing to take place in New Jersey, rather than Louisiana where a judge is more likely to go along with the Trump administration’s political persecution of Khalil.
While Khalil’s legal team advocated for him in the district courthouse, hundreds of supporters rallied outside chanting, “We want justice, you say how? Release Mahmoud right now!” and “Up up with liberation, down down with occupation!”
German authorities are seeking to deport four foreign nationals, including three EU citizens, over their alleged involvement in pro-Palestinian protests in Berlin, a move that has sparked significant legal and civil rights concerns, 972 Magazine and The Intercept reported on 1 April.
The individuals – Cooper Longbottom (US), Kasia Wlaszczyk (Poland), Shane O’Brien, and Roberta Murray (both Ireland) – have not been convicted of any crimes. However, they face expulsion orders under German migration law, citing vague accusations linked to demonstrations against Israel’s genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.
Over the last year and a half, the movement for Palestinian liberation has become one of the largest American social movements of the decade. Not only that, there has also been an incredible resurgence of the Jewish left, as Jewish Palestine solidarity organizations, such as IfNotNow and Jewish Voice for Peace, organize a growing contingent of young Jews for an end to the genocide in Gaza. As Israel violates its ceasefire agreement and commences an aggressive bargaining campaign, one that killed 400 people in the first night, this movement is only going to grow as the world collectively reckons with the destruction that has been caused.
Israeli forces bombed a UN clinic in Gaza serving as a shelter for displaced Palestinians on Wednesday, killing at least 22 people just days after officials discovered 15 first responders who had been executed by Israeli soldiers and buried in a mass grave in Gaza. The military bombed a UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) clinic in Jabalia refugee camp…
Chancellor says UK will respond calmly to US tariffs as Keir Starmer attempts to play down fears of trade war
There will be two urgent questions in the Commons after PMQs. At around 12.30pm a Foreign Office minister will respond to a question from Priti Patel, the shadow foreign secretary, about the Chagos Islands. And then another Foreign Office minister (or the same one?) will reply to a UQ from the Green co-leader Carla Denyer about Gaza.
After that Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, will make a statement about nursery provision.
With new US tariffs coming, Welsh businesses face even more uncertainty.
The UK must make a strategic decision: with 58.6% of Welsh exports going to the EU, we must provide stable access to European markets by rejoining the single market and customs union, allowing us to stand up to Trump’s reckless moves.
A cyclist in West Yorkshire has completed the first 1,000 mile stretch of a mega 3,431 mile undertaking to raise funds for Palestine.
From Pudsey to Gaza: cycling 3,431 miles for Palestine
Pudsey resident Tim Deveraux started his fundraising rides on 1 January. Every day, he has traversed around 10 miles around West Yorkshire. He will keep on riding until he has covered 3,431 miles – the distance from Pudsey to Gaza to raise £1,000 for Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP).
MAP works for the health and dignity of Palestinians living under Israeli occupation, and as refugees. It provides immediate medical aid to those in great need, while also building local capacity and skills to ensure the long-term development of the Palestinian healthcare system.
Already, Deveraux’s efforts have exceeded his initial fundraising target. He has secured more than double his initial £1,000 goal – currently £2,091.31 – for MAP.
Cycling the peaceful paths of West Yorkshire as Israel acts with impunity
Over the last few years, Deveraux has undertaken a number of fundraising campaigns. He has previously completed multi-day bike rides for various medical charities (in honour of his late brothers) and a Covid lockdown beard fundraiser for the Trussell Trust.
In 2024, he cycled the 300 miles from Leeds to Brighton over the course of five days, in aid of MAP.
He told the Canary that he was compelled to start his latest cycling campaign after attending Leeds Palestinian Film Festival. He expressed that:
Clearly, there is still huge need in Palestine, and I knew I wanted to raise money for MAP this year. It was while I was watching one of the Leeds Palestinian Film Festival events that it occurred to me – what if I did a virtual bike ride, the distance from Leeds to Gaza, but just riding locally, about ten miles a day?
He also highlighted his horror that as he has cycled the peaceful cycle paths of West Yorkshire, Israel has unconscionably violated the ceasefire and resumed its brutal genocide:
I frequently ride along the Leeds/Liverpool canal towpath – I enjoy the tranquility. Of course, this is such a contrast to the situation in Gaza, where Israeli forces have broken the ceasefire.
‘Better to light one candle than curse the darkness’
Moreover, Deveraux wants his rides to draw attention to the horrendous atrocities Israel has continued to commit against Palestinian aid and health workers. Of course, this includes aid workers from MAP, who Deveraux has chosen to direct his fundraising efforts towards.
Only on 24 March, MAP condemned another abhorrent attack by Israeli forces once again targeting health workers at a hospital in Gaza. It wrote that:
the Israeli military attacked Nasser Hospital, where MAP’s
Emergency Medical Team was working. At least eight people were injured in the attack, and many more patients, civilians and healthcare workers were endangered by the blasts and ensuing fire. Thankfully, on this occasion, none of MAP’s doctors were hurt. Despite the risks, our teams will remain in Gaza doing all they can to deliver urgently needed medical care to sick and injured people.
Along his route, Deveraux has raised both funds for and awareness of the horrendous genocide and campaign of ethnic cleansing Israel is carrying out in Gaza. And he explained that the response from the public has been supportive of his efforts to date:
Usually, I have a poster about the ride attached to any bike I ride, and I have business cards with the ride information and how to donate. When I chat to passers-by, they are always supportive. I have had articles in the local press and a radio interview, so I hope I am spreading information about Gaza, as well as raising money for MAP.
So far, Tim has ridden every day but one, covering an average of 11 miles each day. He has used a variety of bikes, five of his and three borrowed, and suffered four punctures, four snapped spokes, a broken chain, and a broken carrier. He will complete the journey covering the distance to Gaza in December.
Deveraux expressed to the Canary his motivation for pedaling onward each day:
The situation in Gaza, Palestine and the Middle East continues to be heartrendingly awful. As an elderly man in Yorkshire, there is not much I can do to influence the combatants. But as the saying goes, ‘Better to light one candle than curse the darkness.’ I am still fit enough to cycle every day. So as I carry out the challenge, MAP will get funds to assist the victims of violence, and I will have a year or so of cycling for peace.
The following article is a comment piece from the Palestine Coalition, via Stop The War Coalition
The six organisations coordinating the national Palestine demonstrations are concerned that despite numerous requests we have been refused a meeting with Sir Mark Rowley the Commissioner of the Met Police. This is despite the fact that Rowley regularly meets with lobby groups who support Israel’s pro-genocide policies and are deeply hostile to our protests and our cause.
Palestine marches: peaceful – yet the Met will not engage
We have organised one of the biggest cycles of mass demonstrations in British history in which millions of people have participated.
As the police themselves have often said, they have been overwhelmingly peaceful. There are more arrests per person at Premier League football matches and the average Glastonbury Festival than on our demonstrations.
Yet we have faced the most severe restrictions ever experienced on mass marches. This has included numerous bans and attempted bans, including most recently from the BBC, thousands of police mobilised from across the country, the arrest of numerous people for wearing tee-shirts or holding placards and police communications regularly implying that we are a threat to public order.
In particular the police are acting on the false presumption that the protests are a threat to the Jewish community. This is despite the fact there are thousands of Jewish people on our demonstrations and that the police themselves have failed to come up with a single instance of a Jewish person being threatened by anyone on our marches.
Admitting they are under pressure from the Board of Deputies of British Jews and other pro-Israel lobby groups, the police are taking the extraordinary position that we shouldn’t be allowed to march or assemble anywhere near a synagogue, apparently in anticipation of proposed new legislation.
Met Police: happily meeting with the Zionist lobby
The day after the recent ban on a previously agreed march to the BBC in January, Rowley was congratulated at a Board of Deputies meeting after he told them the law had been used to restrict the right to protest ‘more than we have ever done before’.
This argument is being used to try to exclude a movement calling for peace and the end of a genocide from large areas of central London, restricting the length of of our demonstrations and stopping us marching to and from important locations such as the BBC.
This is a serious and worrying attack on the freedom of assembly in this country. It is completely unacceptable in itself.
The overwhelming majority of people in this country support our calls for a permanent ceasefire in the Middle East. The fact that the Commissioner continues to avoid meeting us only confirms the sense of prejudiced, partisan and politicised policing in the capital.
We call on the Commissioner once again to meet us to discuss these crucial issues.
These are all Israeli actions right now in the occupied Palestinian territories, of course. But can you imagine the British government supporting Russia as it committed crimes like these? Can you imagine ongoing RAF support for Russia? Can you imagine MPs writing propaganda for Russia which completely ignored these atrocities? Or what about Britain supporting the bombing of other countries to protect Russian interests?
Keir Starmer’s government has a 14% approval rating. Britain clearly hates him. It can see he and his elitist government are a bunch of spineless, odious hypocrites. It has just seen their despicable choice to take billions of pounds away from disabled people to gift them to the arms industry. But on top of all of that, we need to be warning Britain about the immense danger of the British government continuing to participate in Israel’s genocide as it commits all of the crimes above.
If we let the government get away with its support for Israel as it commits all the horrors it can possibly think of to steal Palestinian land, what will stop our soulless politicians from bringing some of that evil to Britain’s shores? Nothing short of mass resistance is necessary.
Momodou Taal, a pro-Palestinian activist and international Ph.D student, announced his decision to leave the country on Monday — ending a weeks-long struggle with the federal government that began when he sued the Trump administration.
Soon after Taal announced his decision on X and Instagram, his lawyers withdrew his lawsuit in federal court.
Taal first made national news when he, alongside Sriram Parasurama, a Ph.D. student in plant sciences, and Prof. Mũkoma wa Ngũgĩ, literatures in English, sued the Trump administration for allegedly violating their First and Fifth Amendment rights.
On October 12, 2024, tens of thousands of people thronged outside the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C., for what organizers called the “A Million Women” rally. The event was staged by a clutch of leaders of the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR), a dynamic and fast-growing Christian Right movement that has influenced hundreds of millions of people around the world, including tens of millions in the United States.
Timed to coincide with the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur, the themes of the gathering included winning Christian “dominion” over political institutions, mobilizing voters and — in keeping with the movement’s focus on the idea of spiritual warfare — exorcizing demons from the Capitol.
More journalists have been killed in Israel’s genocide in Gaza than in the past seven major U.S.-involved wars combined, marking the “worst ever conflict” for reporters in history, a new report says. As of late March, at least 232 journalists have been killed in the Gaza genocide, with the vast majority being Palestinians, according to a new paper by the Costs of War project in Brown…
A federal judge in New Jersey will soon issue a ruling on where the deportation case of Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian student who led the student encampment at Columbia University last year, can be litigated. On March 8, Khalil was abducted in New York by agents from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) who told him his lawful permanent residency status had been “revoked.
Representatives Pramila Jayapal (D-Washington) and Rashida Tlaib (D-Michigan) have introduced legislation to block nearly $4 billion in proposed weapons sales to Israel, after Israel has unilaterally ended the ceasefire agreement in Gaza and embarked on what appears to be the most violent phase of its genocide yet. On Sunday, Jayapal’s office announced the introduction of four Joint…
British MP Jon Pearce is currently chair of Labour Friends of Israel (LFI). And at the weekend, he produced a nauseating piece of propaganda, revealing just how toxic the government’s genocidal agenda is.
Labour Friends of Genocide
Amid Britain’s participation in Israel’s Gaza genocide, Pearce was unapologetic. Well, not entirely, because he did apologise for the UK: dropping its objection to the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrants for Israeli war criminals Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant; restricting some arms sales to them; and supporting humanitarian aid for millions of Palestinian refugees via UNRWA. If you think those steps are just humane common sense, you’re right. But that’s not what LFI is about.
Among the pro-Israel steps the government has taken that Pearce boasted about were:
Blocking progress for Palestinians at the UN Human Rights Council, supposedly showing ‘balance’ in “the tragic conflict between Israel and the Palestinians” (i.e. Israel’s decades-long settler-colonial crimes in occupied Palestine).
Dropping the commitment under Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour leadership to immediately recognise a Palestinian state. While a two-state solution is still most politicians’ stated preference (however unrealistic), pro-Israel propagandists tend to just pay lip service to it while actually opposing it in practice. (We’ll come back to this in a minute.)
Its “desire to prioritize a Free Trade Agreement with Israel”.
The mobilisation of British police to limit the movement of anti-genocide protests.
Genocide? What? Look over there!
The only mention of war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu was to condemn the international arrest warrant against him as “morally suspect” and “legally dubious”. So despite Pearce’s assertion that “our governments won’t always see eye to eye”, he apparently didn’t feel it was necessary to state any differences Labour may have with Israel’s corrupt, far-right prime minister who has been genociding Palestinians for 19 months. In fact, there was only one mention of Gaza, and one mention of Palestine (in inverted commas). And Pearce tried incredibly hard to divert readers’ attention away from the decimation and massacres of Israel’s assault on Gaza.
Palestine and Gaza didn’t appear in the article’s tags, but Iran did. And that’s little surprise, because Pearce said “Iran” or “Iranian” a whopping 13 times. That clearly tells you what he and his fellow pro-Israel propagandists want us to focus on.
Pearce also managed to wiggle Ukraine and Russia in there too, mentioning the “death and destruction” as a result of “Russia’s indiscriminate bombardment of Ukrainian civilians”. So he does know how to say the words death, destruction, indiscriminate, bombardment, and civilians – just without Israel or Palestine in the same sentence.
Ending conflict? Easy. Just give Israel everything it wants. What could possibly go wrong?
To get “regional peace”, Pearce wrote:
As a first step, LFI has called for our government to establish a special envoy for the Abraham Accords, with the status of an ambassador, tasked with encouraging additional countries to normalize relations with Israel.
He also said:
the foreign secretary has rightly recognized that the path to a Palestinian state is linked to a wider framework involving normalized relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia.
The problem is that normalisation of relations with Israel has pushed justice for the Palestinians further away than perhaps ever before. Because the ‘peace process’ in the 1990s simply bought Israel time to advance its settler-colonial project further, as it clearly favoured Israeli domination and Palestinian subjugation. And the Abraham Accords under Donald Trump simply showed once and for all that Palestinians’ struggle for justice was not an obstacle to regional regimes engaging with Israel.
The 2020 Abraham Accords were essentially business transactions which legitimised Israeli crimes and entrenched injustice. They rewarded Israel’s faithful service as animperialistoutpost for US imperialism in the Middle East. And the result was increasing settler violence in the West Bank, the rise of Israel’s most boldly colonial regime for decades, and escalating violence in the West Bank – all with impunity. With the world ignoring and sidelining the Palestinian struggle, anger and despair grew in Palestine. And Joe Biden’s continuation of Donald Trump’s ‘normalisation’ efforts made renewed conflict more and more likely.
US actions bolstered Israel’s impunity. The worsening situation in turn sparked the violence and hostage-taking of 7 October. And Israel took advantage of the constant green light from Washington to unleash a genocidal assault on Gaza.
Normalising colonialism brought us to this point. Only de-normalising it will change that.
In 2024, Declassified UK revealed that half of Starmer’s cabinet had received money from the pro-Israel lobby. Then, openDemocracyrevealed that the “tax haven-based hedge fund with shares in oil and arms” that had donated £4m to Starmer’s Labour also “stood to profit” from Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Starmer’s ongoing participation in that genocide seems to be the result. And if Jon Pearce’s propaganda is anything to go by, the Israel lobby is very happy about that.
We’re humbled to introduce a new Canary writer, Alaa Shamali from Palestine – but currently a refugee in Oman. We will be publishing him in Arabic – but if you right click on the screen the menu that appears should give you the option to translate the article to English. If you are reading on mobile, this will be in the burger menu (the three dots) of your browser.
لم يكن العيد يومًا في غزة مجرّد مناسبة عابرة، بل كان فرحةً تنبض في الشوارع والأسواق، وزينةً تتشابك بين جدران البيوت المتلاصقة، وضحكات أطفالٍ يملأون الأزقة بصخبهم البريء.
لكن هذا العام، وللعيد الثالث على التوالي، تغيب ملامح الفرح، وتحضر الحرب بوحشيتها، لتسرق كل تفاصيل البهجة التي اعتادها أهل المدينة.
كان العيد في غزة يرافقه ضجيج الأطفال، وأصوات النساء المتحلقات حول موائد الحلويات، والأهل والأصدقاء يتبادلون الزيارات والتهاني، أما اليوم، فالصمت القاسي يسود المكان، والمنازل التي كانت تحتضن الأعياد تحوّلت إلى أنقاض، والطرقات التي كانت تضج بالحياة أصبحت شاهدةً على المجازر.
خوف ودموع
يحلّ عيد الفطر هذا العام وسط خوفٍ دائمٍ من القصف، ودموعٍ لا تجفّ على من فقدوا أحبتهم، وقلوبٍ لم تعد تحتمل المزيد من الفقد.
غابت الزيارات العائلية التي كانت تجمع الأحبة، وتلاشت طقوس العيد تحت وطأة الألم، فلا أسواق تعج بالناس، ولا أطفال يتباهون بملابسهم الجديدة، ولا موائد عامرةٌ كما كانت في السابق.
في كل زاويةٍ من غزة، يسكن الألم. أطفالٌ لم يعودوا يجدون ساحاتٍ للعب سوى فوق ركام بيوتهم المهدّمة، وعائلاتٌ تكدست في مراكز الإيواء أو خيامٍ مهترئة لا تقي برد الشتاء ولا حر الصيف. لم يعد العيد يحمل معنى الفرح، بل صار ذكرى حزينةً يستعيد معها السكان صور من رحلوا، وأحلامًا دفنت تحت الأنقاض.
عيد بلا صوت
في غزة، لم يعد للعيد صوت، فقد طمسته أصوات الغارات، لم يعد للعيد بيت، فقد هُدّمت البيوت فوق ساكنيها. لم يعد للعيد روح، فقد انتزعها الاحتلال من أجساد الأطفال والنساء والشيوخ.
تمر الأيام، لكن الجرح باقٍ، ومع كل عيدٍ يزداد عمقًا، حتى باتت غزة مدينةً تعيش العيد بقلوبٍ كسيرة، وأرواحٍ أنهكها الحصار والدمار
At Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, Taghreed al-Attar sits next to her husband’s body, which was discovered last Friday in Rafah. Her husband, Anwar al-Attar, left with fellow first responders to Rafah the previous week, but no one returned. His wife says that when they lost contact with him, people told her he had been imprisoned by the Israeli army. But she says he came to her in a dream…
It seems Palestine Action has got the attention of US president Donald Trump – but not in a good way, naturally. The tangerine tyrant has slammed the group for its ongoing campaign to disrupt Israel’s genocide and apartheid in Gaza and the Occupied Territories. If you’ve rattled Trump, you must be doing something right…
Donald Trump: Palestine Action got his attention…
On 8 March, Palestine Action responded to Donald Trump’s openly genocidal plan to depopulate Gaza, and his threats to murder the entire Palestinian population, by trashing his Trump Turnberry golf course in Scotland.
As Palestine Action said at the time, “Palestine Action rejects Donald Trump’s treatment of Gaza as though it were his property to dispose of as he likes. To make that clear, we have shown him that his own property is not safe from acts of resistance. We will continue to take action against US-Israeli colonialism in the Palestinian homeland”.
Trump has now issued a statement via Truth Social:
I was just informed by Prime Minister Starmer of the United Kingdom, that they caught the terrorists who attacked the beautiful Turnberry, in Scotland. They did serious damage and will hopefully be treated harshly. The Three people who did this are in prison. You cannot let things like this attack happen, and I greatly appreciate the work of Prime Minister Starmer, and UK Law Enforcement.
For reference, three have been arrested in relation to the action, only one has been charged and will appear at Ayr Sheriff Court on Monday 31 March. The other two were released without charge.
Get your facts right
Palestine Action are issuing the following response:
Donald Trump, may not be able to get even the simplest of facts right, but his statement shows Keir Starmer’s ambition to be Trump’s supine lapdog, allowing him, and the Israeli state and arms companies, to interfere in the British judicial process, while supporting the ongoing genocide in Gaza. While Trump whines about his golf course, and Starmer consoles him, US-supplied bombs continue to pound Gaza to rubble, with the aim of the destruction of the entire Palestinian population. We look forward to the day both these murderers, and the other complicit Western leaders face justice.
Of course, the broader implication here is that Trump’s praising of Labour Party prime minister Keir Starmer and his increasingly authoritarian approach to policing legitimate protest should not go unnoticed. The government are proving to be just as dangerous in this regard as the Tories – and given Starmer’s boot licking of Trump, his praise will likely increase the clamp down on protest in the UK. We have literally just seen this, with the Met Police crackdown on Youth Demand.
Away from Trump, the campaign to stop Israel’s genocide continues
Meanwhile, in a bold act of direct action, activists from Palestine Action are occupying the rooftop of the Dean Group facility in Irlam, Manchester, this morning:
They’ve already smashed windows, solar panels and covered the premises in blood-red paint, symbolising the company’s involvement in spilling Palestinian blood:
The action follows one on 22 July 2024 in which activists entered the same Dean Group premises, dismantling machinery to prevent its collaboration with Israel’s war machine. Dean Group remains a critical partner to the production of sniper sights at Elbit Systems’ Instro Precision facility in Kent.
Elbit Systems, Israel’s larges weapons firm, relies upon Dean Group for its “investment casted” metals components, including for the Kent ‘Instro Precision’ factory which is the major exporter of weapons sights and targeting equipment arms to Israel from Britain. Dean Group materials have been identified during previous Palestine Action occupations of Instro Precision – occupations undertaken, like this one, to break the supply chains of murderous arms from Britain to Israel. The brutalisation of Gaza, and the occupation of Palestine, are made possible through Elbit’s array of military technologies.
As Dean Group say on their website, “So much from a military standpoint requires investment casting, including weapons, missiles, radar, and communications equipment”:
Palestine Action said:
Today, we are once again taking direct action against the Dean Group. Their role in supplying critical components to the Israeli military means they are directly involved in the oppression and killing of Palestinians. As long as these companies enable the production of weapons which are “tested” on Palestinians, we will continue to take action to disrupt their operations. The Dean Group is a key link in Israel’s military supply chain, and actions will continue until their collaboration ceases.
This occupation forms part of a growing wave of direct action targeting companies and institutions that enable Israel’s military-industrial complex. Palestine Action’s campaign aims to create an economic blockade on Israel’s military suppliers, ensuring that their profits are disrupted and their facilities face continuous resistance.
Featured image via the Canary and additional images supplied
A senior Hamas official said late on 29 March that the resistance movement has accepted a new Egyptian proposal to resume the truce in the Gaza Strip, coming as Israel has rejected Cairo’s plan and put forward its own counteroffer.
“Hamas recently received a new proposal from the Qatari and Egyptian mediators and responded positively. The movement emphasized it is not seeking new demands, only the implementation of what was already signed and guaranteed,” said the head of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Khalil al-Hayya, during a speech on the occasion of Eid al-Fitr.
Jacksonville, FL – On March 27, Jacksonville Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) rallied dozens of students to protest a speaking event which brought two Israeli occupation forces (IOF) troops to the University of North Florida. The soldiers were on campus to justify their war crimes in Gaza during the first wave of the accelerated genocide. The Jacksonville Palestine Solidarity Network (JPSN) co-sponsored the protest, and several other student and community organizations were in attendance.
The rally took place outside the UNF Student Union, where the speaking event was being held.
The Oscars Academy has rightfully drawn backlash over its abysmal statement over Oscar-winning Palestinian director Hamdam Ballal’s lynching by far-right Zionist settlers and subsequent abduction and detainment by Israeli occupation forces. Ballal is co-director of the powerful film No Other Land, which won Best Documentary Feature at the award ceremony in early March. However, Academy board members couldn’t even bring themselves to mention him – or his documentary – by name in its pitiful and hollow condemnation of the attack.
Hamdam Ballal: Oscars issue shameful statement on abduction
As the Canarypreviously reported, Israeli settlers and state forces targeted Ballal on 24 March. To start, there was no information on Ballal’s whereabouts – nor his condition after the assault – in Israeli custody. Ballal remained blindfolded at an Israeli army base for 24 hours, until Israeli forces released him on Tuesday.
They continue attacking me for 15–20 minutes. I bleed from everywhere… I feel pain in every part of my body
According to his Israeli co-director Yuval Abraham on X, Ballal recounted how soldiers detaining him had joked about his Oscar while torturing him.
Initially, the Oscar Academy declined to make a public statement in support of Ballal. Abraham shamed it on X, alongside others, pressuring it to eventually put one out:
Sadly, the US Academy, which awarded us an Oscar three weeks ago, declined to publicly support Hamdan Ballal while he was beaten and tortured by Israeli soldiers and settlers.
The European Academy voiced support, as did countless other award groups and festivals. Several US…
— Yuval Abraham יובל אברהם (@yuval_abraham) March 26, 2025
Then, when the Academy issued this feeble statement – it didn’t even mention Ballal by name. Academy CEO Bill Kramer and president Janet Yang made the statement which preemptively and inexcusably justified its failure to unequivocally call out Israeli settlers and state forces. It did so under the calculated guise of representing the “unique viewpoints” of its 11,000 members.
In short, it sent the unconscionable message that Palestinian lives and rights are a matter for debate, and expendable. Moreover, it disgustingly signals to Israel that it can continue its colonial tyranny with impunity – all after awarding the film-makers for exposing this very violence on screen.
Oscars Academy: ‘many unique viewpoints’ on Zionist settlers beating its Palestinian award-winner
Predictably, it drew warranted ire. Abraham criticised its silence and reduction of Palestinian lives to appease Zionist members:
after our criticism, the academy’s leaders sent out this email to members explaining their silence on Hamdan’s assault: they need to respect “unique viewpoints” pic.twitter.com/69mdp4aE9m
— Yuval Abraham יובל אברהם (@yuval_abraham) March 27, 2025
Documentary branch Academy member AJ Schnack also lambasted the statement. As Variety reported, he wrote:
I am shocked and angry that you are now letting us, your members, know that you view the abduction and beating of a recent honoree as something that members will have ‘many unique viewpoints’ of. With respect, it’s a truly heinous suggestion.
Now, more than 800 Academy members have also come out in defiance against the dire response from the institution’s leadership. In a scathing letter, currently signed by 838 members at the time of publication, they condemned the “brutal assault and unlawful detention” of Ballal and said that:
As artists, we depend on our ability to tell stories without reprisals. Documentary filmmakers often expose themselves to extreme risks to enlighten the world. It is indefensible for an organization to recognize a film with an award in the first week of March, and then fail to defend its filmmakers just a few weeks later.
To win an Oscar is not an easy task. Most films in competition are buoyed by wide distribution and exorbitantly priced campaigns directed at voting members. For “No Other Land” to win an Oscar without these advantages speaks to how important the film is to the voting membership.
The targeting of Ballal is not just an attack on one filmmaker—it is an attack on all those who dare to bear witness and tell inconvenient truths.
We will continue to watch over this film team. Winning an Oscar has put their lives in increasing danger, and we will not mince words when the safety of fellow artists is at stake.
A non-apology to save face
On Friday, the Academy followed up with a second statement apologising for its failures. This read:
We regret that we failed to directly acknowledge Mr Ballal and the film by name.
It continued with the classic gaslighting “I’m sorry YOU feel this way” non-apology:
We sincerely apologize to Mr Ballal and all artists who felt unsupported by our previous statement and want to make it clear that the Academy condemns violence of this kind anywhere in the world.
We abhor the suppression of free speech under any circumstances.
In short, its half-assed ‘apology’ was arguably too little, too late, and too obviously to save face. And of course, it still couldn’t name the perpetrators – Israel. Instead, it opted for a general condemnation of violence to cover its ass.
The Oscars: a symbol of US white supremacy and patriarchy
What this whole sordid saga has demonstrated is that solidarity from Hollywood for the Palestinian struggle is the superficial, temporary, not even flavour-of-the-month kind, that quickly recedes when it really counts.
Yes, more than 800 members have since spoken out against their spineless leadership. However, let’s be real. The Academy comprises nearly 11,000 members. Those 838 signees so far make up less than 10% (a little under 8% to be more precise) of the total membership.
In reality then, over 90% of the Academy has so far failed to speak out.
But then, this is the famous institution of the entertainment industry that in 2015 inadvertently invited the hashtag #OscarsSoWhite for its atrocious lack of diversity. Since its founding in 1929, white, cisgender men have dominated the nominations and award winners. Between 1929 to 2025, just 6% of nominees were from underrepresented racially minoritised groups, and only 7% have won an Oscar. Less than 2% of nominees were women of colour. This has little shifted in nearly a century. Just 12% of nominees were from underrepresented racially minoritised demographics in 2025; only 4% were women of colour.
Moreover, the membership of the Oscars Academy is little better. As Digital Spywrote, of its 10,910-strong membership in 2024:
35% of members identify as women, 20% are from under-represented ethnic and racial communities, and 20% are from outside of the US.
That is to say, the Oscars is largely a model of US white supremacy and cisgender heterosexual patriarchy. Its letter omitting Ballal should be recognised in that context. The Academy is accustomed to maintaining this status quo, and evidently operates token diversity over genuine solidarity.
Not the first time Oscars members have thrown Palestine under the bus
And needless to say, the Oscars has form on this already.
Despite Israel’s ongoing assault and war crimes in Gaza, the March 2024 Oscars saw mostly tumbleweed from the award-winners. The sole exception was a speech by Jonathan Glazer who decried the instrumentalisation of Jewishness and the Holocaust in justification of Israel’s genocide. It’s worth noting however that Glazer’s speech was at best, a tentative criticism since it preposterously equated Israel’s brutal genocidal onslaught in Gaza and the murder of more than 50,000 Palestinians, to 7 October.
The reaction? A letter signed by more than 1,000 Hollywood creatives, stars, and executives denouncing his speech for – ludicrously without a hint of irony – ‘hijacking’ their Jewishness:
for the purpose of drawing a moral equivalence between a Nazi regime that sought to exterminate a race of people, and an Israeli nation that seeks to avert its own extermination.
Hollywood operating as a vehicle of US imperial hegemony
However, none of this should come as any surprise either. Hollywood is – and always has been – a vehicle of US imperial hegemony. Films operate as a mechanism of US propaganda for its militaristic colonial expansionism across the globe.
It was only the start of this year that film mega-franchise Marvel put out its propagandistic newCaptain America film. This hitched US imperial supremacy to Israel through the introduction of superhero Sabra – in essence, a personification of Israel’s apartheid regime. This was in spite of, and amid, the settler state’s continuing genocide in Gaza.
The Pentagon’s entanglement with Marvel and Hollywood studios more broadly only cements the entertainment industry’s collusion with the US military industrial complex further.
In this way, Hollywood movies serve as a soft power strategy for subtly reinforcing US cultural domination on an international stage. Hollywood promotes the US’s white imperial project through screen. It sanitises the US and West’s militaristic expropriation of foreign territories, and its deliberate programme of destabilisation and domination throughout the globe using glorifying imagery and narratives to seed this in the psyche of international audiences.
A settler colonial ‘solution’ that maintains the status quo
Despite the powerful portrayal of Israel’s ethnic cleansing in the West Bank, No Other Land doesn’t evade this co-option in service of US corporate capitalist empire either.
There’s no denying that No Other Land is a powerful feat of Palestinian cinematography and autobiographical storytelling. The lived realities of Palestinians under Israeli occupation breaks through Hollywood’s largely impenetrable imperialistic cultural hegemony.
However, as the Canary’s Maryam Jameela underscored, its acceptance within the Oscars Academy and Hollywood sphere owes in part to the palatable face of the project – its Israeli co-director Yuval Abraham.
The film is punctuated with Abraham’s views, and in that way, his presence throughout presents Palestinian freedom through a settler colonial gaze. Throughout, it’s clear he’s wedded to the idea of a two state solution – and arguably, that’s what his role in the film, and at the Oscars, is there to sell.
For instance, in one scene, Abraham asks Palestinian co-director, lead narrator and focus of the documentary Basel Adra:
If there’s stability and a democratic state, you’ll get all the permits you want. You won’t need to ask for army permits anymore. Right?
However, his comment is jarring against Adra’s lived experience of occupation documented in the film. “If” he heartbreakingly replied – instantly shattering the basis of Abraham’s question. Adra then went on to express the painful reality that Israel’s ongoing ethnic cleansing in his Masafer Yatta community only articulates for Palestinians more broadly:
They deprive us of our rights. They have great military and technological power. But, they shouldn’t forget how once, they too were weak. They suffered like this. And they won’t succeed,
with all their strength they will fail. They will never make Palestinians leave this land.
At best then, Abraham’s invocation of the two-state solution is an ignorant, ahistorical, and naive notion that fails to contend with the vast disparity in power dynamics, and a socio-political climate in which Israel’s officials have repeatedly derided any such possibility anyway. At worst, it’s loaning legitimacy to the long-time Western imperialist foreign policy fiction that has propped up the Zionist settler colonial project for decades.
Moreover, Jameela also drew attention to the false equivalence Abraham invoked over 7 October and the ongoing genocide in Gaza. Both the documentary’s ending and Yuval’s speech at the Oscars is characteristic of this shameful and obtuse both siderism that pervades the Western political-media establishment discourse.
Solidarity in big showbiz is conditional for Palestine
Now, the Oscars meek apology is this in action once again. That it took the criticism of No Other Land’s Israeli co-director for it to issue even this half-hearted response speaks volumes once again. When push comes to shove, Hollywood only recognises Palestinian voices speaking to their own story when it’s convenient. Support for Palestinian award-winners like Ballal is and always will be conditional to the elitist circles of US stardom.
What Ballal’s lynching and kidnap indisputably underscores is that, not even the highest symbol of US showbiz acclaim can protect a Palestinian from settler Zionist pogromists and colluding state forces. Now, the Academy’s appalling treatment also makes one other thing abundantly clear: nor will the Oscars Academy step up to protect them either.
At the end of the day, Hollywood at large is the effective popular culture propaganda apparatus of US imperialistic soft power. It is the cultural embodiment of its colonial domination and white supremacy writ large.
Ultimately then, is it any wonder Oscars Academy leaders disgracefully closed ranks to defend US strategic geopolitical capitalist interests that Israel represents in the region, over its Palestinian award-winner? By now, the answer to that should be glaringly obvious.
We’re humbled to introduce a new Canary writer, Alaa Shamali from Palestine – but currently a refugee in Oman. We will be publishing him in Arabic – but if you right click on the screen the menu that appears should give you the option to translate the article to English. If you are reading on mobile, this will be in the burger menu (the three dots) of your browser.
ودع الفلسطينيون في قطاع غزة الساعات الأخيرة من شهر رمضاdن، لكنهم ينهونه كما بدأوه: وسط الدمار، والجوع، والخوف.
لم يكن هذا الشهر الكريم كغيره، فقد حلّ عليهم بينما تواصل آلة الحرب الإسرائيلية استهدافهم بلا هوادة منذ السابع من أكتوبر 2023، تاركًا خلفها واقعًا مأساويًا لم يسبق له مثيل.
رمضان بلا غذاء ولا ماء
مع بداية الشهر، شدد الاحتلال حصاره على القطاع، مغلقًا جميع المعابر، ومانعًا دخول المساعدات الإنسانية والمواد الغذائية. ومع مرور الأيام، تفاقمت أزمة الجوع، خاصة بعد قطع الكهرباء عن محطة تحلية المياه الوحيدة، ما أجبر السكان على شرب مياه غير صالحة للشرب في ظل شحّ الموارد وانعدام البدائل.
موائد الإفطار تحت القصف
كل موعد إفطار يحل في وقته دون مائدة، وغياب التجمعات العائلية، ليجلس آلاف الفلسطينيين بين أنقاض منازلهم يتقاسمون ما توفر من فتات الطعام.
ولجأ الكثير من الناس خلال شهر رمضان إلى مخيمات النزوح التي بالكاد توفر مأوى، بينما لم تجد عائلات كثيرة ما يسدّ رمقها سوى الخبز الجاف والماء، في ظل انقطاع إمدادات الغذاء وغياب أي أفق لتحسن الوضع.
صلاة التراويح بين الدمار والرجاء
رغم الدمار والقصف المتواصل، لم يتخلَّ سكان غزة عن أداء صلاة التراويح. وقفوا بين أنقاض المساجد، وتجمعوا في الساحات، رافعين أيديهم بالدعاء، متشبثين بالأمل رغم كل الألم.
تحولت المآذن إلى ركام، لكن أصوات المصلين ظلت تردد آيات القرآن، متحدية صوت الطائرات والانفجارات.
رمضان بلا أضواء ولا فرحة
في الأعوام الماضية، كانت شوارع غزة تتزين بالفوانيس والزينة الرمضانية، وكانت الأسواق تعج بالناس استعدادًا للعيد. هذا العام.
خيم الحزن على كل زاوية، فلا زينة، ولا أسواق، ولا ضحكات أطفال. الدمار حلّ محل البهجة، والألم أصبح هو العنوان.
هلال العيد.. وأمل في هدنة
حل هلال عيد الفطر، لكن الغزيين لم يستقبلوه بملابس جديدة أو حلويات العيد، بل يتطلعون إلى شيء واحد فقط: أن تتوقف الحرب.
بين الركام والجوع، ينتظرون هلالًا مختلفًا، هلال هدنة تمنحهم فرصة لالتقاط أنفاسهم، وتعيد إليهم بصيصًا من الحياة التي سلبها الاحتلال.
A nurse, a civil servant and a teacher, among thousands of Palestinians detained without charges, were not informed their relatives had died in Israeli attacks
For six months after it became impossible, Ahmed Wael Dababish still dreamed of a simple reunion: the day he could once again hug his wife, Asma, his two daughters and his young son.
A nurse from Gaza, Dababish last saw his family in the early hours of one night in December 2023, when Israeli troops attacked a school where they had sought shelter.
Millions of Yemenis took to the streets of the capital Sanaa and other areas of the country on 28 March to commemorate International Quds Day, which falls annually on the last Friday of every Ramadan.
The mass rallies came one day after over a dozen violent US airstrikes struck the Yemeni capital.
“We will continue to stand against the Zionist enemy and the American enemy in confronting their aggression against Gaza and Yemen. The Yemeni people’s commemoration of Quds Day is evidence of the sincerity of their religious affiliation, their actual adherence to sanctities, and their high willingness to sacrifice,” Yemeni protest movements said in a joint statement from the capital’s Al-Sabeen Square during the rallies on Friday.