Students protest in support of Palestinians near a closed entrance of Columbia University, in New York City, April 23, 2024. Caitlin Ochs/Reuters
There was a political theorist who famously said there are decades
when nothing happens, and weeks when decades happen. As someone who
writes about history a good bit, I think we should take those decades
when “nothing happens” to remember flashpoints.
When I saw
students at Columbia University engaging in a pro-Palestinian protest
last week, I thought about South Carolina State University, about Kent
State, about Jackson State, and about Southern University. When more
than 100 students were arrested
in New York City after said protest, my concerns went to the natural
escalation that occurs when the people clash with the police, when
people push back against war.
I understand that pushback, because I
never met my uncle, my dad’s older brother. A few days after his 20th
birthday, he was killed in Vietnam. The presidential election year of
1968 was a harrowing one that hit close to home for my dad, who would
later decide to attend South Carolina State. Only three months before my
uncle died, a student protest ended in tragedy during the events that
are now known as the Orangeburg Massacre. Students from SC State and
Claflin University sought to desegregate
a local bowling alley, which led to an eventual clash with police. It
was the first instance of police killing protesters at an American
university....
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The Al-Aqsa Mosque complex, located in occupied East Jerusalem, is the
holiest Muslim site in Palestine [Nick Brundle Photography/Getty-file
photo]
Extremist Israelis stormed occupied East Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa Mosque complex on Wednesday, under the protection of Israeli police.
The official Palestinian news agency Wafa reported that they numbered in the hundreds, and carried out rituals at site, the third holiest in Islam.
It comes after around 172 Israeli extremists raided the site and performed rituals on Monday, according to Wafa.
Under a longstanding status-quo agreement, prayer at Al-Aqsa is reserved for Muslims.
While Al-Aqsa is a highly revered holy
site for Muslims, Jews consider the complex the most sacred site in
their religion, believing it to be the location of their two ancient
temples.
Many Israeli extremists seek to either
divide Al-Aqsa between Jews and Muslims in terms of time and space
available, or to replace the mosque with a new temple.
Al-Aqsa is located in the Old City, part of occupied East Jerusalem.
Israeli authorities and settlers seek to
strip East Jerusalem of its Palestinian Muslim and Christian character
and turn it into a Jewish-Israeli area.
Palestinians view the city's eastern
sector, which Israel illegally annexed in 1980 after capturing it in
1967, as the capital of their future independent state.
Almost the entire international community rejects Israel's annexation and sovereignty claims over Jerusalem.
Across East Jerusalem and the rest of the occupied West Bank, there are more than 700,000 Israeli illegal settlers.
The construction and expansion of settlements are aimed at taking over Palestinian territory.
Settlements breach international law and
are considered a key barrier to a workable two-state solution as they
carve up Palestinian land.
Al-Aqsa is the holiest Muslim site in Palestine, followed by the Ibrahimi Mosque in the West Bank city of Hebron.
The Ibrahimi Mosque has been split into
two parts – one side remains for Muslims while the other was transformed
into Jewish space.
The site was the location of a massacre in
1994, when Israel-American extremist Baruch Goldstein opened fire on
Muslim worshippers, killing 29 people.
A further 125 people [Palestinians] were also wounded in the attack.
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‘Too many of our people are worshipping a false idol once again.’ Photograph: Thalia Juarez/The Guardian
I’ve been thinking about Moses, and his rage when he came down from the mount to find the Israelites worshipping a golden calf.
The
ecofeminist in me was always uneasy about this story: what kind of God
is jealous of animals? What kind of God wants to hoard all the
sacredness of the Earth for himself?
But there is a less literal way of understanding
this story. It is about false idols. About the human tendency to worship
the profane and shiny, to look to the small and material rather than
the large and transcendent.
What I want to say
to you tonight at this revolutionary and historic Seder in the Streets
is that too many of our people are worshipping a false idol once again.
They are enraptured by it. Drunk on it. Profaned by it.
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Israel has dropped almost 75,000 bombs and shells on Gaza in 200 days, twenty times more than the US aimed at Iraq in six years of war.
It’s not war. It’s genocide.
Disturbing reports continue to emerge about mass graves in Gaza in which Palestinian victims were reportedly found stripped naked with their hands tied, prompting renewed concerns about possible war crimes amid ongoing Israeli airstrikes, the UN human rights office, OHCHR, said on Tuesday.
The development follows the recovery of hundreds of bodies “buried deep in the ground and covered with waste”
over the weekend at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, central Gaza, and
at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City in the north. A total of 283 bodies
were recovered at Nasser Hospital, of which 42 were identified.
“Among the deceased were allegedly older people, women and wounded,
while others were found tied with their hands…tied and stripped of
their clothes,” said Ravina Shamdasani, spokesperson for the UN High
Commissioner for Human Rights.
Al-Shifa discovery
Citing the local health authorities in Gaza, Ms. Shamdasani added that more bodies had been found at Al-Shifa Hospital.
The
large health complex was the enclave’s main tertiary facility before
war erupted on 7 October. It was the focus of an Israeli military
incursion to root out Hamas militants allegedly operating inside which
ended at the beginning of this month. After two weeks of intense
clashes, UN humanitarians assessed the site and confirmed on 5 April that Al-Shifa was “an empty shell”, with most equipment reduced to ashes.
“Reports suggest that there were 30 Palestinian bodies buried in two graves
in the courtyard of Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City; one in front of the
emergency building and the others in front of the dialysis building,”
Ms. Shamdasani told journalists in Geneva.
The bodies of 12 Palestinians have now been identified from these locations at Al-Shifa, the OHCHR spokesperson continued, but identification has not yet been possible for the remaining individuals.
“There
are reports that the hands of some of these bodies were also tied,” Ms.
Shamdasani said, adding that there could be “many more” victims,
“despite the claim by the Israeli Defense Forces to have killed 200
Palestinians during the Al-Shifa medical complex operation”.
200 days of horror
Some
200 days since intense Israeli bombardment began in response to
Hamas-led terror attacks in southern Israel, UN human rights chief
Volker Türk expressed his horror at the destruction of Nasser and
Al-Shifa hospitals and the reported discovery of mass graves.
“The intentional killing of civilians, detainees and others who are hors de combat is a war crime,” Mr. Türk said in a call for independent investigations into the deaths.
Mounting toll
As
of 22 April, more than 34,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza,
including 14,685 children and 9,670 women, the High Commissioner’s
office said, citing the enclave’s health authorities. Another 77,084
have been injured, and over 7,000 others are assumed to be under the
rubble.
“Every 10 minutes a child is killed or wounded.
They are protected under the laws of war, and yet they are ones who are
disproportionately paying the ultimate price in this war,” said the
High Commissioner.
Türk warning
The UN rights chief also reiterated his warning against a full-scale Israeli incursion of Rafah, where an estimated 1.2 million Gazans “have been forcibly cornered”.
“The
world’s leaders stand united on the imperative of protecting the
civilian population trapped in Rafah,” the High Commissioner said in a
statement, which also condemned Israeli strikes against Rafah in recent
days that mainly killed women and children.
This included an
attack on an apartment building in the Tal Al Sultan area on 19 April
which killed nine Palestinians “including six children and two women”,
along with a strike on As Shabora Camp in Rafah a day later that
reportedly left four dead, including a girl and a pregnant woman.
“The
latest images of a premature child taken from the womb of her dying
mother, of the adjacent two houses where 15 children and five women were
killed, this is beyond warfare,” said Mr. Türk.
The
High Commissioner decried the “unspeakable suffering” caused by months
of warfare and appealed once again for “the resulting misery and
destruction, starvation and disease and the risk of wider conflict” to
end.
Mr. Türk also reiterated his call for an immediate
ceasefire, the release of all remaining hostages taken from Israel and
those held in arbitrary detention and the unfettered flow of
humanitarian aid.
A
young girl is transferred from the Kamal Adwan hospital, in the far
north of Gaza to a hospital in the south of the enclave. (file)
Massive settler attacks in West Bank
Turning to the West Bank, the UN rights chief said that grave human rights violations had continued there “unabated”.
This was despite international condemnation of “massive settler attacks” between 12 and 14 April “that had been facilitated by the Israeli Security Forces (ISF)”.
Settler violence has been organized “with the support, protection, and participation of the ISF”,
Mr. Türk insisted, before describing a 50-hour long operation into Nur
Shams refugee camp and Tulkarem city starting on 18 April.
“The
ISF deployed ground troops, bulldozers and drones and sealed the camp.
Fourteen Palestinians were killed, three of them children,” the UN
rights chief said, noting that 10 ISF members had been injured.
In
a statement, Mr. Türk also highlighted reports that several
Palestinians had been unlawfully killed in the Nur Shams operation “and
that the ISF used unarmed Palestinians to shield their forces from attack and killed others in apparent extrajudicial executions”.
Dozens
were reportedly detained and ill-treated while the ISF “inflicted
unprecedented and apparently wanton destruction on the camp and its
infrastructure”, the High Commissioner said.
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“Reprehensible and dangerous.” “Terrorist sympathizers.” “It’s not 1938 Berlin. It’s 2024, Columbia University, NYC.”
The White House, Congressional Republicans, and cable news talking heads
would have you believe that the Columbia University campus has devolved
into a hotbed of antisemitic violence – but the reality on the ground
is very different. As a Jewish student at Columbia, it depresses me that
I have to correct the record and explain what the real risk to our
safety looks like. I still can't quite believe how the events on campus
over the past few days have been so cynically and hysterically
misrepresented by the media and by our elected representatives.
Last
week, the Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD) coalition,
representing more than 100 student organizations, including Jewish
groups,organized the Gaza Solidarity
Encampment, a peaceful campus protest in solidarity with Palestine. CUAD
was reactivated after the university suspended
Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace in the
fall. On Wednesday morning, hundreds of students camped out on
Columbia’s South Lawn. They vowed to stay put until the university
divests from companies that profit from their ties to Israel. Protesters
prayed, chanted, ate pizza, and condemned the university’s complicity
in Israel’s attacks on Gaza. Though counter-protesters waved Israeli
flags near the encampment, the campus remained largely calm from my
vantage point.
Columbia responded by imposing a miniature police state. Just
over a day after the encampment was formed, university President
Minouche Shafik asked and authorized the New York Police Department to
clear the lawn and load 108 students – including a number of Jewish
students – onto Department of Corrections buses to be held at NYPD
headquarters at 1 Police Plaza. One Jewish student told me that she and
her fellow protesters were restrained in zip-tie handcuffs for eight
hours and held in cells where they shared a toilet without privacy. The
NYPD chief of patrol John Chell later told
the Columbia Spectator that “the students that were arrested were
peaceful, offered no resistance whatsoever, and were saying what they
wanted to say in a peaceful manner.”
Since then,
dozens of undergraduates have been locked out of their dorms without
notice. Barnard College, an affiliate of Columbia, notably gave students
just 15 minutes
to retrieve their belongings after returning from lockup and finding
themselves evicted. Suspended students cannot return to campus and are
struggling to access food or medical care. Students who keep Shabbat,
and do not use electronics on the Sabbath, were forced
to rely on technology in order to secure food and emergency housing.
This crackdown was the most violence inflicted on our student body in
decades. I implore you, as our Jewish Voice for Peace chapter does, to consider whether arresting Jewish students keeps us and Columbia safe.
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If you want to learn about the truth about our lives, at least for the past 30 years, not only for the past 200 days as many want others to understand, read these poems. They were published in April 2022.
This is the only book that survived the mass killing and destruction with me.
Noor, a young school-aged girl, is curious to learn about what happened to her Palestinian grandmother (Teta) during the infamous 1948 Nakba (The
Catastrophe) that befell the Palestinian people, and why her family was
forced to leave their home in al-Quds (Jerusalem). Why were they pushed
out of their homeland? Where did they go? And how did they become
refugees?
Wafa Shami was born and raised in Ramallah, Palestine.
She moved to the
U.S. to pursue higher education and graduated with a Master’s degree in
International Studies.
Since moving to the U.S. Wafa has maintained her
engagement in Middle Eastern issues as a volunteer.
After her son was
born she was inspired to write children’s storybooks based on her
childhood memories
Her stories, Easter in Ramallah, and Olive Harvest in
Palestine were published in the last few years.
Besides being busy
raising her son, Wafa who lives in California has a passion for cooking
and writes a food blog, in which she shares her family’s recipes.
Visit
her blog at www.palestineinadish.com and follow her on social media
@palestineinadish for delicious recipes.
Disinformation Warfare: Journalistic Cover for Israel’s Genocide
By Al-Shabaka
For decades, Israel has recognized the importance of information warfare in justifying the everyday violence of occupation, apartheid, and settler colonialism. Now they are using the same tactics in overdrive to justify and facilitate genocide. In just six months, Israeli forces have killed more than 33,000 Palestinians and left most of Gaza uninhabitable. Meanwhile, Israel’s most powerful benefactors continue to largely ignore growing public calls for a ceasefire and accountability. This could not have been achieved without the complicity of western journalists across Europe and the US, who have manufactured consent for their governments’ unconditional support of Israel by uncritically parroting Israeli military disinformation and outright propaganda.
In our upcoming policy lab, Laila Al-Arian and Abir Kopty join host Tariq Kenney-Shawa to discuss the role journalists and the media are playing in shielding Israel from accountability, what journalists should be doing to effectively and accurately cover the genocide, and how the public can navigate the world of Israeli disinformation.
Laila Al-Arian is an award-winning journalist, filmmaker, and executive producer of the Al Jazeera English documentary series Fault Lines. She is also the co-author of "Collateral Damage: America's War Against Iraqi Civilians."
Abir Kopty is an Al-Shabaka policy member, as well as a journalist and writer based in Berlin. She holds an MA in Political Communication from City University, London. Her political analysis appeared in MEE, TRT, The Nation and others. She has also hosted and produced podcasts with Sowt podcasting. Samir Kassir Award Nominee for opinion articles category.
Tariq Kenney-Shawa is Al-Shabaka's US Policy Fellow and co-host of Al-Shabaka's Policy Lab series. He holds a Masters degree in International Affairs from Columbia University. Tariq's research and writing have covered a range of topics, from the role of open-source intelligence in exposing Israel's war crimes to analysis of Palestinian liberation tactics.
About the Policy Lab Program: Al-Shabaka's Policy Lab Program is an online live-stream space where audiences can engage directly with expert analysts from our nearly 200-member network as they craft policies and strategies related to Palestine. The labs are free and open for public participation, inviting viewers to join in on policy discussions.
Note: This discussion will take place in English. Our policy labs are supported through the generosity of donors. They are free to attend, though we accept contributions on a sliding scale upon registration to help sustain the program.
While international attention has been turned
toward Gaza, violence against Palestinians has increased in the West
Bank too. Israeli settler attacks have become more frequent.
Settlers
are Israeli citizens who live on Palestinian land. In most cases, this
happens because Palestinians are prevented from accessing their land and
are physically attacked by settlers. In a third of cases, Palestinian
property is damaged by settlers. These findings come from a UN report
published in September 2023 that showed a years-long rise in settler
violence against Palestinians. Because of these numbers, the UN has noted that “settler-driven displacement did not start with Hamas’s deadly attack”.
“Settlers
attacked us, destroying our homes, water tanks, solar panels and cars,”
Abu Khaled, 43, told the UN after being displaced on 28 October. “I
felt the presence of death so tangibly as if I saw it with my own eyes …
I made the hardest decision in my life: to leave Zanuta and leave
everything behind, as memories. I did this to protect my children.”
Those who remain are not safe. “They prevent us from grazing our sheep,”
Mohamad Abu Seif, 90, said. He has lived with his family in Ein Shibli,
a herding community, for over 40 years. They remain vulnerable to
threats and harassment by settlers.
The Israeli government routinely acknowledges these colonies as part of the Israeli state despite the fact that they are illegal under international law.
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Article 49 of the fourth Geneva convention prohibits the “individual or
mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons
from occupied territory”.
"The Israeli human rights group B’Tselem has found
that “as a rule, the military prefers to remove Palestinians from their
own farmland or pastureland rather than confront settlers”. This has
also been the case in recent months, when Israeli forces have
accompanied or supported settler attacks in almost half of all
incidents, according to the UN. In over a third of the incidents reported since October, settlers threatened Palestinians with firearms, including by opening fire."
"The thousands of Palestinians who have been forced from their homes have
little recourse to justice. In four out of every five cases, Israeli
police failed in the investigation of Israelis who harmed Palestinians
and their property. This finding comes from Yesh Din, an Israeli human rights group that has investigated
the way Israeli law enforcement treats these settler attacks. It found
that between 2005 and 2021, just 3% of ideologically motivated cases
resulted in a conviction."
".... Israel led major donors in January to cut their funding to the agency,
the main channel of humanitarian support not only to Palestinians in
Gaza but to Palestinian refugee communities across the region.
The funding was cut despite the dire needs of 2.3 million people in Gaza,
most of whom have been forced from their homes by the Israeli offensive
since 7 October and have been struggling to find water, food, shelter
or medical care.
Most of the donor nations have
resumed their funding in recent weeks. UK ministers had said they would
wait for the Colonna report to make a decision on resuming funding. US
financial support of Unrwa has been permanently banned by Congress since
the allegations were made...."
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An independent review
led by former French Foreign Minister Cahterine Colonna said that
Israel has yet to provide supporting evidence that staff at Unrwa, the
UN agency for Palestinian refugees, are members of terrorist
organisations such as Hamas.
The Guardian says the report found that Unrwa had had regularly
supplies Israel with lists of its employees for vetting, and that "the
Israeli government has not informed Unrwa of any concerns relating to
any Unrwa staff based on these staff lists since 2011".
Israel's accusations against Unrwa have led to many major donor
states suspending their funding of the agency at a time when
Palestinians in Gaza are in dire need of aid.
Most of the major donors resumed funding in recent weeks, with the UK
saying it would wait for the findings of the Colonna-led report to make
a decision. US financial supporting for Unrwa, on the other hand, has
been permanently banned by Congress.
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