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Relatives mourn as the bodies of Palestinians are taken from the morgue of Nasser Hospital for funeral prayers and burial after the Israeli attacks in Al-Mawasi Area, in Khan Yunis, Gaza on December 5, 2024.
I rage. I grieve. But my grief is nothing next to those who find their spouses or their children wrapped in bloody shrouds and left among the dead.
Strange now to think of you while I read the words of a Jewish poet long gone on his boat of metaphors and flowers for the constant beat of time and all it brings forth. I think of you and how once you flourished there beside the sea despite the ever-tightening constraints placed upon you by the hateful gods of Zion. They tried to make you yield to oppression. They took away your freedom. They took away your land, parcel by parcel. They torched your olive trees, burned your crops, bulldozed your homes, sexually assaulted your men and women, killed your children, invaded your towns and villages, while the world looked on and looked away and excused crimes against you, your wanton destruction as the necessary acts of a persecuted people fighting back against the terrorists in their midst—you, the people of Gaza.
They said your children are destined to become terrorists, so even newborns are legitimate targets. So too are the mothers who have brought them into the world and will turn them into killers and haters of Israeli Jews, decreed the gods of Zion. But you will never be gone no matter how many martyrs they make, no matter how many loved ones they take from you while their people cheer the killing, salute the killers, treat them as heroes, bring their children to watch you dying, teach them to see you as vermin, animals, sub-humans not worth a single shekel of mercy. There are days when I can understand how Aaron Bushnell, a U.S. Air Force servicemember, could light himself on fire in front of the Israeli Embassy in Washington D.C. The genocide was more than he could bear. And his fiery exit from our world was an expression of his principled opposition to this genocide.
Who can doubt his death by self-immolation was also a cry from the heart for the suffering of your people, Gaza. The flames that engulfed Aaron are the same flames rising among families in Gaza, families sheltering in tents or huddling in whatever homes have not yet been bombed, shelled, hit with a Hellfire missile. Like Aaron, like so many others, I grieve. Am filled with rage for what could only happen with the full approval and backing of my own government, a willing accomplice to genocide.
I can imagine that within their suffering, there must be a much greater force, one that draws its power from the land and the culture that has shaped them. And it is this force, this fire that must not be extinguished for it is the thing that gives hope to marginalized, dispossessed people.
While an entire people is being inexorably exterminated, I go about my life feeling powerless to make any significant difference in the lives of Palestinians stripped of dignity, herded into enclaves where the killers can more easily and comfortably complete their tasks with no limit on the amount of suffering they can inflict. I can rail against the murderers and their overlords and those who cheer them on from Washington to Tel Aviv. But what good does railing do when so many are starving, bleeding out on hospital floors, caught in the gunsights of snipers and quadcopter drones, torn to pieces or incinerated in the flames from a missile attack while lying asleep in some thin tissue of a tent.
It is the children who weigh most heavily on my heart. Your children, Gaza. Not even their tender, untested lives are safe from the bullet's wrath, the bomb's fiery breath, the hatred that pours from the very souls of those people we claim are only defending themselves. Children. Like the children I see every day in the town where I live. I watch them in the local bakery whooping with delight at displays of beautifully crafted pastries. Some of them come straight from their dancing class still dressed in slippers and tights and skirts trimmed with sparkling costume jewels. And the parents, credit cards at the ready, are quick to indulge their children's sweetest tooth.
There are almost no bakeries left in your towns and villages, Gaza, where children can pick out their favorite sweet or pastry and hold it in their hands as the children do here knowing after it's gone, there will always be another. Those bakeries that have not been destroyed have had to close their doors because of flour and fuel shortages caused by Israel's blockade. In the north, there was one bakery where families could find bread. And then the Israelis bombed the warehouse where the flour was kept. In March, they gunned down men and women waiting for a convoy of trucks to deliver priceless bags of flour and other forms of aid. How can I not think of you, Gaza, each time I cut into a loaf of bread or lift a sweet roll to my lips. I see your children holding out empty bowls and pots as they clamor around a charity kitchen and push for a helping of the day's fare. But the day may come when there will no more such kitchens and no more cauldrons of soup or vegetable stew. Already a famine is spreading from one end of your land to the other, and starvation, the weapon of choice by Zion's holy warriors, may very well "finish the job." And should that happen, clean-up crews from the Promised Land will scrub the stones till no trace of blood remains. Tons of rubble will give rise to lofty towers and luxury apartments. On holidays, settler families will take their kids down to the sea and let them scour the beach for trinkets—a doll, a bracelet, a shiny ring. Things from a time when other children, long gone from Gaza, played in the waves and flew their kites on ocean breezes as signs of their presence and the angels who loved them. While the ghosts of all the martyrs, scooped from their graves, will haunt the wind with a long lament for the life they lost when the killers came.
Have I arrived at the place where Aaron Bushnell came to, the place where he knew he could no longer accept the deliberate immolation of families by America's closest ally and the refusal of the world's greatest power to lift a finger in defense of Palestinian life? No. I walk on, yet ashamed to be a citizen of this place, my country. As I was ashamed at 25 and traveling overseas with a freshly printed passport while my country was at war in Vietnam, a war the International War Crimes Tribunal in 1967 found met the definition of genocide. And again, 25 years later, in Iraq's public hospitals, the same shame followed me as I visited the pediatric wards. The wards were strangely, unnaturally silent. Mothers and grandmothers could do nothing but hold the hands of their loved ones or wipe their brows with a damp cloth because no medicine would be coming, and it was only a matter of time before the children would all be dead. That time, in Iraq, it wasn't Israel withholding aid but America, and as in Gaza, it was the young, the elderly, the sick, the poor who were the first to suffer and to die.
I walk on, knowing there is no justification for what Israel has done, is doing to your children, Gaza. From afar, I see men searching for survivors of another attack. One of the men finds a child by a pile of rubble. As he lifts her up, her arms collapse at her side. Her head falls back. Her eyes, once glistening with life and the light of childhood, stare up at the heavens where no gods reside and the only inhabitants are stone-cold killers throwing down whatever will deprive your people, Gaza, of the will to live... of life itself.
So, yes, I rage. I grieve. But my grief is nothing next to those who find their spouses or their children wrapped in bloody shrouds and left among the dead. My grief is nothing beside the mother whose child is withering away, his body a mere outline of bones, his heart a tattered flag soon to be set free, his arms too weak to even lift his voice beyond a whispered cry. But she has no food to give him. It has all been taken away as part of a glorious plan to which Yahweh has given His seal of approval, or so the story has been told and the generals of Zion agree. What would I do if I were sheltering in a school among dozens of families hoping to survive another night under relentless bombardment? And should the school be hit, and men, women, and children ripped apart, decapitated, how then would I grieve in the midst of this carnage? For that matter, if the people I most dearly love were among the dead in whatever is left of this shelter, would I have the strength to carry on or would my grief, like a bird of prey, sink its talons into me and not let go till it drops me into a pit of my own oblivion?
Here, in this sun-filled room, I have no fear of winter. No matter how cold it gets, I can simply adjust the thermostat in my home or put another blanket on the bed. But for you, Gaza, there are no thermostats and no cozy, indoor gatherings of families and friends, sharing glasses of steaming hot tea and slices of crunchy, sugary knafeh. Ninety percent of your people are displaced and facing another winter of harsh rains and falling temperatures without adequate shelter, warm blankets, sources of heat, and enough food to prevent malnutrition. Families in tent encampments along the coast have no defense against rising tides that can flood the tents and wash away clothing and bedding, and even pull little children out to sea. No matter how immiserated the people of Gaza become, no matter how violently they shiver night after winter night in leaky, patched up tents, their suffering is never too much for the armed forces of Zion. The bombs continue to fall, the missiles continue to find their mark, and extended families continue to be blown apart in the name of fighting Hamas—that elusive, shape-shifting entity whose command centers can magically assume the form of a school or hospital, and just as easily shape shift into an outdoor market or apartment building where extended families may be sheltering.
I saw footage of a field trip in which students came to the Israeli town of Sderot to "watch the genocide" from an observation deck. Using coin-operated binoculars, the students searched for signs of the suffering taking place in northern Gaza in which thousands of Palestinians are trapped and being deliberately starved to death. But the horror wasn't visible, and the students came away disappointed. They would need a different set of eyes to see what you're going through, Gaza. And even then, they might not understand or be moved.
Fourteen months of war have left behind an estimated 46 million tons of rubble. That much can be seen with the naked eye. What can't be seen are the estimated 10,000 victims—from the very young to the very old—buried under concrete slabs, twisted metal rods, tin roofs, asbestos, and other contaminants. The amount of debris is so great, if it could be bulldozed into one enormous heap, there would be enough material to fill Egypt's largest pyramid 11 times. The bodies of the men, women, and children entombed within that ravaged land may never be recovered or given a proper burial.
To paraphrase a line from the poet Wallace Stevens, there is the rubble we can see and the rubble we can't. I am many, many times removed from the extreme suffering your people face each day of their lives, Gaza. I can only imagine that in their hearts, that other kind of rubble exists—a great expanse of smoldering fires, heaps of shattered dreams, jagged shards of trauma and loss, bloody pieces of a life that once was whole. And no place safe to go, not even in the furthest depths of one's very soul. There are no machines that can clear away this sort of rubble or convert it into new, life-giving, life-supportive structures where hopes and aspirations can once again take root and flourish. But there is compassion and mercy, the promise of peace and the path to restorative justice.
Should a time ever come when Netanyahu, his generals, and his accomplices in Berlin and Washington D.C. are called to account for their crimes, a god worthy of the name would need to look very deeply into the hearts of those who have destroyed Gaza. Would she find within her otherworldly being the capacity to forgive the Israeli soldiers who murdered children in cold blood, stormed the hospitals, ordered the evacuation of patients, including those who could barely walk or were desperately ill? Would she forgive the pilots flying drones or actual aircraft who deliberately bombed civilian targets, whether a school, a hospital, even tents sheltering families who had nowhere else to go but a designated "safe zone"—in effect, a kill zone? Would she forgive the military masterminds who drew up the battle plans, the members of the Knesset who sanctioned genocide and called it self-defense? Would she forgive Joe Biden and other Western leaders who continued to arm Israel even as it committed war crimes and crimes against humanity? And what of the Israeli citizens for whom the daily massacres of your people, Gaza, were occasions to celebrate, to rejoice in the power and glory of the IDF and the blessed patrimony handed down from God to the chosen people, according to the Torah and other sacred Jewish texts?
I raise these questions but have no answer. Nor can I proclaim the greatness of God as I would if I were a religious Jew reciting the Kaddish for someone who has died. I can, however, proclaim the greatness of the Palestinian people, their strong ties to the land of their ancestors, and their refusal to submit to occupation and oppression. I praise the families of Gaza who have endured hunger, illness, displacement, trauma, and the cruelty of Israel's assault that spares no one, not even the newborn child, or the old man or woman forced to evacuate whatever shelter has become their home. I cannot even begin to fathom the depth of the suffering of these families or the reserves of courage and faith that must sustain them. But I can imagine that within their suffering, there must be a much greater force, one that draws its power from the land and the culture that has shaped them. And it is this force, this fire that must not be extinguished for it is the thing that gives hope to marginalized, dispossessed people.
I praise the many Palestinian doctors, nurses, medics, first responders who risk their lives every day that others may live. I praise the teachers in Gaza who continue to set up makeshift classrooms so children can continue their education even while schools have been systematically destroyed by the Israeli military. I praise the Palestinian journalists who do not let the murder of their colleagues keep them from reporting the truth about Israel's reign of terror. I praise Fadel Nabhani, a young man in Gaza. Besides caring for his family, he is doing all he can to provide food for cats and other animals that would otherwise die from hunger. Fadel also tries to take care of sick cats even though medicine, like food, is increasingly unavailable.
I praise Luay and Najah, adult siblings who are lifelong farmers. Originally from north Gaza, they have been displaced four times with their respective families. One day, while searching for firewood in the southern city of Rafah, it occurred to Najah that she and her brother could continue doing what had always given their lives purpose and meaning—farming. With seeds they had brought with them from Beit Lahiya in the north, they planted radishes, wild garlic, Swiss chard, beans, tomatoes, and herbs, including mint and thyme. Najah has said that each time she places a seed in the soil she prays to God to feed their families and also the birds. Despite the constant threat from Israeli missiles, their hard work yielded an abundant harvest—enough to sustain themselves, their relatives, and their neighbors. That mattered more to them than selling their crop in the market.
The fourth time they were displaced, Najah, Luay, and their families ended up living in tents on barren land mostly consisting of sand. They could have given up and relied on whatever food supplies made it through the Israeli checkpoints. Instead, they got to work, reciting a prayer for each seed they planted. Once again, their devotion to the land, their love of farming, and their desire to provide for as many people as they could... bore fruit.
This too exemplifies the spirit of resistance that is up against the tanks, bombs, missiles, and bottomless cruelty of the Israeli state, its violation of international human rights law, and its ongoing program of ethnic cleansing in Gaza. I stand with those who recognize this gross disparity, support the right of Palestinians to resist the annexation of their land and the destruction of their society, and oppose the U.S. role in arming the perpetrator of genocide.
Amen.
Trump and Musk are on an unconstitutional rampage, aiming for virtually every corner of the federal government. These two right-wing billionaires are targeting nurses, scientists, teachers, daycare providers, judges, veterans, air traffic controllers, and nuclear safety inspectors. No one is safe. The food stamps program, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are next. It’s an unprecedented disaster and a five-alarm fire, but there will be a reckoning. The people did not vote for this. The American people do not want this dystopian hellscape that hides behind claims of “efficiency.” Still, in reality, it is all a giveaway to corporate interests and the libertarian dreams of far-right oligarchs like Musk. Common Dreams is playing a vital role by reporting day and night on this orgy of corruption and greed, as well as what everyday people can do to organize and fight back. As a people-powered nonprofit news outlet, we cover issues the corporate media never will, but we can only continue with our readers’ support. |
Strange now to think of you while I read the words of a Jewish poet long gone on his boat of metaphors and flowers for the constant beat of time and all it brings forth. I think of you and how once you flourished there beside the sea despite the ever-tightening constraints placed upon you by the hateful gods of Zion. They tried to make you yield to oppression. They took away your freedom. They took away your land, parcel by parcel. They torched your olive trees, burned your crops, bulldozed your homes, sexually assaulted your men and women, killed your children, invaded your towns and villages, while the world looked on and looked away and excused crimes against you, your wanton destruction as the necessary acts of a persecuted people fighting back against the terrorists in their midst—you, the people of Gaza.
They said your children are destined to become terrorists, so even newborns are legitimate targets. So too are the mothers who have brought them into the world and will turn them into killers and haters of Israeli Jews, decreed the gods of Zion. But you will never be gone no matter how many martyrs they make, no matter how many loved ones they take from you while their people cheer the killing, salute the killers, treat them as heroes, bring their children to watch you dying, teach them to see you as vermin, animals, sub-humans not worth a single shekel of mercy. There are days when I can understand how Aaron Bushnell, a U.S. Air Force servicemember, could light himself on fire in front of the Israeli Embassy in Washington D.C. The genocide was more than he could bear. And his fiery exit from our world was an expression of his principled opposition to this genocide.
Who can doubt his death by self-immolation was also a cry from the heart for the suffering of your people, Gaza. The flames that engulfed Aaron are the same flames rising among families in Gaza, families sheltering in tents or huddling in whatever homes have not yet been bombed, shelled, hit with a Hellfire missile. Like Aaron, like so many others, I grieve. Am filled with rage for what could only happen with the full approval and backing of my own government, a willing accomplice to genocide.
I can imagine that within their suffering, there must be a much greater force, one that draws its power from the land and the culture that has shaped them. And it is this force, this fire that must not be extinguished for it is the thing that gives hope to marginalized, dispossessed people.
While an entire people is being inexorably exterminated, I go about my life feeling powerless to make any significant difference in the lives of Palestinians stripped of dignity, herded into enclaves where the killers can more easily and comfortably complete their tasks with no limit on the amount of suffering they can inflict. I can rail against the murderers and their overlords and those who cheer them on from Washington to Tel Aviv. But what good does railing do when so many are starving, bleeding out on hospital floors, caught in the gunsights of snipers and quadcopter drones, torn to pieces or incinerated in the flames from a missile attack while lying asleep in some thin tissue of a tent.
It is the children who weigh most heavily on my heart. Your children, Gaza. Not even their tender, untested lives are safe from the bullet's wrath, the bomb's fiery breath, the hatred that pours from the very souls of those people we claim are only defending themselves. Children. Like the children I see every day in the town where I live. I watch them in the local bakery whooping with delight at displays of beautifully crafted pastries. Some of them come straight from their dancing class still dressed in slippers and tights and skirts trimmed with sparkling costume jewels. And the parents, credit cards at the ready, are quick to indulge their children's sweetest tooth.
There are almost no bakeries left in your towns and villages, Gaza, where children can pick out their favorite sweet or pastry and hold it in their hands as the children do here knowing after it's gone, there will always be another. Those bakeries that have not been destroyed have had to close their doors because of flour and fuel shortages caused by Israel's blockade. In the north, there was one bakery where families could find bread. And then the Israelis bombed the warehouse where the flour was kept. In March, they gunned down men and women waiting for a convoy of trucks to deliver priceless bags of flour and other forms of aid. How can I not think of you, Gaza, each time I cut into a loaf of bread or lift a sweet roll to my lips. I see your children holding out empty bowls and pots as they clamor around a charity kitchen and push for a helping of the day's fare. But the day may come when there will no more such kitchens and no more cauldrons of soup or vegetable stew. Already a famine is spreading from one end of your land to the other, and starvation, the weapon of choice by Zion's holy warriors, may very well "finish the job." And should that happen, clean-up crews from the Promised Land will scrub the stones till no trace of blood remains. Tons of rubble will give rise to lofty towers and luxury apartments. On holidays, settler families will take their kids down to the sea and let them scour the beach for trinkets—a doll, a bracelet, a shiny ring. Things from a time when other children, long gone from Gaza, played in the waves and flew their kites on ocean breezes as signs of their presence and the angels who loved them. While the ghosts of all the martyrs, scooped from their graves, will haunt the wind with a long lament for the life they lost when the killers came.
Have I arrived at the place where Aaron Bushnell came to, the place where he knew he could no longer accept the deliberate immolation of families by America's closest ally and the refusal of the world's greatest power to lift a finger in defense of Palestinian life? No. I walk on, yet ashamed to be a citizen of this place, my country. As I was ashamed at 25 and traveling overseas with a freshly printed passport while my country was at war in Vietnam, a war the International War Crimes Tribunal in 1967 found met the definition of genocide. And again, 25 years later, in Iraq's public hospitals, the same shame followed me as I visited the pediatric wards. The wards were strangely, unnaturally silent. Mothers and grandmothers could do nothing but hold the hands of their loved ones or wipe their brows with a damp cloth because no medicine would be coming, and it was only a matter of time before the children would all be dead. That time, in Iraq, it wasn't Israel withholding aid but America, and as in Gaza, it was the young, the elderly, the sick, the poor who were the first to suffer and to die.
I walk on, knowing there is no justification for what Israel has done, is doing to your children, Gaza. From afar, I see men searching for survivors of another attack. One of the men finds a child by a pile of rubble. As he lifts her up, her arms collapse at her side. Her head falls back. Her eyes, once glistening with life and the light of childhood, stare up at the heavens where no gods reside and the only inhabitants are stone-cold killers throwing down whatever will deprive your people, Gaza, of the will to live... of life itself.
So, yes, I rage. I grieve. But my grief is nothing next to those who find their spouses or their children wrapped in bloody shrouds and left among the dead. My grief is nothing beside the mother whose child is withering away, his body a mere outline of bones, his heart a tattered flag soon to be set free, his arms too weak to even lift his voice beyond a whispered cry. But she has no food to give him. It has all been taken away as part of a glorious plan to which Yahweh has given His seal of approval, or so the story has been told and the generals of Zion agree. What would I do if I were sheltering in a school among dozens of families hoping to survive another night under relentless bombardment? And should the school be hit, and men, women, and children ripped apart, decapitated, how then would I grieve in the midst of this carnage? For that matter, if the people I most dearly love were among the dead in whatever is left of this shelter, would I have the strength to carry on or would my grief, like a bird of prey, sink its talons into me and not let go till it drops me into a pit of my own oblivion?
Here, in this sun-filled room, I have no fear of winter. No matter how cold it gets, I can simply adjust the thermostat in my home or put another blanket on the bed. But for you, Gaza, there are no thermostats and no cozy, indoor gatherings of families and friends, sharing glasses of steaming hot tea and slices of crunchy, sugary knafeh. Ninety percent of your people are displaced and facing another winter of harsh rains and falling temperatures without adequate shelter, warm blankets, sources of heat, and enough food to prevent malnutrition. Families in tent encampments along the coast have no defense against rising tides that can flood the tents and wash away clothing and bedding, and even pull little children out to sea. No matter how immiserated the people of Gaza become, no matter how violently they shiver night after winter night in leaky, patched up tents, their suffering is never too much for the armed forces of Zion. The bombs continue to fall, the missiles continue to find their mark, and extended families continue to be blown apart in the name of fighting Hamas—that elusive, shape-shifting entity whose command centers can magically assume the form of a school or hospital, and just as easily shape shift into an outdoor market or apartment building where extended families may be sheltering.
I saw footage of a field trip in which students came to the Israeli town of Sderot to "watch the genocide" from an observation deck. Using coin-operated binoculars, the students searched for signs of the suffering taking place in northern Gaza in which thousands of Palestinians are trapped and being deliberately starved to death. But the horror wasn't visible, and the students came away disappointed. They would need a different set of eyes to see what you're going through, Gaza. And even then, they might not understand or be moved.
Fourteen months of war have left behind an estimated 46 million tons of rubble. That much can be seen with the naked eye. What can't be seen are the estimated 10,000 victims—from the very young to the very old—buried under concrete slabs, twisted metal rods, tin roofs, asbestos, and other contaminants. The amount of debris is so great, if it could be bulldozed into one enormous heap, there would be enough material to fill Egypt's largest pyramid 11 times. The bodies of the men, women, and children entombed within that ravaged land may never be recovered or given a proper burial.
To paraphrase a line from the poet Wallace Stevens, there is the rubble we can see and the rubble we can't. I am many, many times removed from the extreme suffering your people face each day of their lives, Gaza. I can only imagine that in their hearts, that other kind of rubble exists—a great expanse of smoldering fires, heaps of shattered dreams, jagged shards of trauma and loss, bloody pieces of a life that once was whole. And no place safe to go, not even in the furthest depths of one's very soul. There are no machines that can clear away this sort of rubble or convert it into new, life-giving, life-supportive structures where hopes and aspirations can once again take root and flourish. But there is compassion and mercy, the promise of peace and the path to restorative justice.
Should a time ever come when Netanyahu, his generals, and his accomplices in Berlin and Washington D.C. are called to account for their crimes, a god worthy of the name would need to look very deeply into the hearts of those who have destroyed Gaza. Would she find within her otherworldly being the capacity to forgive the Israeli soldiers who murdered children in cold blood, stormed the hospitals, ordered the evacuation of patients, including those who could barely walk or were desperately ill? Would she forgive the pilots flying drones or actual aircraft who deliberately bombed civilian targets, whether a school, a hospital, even tents sheltering families who had nowhere else to go but a designated "safe zone"—in effect, a kill zone? Would she forgive the military masterminds who drew up the battle plans, the members of the Knesset who sanctioned genocide and called it self-defense? Would she forgive Joe Biden and other Western leaders who continued to arm Israel even as it committed war crimes and crimes against humanity? And what of the Israeli citizens for whom the daily massacres of your people, Gaza, were occasions to celebrate, to rejoice in the power and glory of the IDF and the blessed patrimony handed down from God to the chosen people, according to the Torah and other sacred Jewish texts?
I raise these questions but have no answer. Nor can I proclaim the greatness of God as I would if I were a religious Jew reciting the Kaddish for someone who has died. I can, however, proclaim the greatness of the Palestinian people, their strong ties to the land of their ancestors, and their refusal to submit to occupation and oppression. I praise the families of Gaza who have endured hunger, illness, displacement, trauma, and the cruelty of Israel's assault that spares no one, not even the newborn child, or the old man or woman forced to evacuate whatever shelter has become their home. I cannot even begin to fathom the depth of the suffering of these families or the reserves of courage and faith that must sustain them. But I can imagine that within their suffering, there must be a much greater force, one that draws its power from the land and the culture that has shaped them. And it is this force, this fire that must not be extinguished for it is the thing that gives hope to marginalized, dispossessed people.
I praise the many Palestinian doctors, nurses, medics, first responders who risk their lives every day that others may live. I praise the teachers in Gaza who continue to set up makeshift classrooms so children can continue their education even while schools have been systematically destroyed by the Israeli military. I praise the Palestinian journalists who do not let the murder of their colleagues keep them from reporting the truth about Israel's reign of terror. I praise Fadel Nabhani, a young man in Gaza. Besides caring for his family, he is doing all he can to provide food for cats and other animals that would otherwise die from hunger. Fadel also tries to take care of sick cats even though medicine, like food, is increasingly unavailable.
I praise Luay and Najah, adult siblings who are lifelong farmers. Originally from north Gaza, they have been displaced four times with their respective families. One day, while searching for firewood in the southern city of Rafah, it occurred to Najah that she and her brother could continue doing what had always given their lives purpose and meaning—farming. With seeds they had brought with them from Beit Lahiya in the north, they planted radishes, wild garlic, Swiss chard, beans, tomatoes, and herbs, including mint and thyme. Najah has said that each time she places a seed in the soil she prays to God to feed their families and also the birds. Despite the constant threat from Israeli missiles, their hard work yielded an abundant harvest—enough to sustain themselves, their relatives, and their neighbors. That mattered more to them than selling their crop in the market.
The fourth time they were displaced, Najah, Luay, and their families ended up living in tents on barren land mostly consisting of sand. They could have given up and relied on whatever food supplies made it through the Israeli checkpoints. Instead, they got to work, reciting a prayer for each seed they planted. Once again, their devotion to the land, their love of farming, and their desire to provide for as many people as they could... bore fruit.
This too exemplifies the spirit of resistance that is up against the tanks, bombs, missiles, and bottomless cruelty of the Israeli state, its violation of international human rights law, and its ongoing program of ethnic cleansing in Gaza. I stand with those who recognize this gross disparity, support the right of Palestinians to resist the annexation of their land and the destruction of their society, and oppose the U.S. role in arming the perpetrator of genocide.
Amen.
Strange now to think of you while I read the words of a Jewish poet long gone on his boat of metaphors and flowers for the constant beat of time and all it brings forth. I think of you and how once you flourished there beside the sea despite the ever-tightening constraints placed upon you by the hateful gods of Zion. They tried to make you yield to oppression. They took away your freedom. They took away your land, parcel by parcel. They torched your olive trees, burned your crops, bulldozed your homes, sexually assaulted your men and women, killed your children, invaded your towns and villages, while the world looked on and looked away and excused crimes against you, your wanton destruction as the necessary acts of a persecuted people fighting back against the terrorists in their midst—you, the people of Gaza.
They said your children are destined to become terrorists, so even newborns are legitimate targets. So too are the mothers who have brought them into the world and will turn them into killers and haters of Israeli Jews, decreed the gods of Zion. But you will never be gone no matter how many martyrs they make, no matter how many loved ones they take from you while their people cheer the killing, salute the killers, treat them as heroes, bring their children to watch you dying, teach them to see you as vermin, animals, sub-humans not worth a single shekel of mercy. There are days when I can understand how Aaron Bushnell, a U.S. Air Force servicemember, could light himself on fire in front of the Israeli Embassy in Washington D.C. The genocide was more than he could bear. And his fiery exit from our world was an expression of his principled opposition to this genocide.
Who can doubt his death by self-immolation was also a cry from the heart for the suffering of your people, Gaza. The flames that engulfed Aaron are the same flames rising among families in Gaza, families sheltering in tents or huddling in whatever homes have not yet been bombed, shelled, hit with a Hellfire missile. Like Aaron, like so many others, I grieve. Am filled with rage for what could only happen with the full approval and backing of my own government, a willing accomplice to genocide.
I can imagine that within their suffering, there must be a much greater force, one that draws its power from the land and the culture that has shaped them. And it is this force, this fire that must not be extinguished for it is the thing that gives hope to marginalized, dispossessed people.
While an entire people is being inexorably exterminated, I go about my life feeling powerless to make any significant difference in the lives of Palestinians stripped of dignity, herded into enclaves where the killers can more easily and comfortably complete their tasks with no limit on the amount of suffering they can inflict. I can rail against the murderers and their overlords and those who cheer them on from Washington to Tel Aviv. But what good does railing do when so many are starving, bleeding out on hospital floors, caught in the gunsights of snipers and quadcopter drones, torn to pieces or incinerated in the flames from a missile attack while lying asleep in some thin tissue of a tent.
It is the children who weigh most heavily on my heart. Your children, Gaza. Not even their tender, untested lives are safe from the bullet's wrath, the bomb's fiery breath, the hatred that pours from the very souls of those people we claim are only defending themselves. Children. Like the children I see every day in the town where I live. I watch them in the local bakery whooping with delight at displays of beautifully crafted pastries. Some of them come straight from their dancing class still dressed in slippers and tights and skirts trimmed with sparkling costume jewels. And the parents, credit cards at the ready, are quick to indulge their children's sweetest tooth.
There are almost no bakeries left in your towns and villages, Gaza, where children can pick out their favorite sweet or pastry and hold it in their hands as the children do here knowing after it's gone, there will always be another. Those bakeries that have not been destroyed have had to close their doors because of flour and fuel shortages caused by Israel's blockade. In the north, there was one bakery where families could find bread. And then the Israelis bombed the warehouse where the flour was kept. In March, they gunned down men and women waiting for a convoy of trucks to deliver priceless bags of flour and other forms of aid. How can I not think of you, Gaza, each time I cut into a loaf of bread or lift a sweet roll to my lips. I see your children holding out empty bowls and pots as they clamor around a charity kitchen and push for a helping of the day's fare. But the day may come when there will no more such kitchens and no more cauldrons of soup or vegetable stew. Already a famine is spreading from one end of your land to the other, and starvation, the weapon of choice by Zion's holy warriors, may very well "finish the job." And should that happen, clean-up crews from the Promised Land will scrub the stones till no trace of blood remains. Tons of rubble will give rise to lofty towers and luxury apartments. On holidays, settler families will take their kids down to the sea and let them scour the beach for trinkets—a doll, a bracelet, a shiny ring. Things from a time when other children, long gone from Gaza, played in the waves and flew their kites on ocean breezes as signs of their presence and the angels who loved them. While the ghosts of all the martyrs, scooped from their graves, will haunt the wind with a long lament for the life they lost when the killers came.
Have I arrived at the place where Aaron Bushnell came to, the place where he knew he could no longer accept the deliberate immolation of families by America's closest ally and the refusal of the world's greatest power to lift a finger in defense of Palestinian life? No. I walk on, yet ashamed to be a citizen of this place, my country. As I was ashamed at 25 and traveling overseas with a freshly printed passport while my country was at war in Vietnam, a war the International War Crimes Tribunal in 1967 found met the definition of genocide. And again, 25 years later, in Iraq's public hospitals, the same shame followed me as I visited the pediatric wards. The wards were strangely, unnaturally silent. Mothers and grandmothers could do nothing but hold the hands of their loved ones or wipe their brows with a damp cloth because no medicine would be coming, and it was only a matter of time before the children would all be dead. That time, in Iraq, it wasn't Israel withholding aid but America, and as in Gaza, it was the young, the elderly, the sick, the poor who were the first to suffer and to die.
I walk on, knowing there is no justification for what Israel has done, is doing to your children, Gaza. From afar, I see men searching for survivors of another attack. One of the men finds a child by a pile of rubble. As he lifts her up, her arms collapse at her side. Her head falls back. Her eyes, once glistening with life and the light of childhood, stare up at the heavens where no gods reside and the only inhabitants are stone-cold killers throwing down whatever will deprive your people, Gaza, of the will to live... of life itself.
So, yes, I rage. I grieve. But my grief is nothing next to those who find their spouses or their children wrapped in bloody shrouds and left among the dead. My grief is nothing beside the mother whose child is withering away, his body a mere outline of bones, his heart a tattered flag soon to be set free, his arms too weak to even lift his voice beyond a whispered cry. But she has no food to give him. It has all been taken away as part of a glorious plan to which Yahweh has given His seal of approval, or so the story has been told and the generals of Zion agree. What would I do if I were sheltering in a school among dozens of families hoping to survive another night under relentless bombardment? And should the school be hit, and men, women, and children ripped apart, decapitated, how then would I grieve in the midst of this carnage? For that matter, if the people I most dearly love were among the dead in whatever is left of this shelter, would I have the strength to carry on or would my grief, like a bird of prey, sink its talons into me and not let go till it drops me into a pit of my own oblivion?
Here, in this sun-filled room, I have no fear of winter. No matter how cold it gets, I can simply adjust the thermostat in my home or put another blanket on the bed. But for you, Gaza, there are no thermostats and no cozy, indoor gatherings of families and friends, sharing glasses of steaming hot tea and slices of crunchy, sugary knafeh. Ninety percent of your people are displaced and facing another winter of harsh rains and falling temperatures without adequate shelter, warm blankets, sources of heat, and enough food to prevent malnutrition. Families in tent encampments along the coast have no defense against rising tides that can flood the tents and wash away clothing and bedding, and even pull little children out to sea. No matter how immiserated the people of Gaza become, no matter how violently they shiver night after winter night in leaky, patched up tents, their suffering is never too much for the armed forces of Zion. The bombs continue to fall, the missiles continue to find their mark, and extended families continue to be blown apart in the name of fighting Hamas—that elusive, shape-shifting entity whose command centers can magically assume the form of a school or hospital, and just as easily shape shift into an outdoor market or apartment building where extended families may be sheltering.
I saw footage of a field trip in which students came to the Israeli town of Sderot to "watch the genocide" from an observation deck. Using coin-operated binoculars, the students searched for signs of the suffering taking place in northern Gaza in which thousands of Palestinians are trapped and being deliberately starved to death. But the horror wasn't visible, and the students came away disappointed. They would need a different set of eyes to see what you're going through, Gaza. And even then, they might not understand or be moved.
Fourteen months of war have left behind an estimated 46 million tons of rubble. That much can be seen with the naked eye. What can't be seen are the estimated 10,000 victims—from the very young to the very old—buried under concrete slabs, twisted metal rods, tin roofs, asbestos, and other contaminants. The amount of debris is so great, if it could be bulldozed into one enormous heap, there would be enough material to fill Egypt's largest pyramid 11 times. The bodies of the men, women, and children entombed within that ravaged land may never be recovered or given a proper burial.
To paraphrase a line from the poet Wallace Stevens, there is the rubble we can see and the rubble we can't. I am many, many times removed from the extreme suffering your people face each day of their lives, Gaza. I can only imagine that in their hearts, that other kind of rubble exists—a great expanse of smoldering fires, heaps of shattered dreams, jagged shards of trauma and loss, bloody pieces of a life that once was whole. And no place safe to go, not even in the furthest depths of one's very soul. There are no machines that can clear away this sort of rubble or convert it into new, life-giving, life-supportive structures where hopes and aspirations can once again take root and flourish. But there is compassion and mercy, the promise of peace and the path to restorative justice.
Should a time ever come when Netanyahu, his generals, and his accomplices in Berlin and Washington D.C. are called to account for their crimes, a god worthy of the name would need to look very deeply into the hearts of those who have destroyed Gaza. Would she find within her otherworldly being the capacity to forgive the Israeli soldiers who murdered children in cold blood, stormed the hospitals, ordered the evacuation of patients, including those who could barely walk or were desperately ill? Would she forgive the pilots flying drones or actual aircraft who deliberately bombed civilian targets, whether a school, a hospital, even tents sheltering families who had nowhere else to go but a designated "safe zone"—in effect, a kill zone? Would she forgive the military masterminds who drew up the battle plans, the members of the Knesset who sanctioned genocide and called it self-defense? Would she forgive Joe Biden and other Western leaders who continued to arm Israel even as it committed war crimes and crimes against humanity? And what of the Israeli citizens for whom the daily massacres of your people, Gaza, were occasions to celebrate, to rejoice in the power and glory of the IDF and the blessed patrimony handed down from God to the chosen people, according to the Torah and other sacred Jewish texts?
I raise these questions but have no answer. Nor can I proclaim the greatness of God as I would if I were a religious Jew reciting the Kaddish for someone who has died. I can, however, proclaim the greatness of the Palestinian people, their strong ties to the land of their ancestors, and their refusal to submit to occupation and oppression. I praise the families of Gaza who have endured hunger, illness, displacement, trauma, and the cruelty of Israel's assault that spares no one, not even the newborn child, or the old man or woman forced to evacuate whatever shelter has become their home. I cannot even begin to fathom the depth of the suffering of these families or the reserves of courage and faith that must sustain them. But I can imagine that within their suffering, there must be a much greater force, one that draws its power from the land and the culture that has shaped them. And it is this force, this fire that must not be extinguished for it is the thing that gives hope to marginalized, dispossessed people.
I praise the many Palestinian doctors, nurses, medics, first responders who risk their lives every day that others may live. I praise the teachers in Gaza who continue to set up makeshift classrooms so children can continue their education even while schools have been systematically destroyed by the Israeli military. I praise the Palestinian journalists who do not let the murder of their colleagues keep them from reporting the truth about Israel's reign of terror. I praise Fadel Nabhani, a young man in Gaza. Besides caring for his family, he is doing all he can to provide food for cats and other animals that would otherwise die from hunger. Fadel also tries to take care of sick cats even though medicine, like food, is increasingly unavailable.
I praise Luay and Najah, adult siblings who are lifelong farmers. Originally from north Gaza, they have been displaced four times with their respective families. One day, while searching for firewood in the southern city of Rafah, it occurred to Najah that she and her brother could continue doing what had always given their lives purpose and meaning—farming. With seeds they had brought with them from Beit Lahiya in the north, they planted radishes, wild garlic, Swiss chard, beans, tomatoes, and herbs, including mint and thyme. Najah has said that each time she places a seed in the soil she prays to God to feed their families and also the birds. Despite the constant threat from Israeli missiles, their hard work yielded an abundant harvest—enough to sustain themselves, their relatives, and their neighbors. That mattered more to them than selling their crop in the market.
The fourth time they were displaced, Najah, Luay, and their families ended up living in tents on barren land mostly consisting of sand. They could have given up and relied on whatever food supplies made it through the Israeli checkpoints. Instead, they got to work, reciting a prayer for each seed they planted. Once again, their devotion to the land, their love of farming, and their desire to provide for as many people as they could... bore fruit.
This too exemplifies the spirit of resistance that is up against the tanks, bombs, missiles, and bottomless cruelty of the Israeli state, its violation of international human rights law, and its ongoing program of ethnic cleansing in Gaza. I stand with those who recognize this gross disparity, support the right of Palestinians to resist the annexation of their land and the destruction of their society, and oppose the U.S. role in arming the perpetrator of genocide.
Amen.
"Thank you to the hundreds of thousands of Americans across the country who are standing up and speaking out for our voting rights, fundamental freedoms, and essential services like Social Security and Medicare."
In communities large and small across the United States on Saturday, hundreds of thousands of people collectively took to the streets to make their opposition to President Donald Trump heard.
The people who took part in the organized protests ranged from very young children to the elderly and their message was scrawled on signs of all sizes and colors—many of them angry, some of them funny, but all in line with the "Hands Off" message that brought them together.
"Thank you to the hundreds of thousands of Americans across the country who are standing up and speaking out for our voting rights, fundamental freedoms, and essential services like Social Security and Medicare," said the group Stand Up America as word of the turnout poured in from across the country.
A relatively small, but representative sample of photographs from various demonstrations that took place follows.
Demonstrators gather on Boston Common, cheering and chanting slogans, during the nationwide "Hands Off!" protest against US President Donald Trump and his advisor, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, in Boston, Massachusetts on April 5, 2025. (Photo by Joseph Prezioso / AFP)
"Everyone involved in this crime against humanity, and everyone who covered it up, would face prosecution in a world that had any shred of dignity left."
A video presented to officials at the United Nations on Friday and first made public Saturday by the New York Times provides more evidence that the recent massacre of Palestinian medics in Gaza did not happen the way Israeli government claimed—the latest in a long line of deception when it comes to violence against civilians that have led to repeated accusations of war crimes.
The video, according to the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS), was found on the phone of a paramedic found in a mass grave with a bullet in his head after being killed, along with seven other medics, by Israeli forces on March 23. The eight medics, buried in the shallow grave with the bodies riddled with bullets, were: Mustafa Khafaja, Ezz El-Din Shaat, Saleh Muammar, Refaat Radwan, Muhammad Bahloul, Ashraf Abu Libda, Muhammad Al-Hila, and Raed Al-Sharif. The video reportedly belonged to Radwan. A ninth medic, identified as Asaad Al-Nasasra, who was at the scene of the massacre, which took place near the southern city of Rafah, is still missing.
The PRCS said it presented the video—which refutes the explanation of the killings offered by Israeli officials—to members of the UN Security Council on Friday.
"They were killed in their uniforms. Driving their clearly marked vehicles. Wearing their gloves. On their way to save lives," Jonathan Whittall, head of the UN's humanitarian affairs office in Palestine, said last week after the bodies were discovered. Some of the victims, according to Gaza officials, were found with handcuffs still on them and appeared to have been shot in the head, execution-style.
The Israeli military initially said its soldiers "did not randomly attack" any ambulances, but rather claimed they fired on "terrorists" who approached them in "suspicious vehicles." Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, an IDF spokesperson, said the vehicles that the soldiers opened fire on were driving with their lights off and did not have clearance to be in the area. The video evidence directly contradicts the IDF's version of events.
As the Times reports:
The Times obtained the video from a senior diplomat at the United Nations who asked not to be identified to be able to share sensitive information.
The Times verified the location and timing of the video, which was taken in the southern city of Rafah early on March 23. Filmed from what appears to be the front interior of a moving vehicle, it shows a convoy of ambulances and a fire truck, clearly marked, with headlights and flashing lights turned on, driving south on a road to the north of Rafah in the early morning. The first rays of sun can be seen, and birds are chirping.
In an interview with Drop Site News published Friday, the only known paramedic to survive the attack, Munther Abed, explained that he and his colleagues "were directly and deliberately shot at" by the IDF. "The car is clearly marked with 'Palestinian Red Crescent Society 101.' The car's number was clear and the crews' uniform was clear, so why were we directly shot at? That is the question."
The video's release sparked fresh outrage and demands for accountability on Saturday.
"The IDF denied access to the site for days; they sent in diggers to cover up the massacre and intentionally lied about it," said podcast producer Hamza M. Syed in reaction to the new revelations. "The entire leadership of the Israeli army is implicated in this unconscionable war crime. And they must be prosecuted."
"Everyone involved in this crime against humanity, and everyone who covered it up, would face prosecution in a world that had any shred of dignity left," said journalist Ryan Grim of DropSite News.
"They're dismantling our country. They're looting our government. And they think we'll just watch."
In communities across the United States and also overseas, coordinated "Hands Off" protests are taking place far and wide Saturday in the largest public rebuke yet to President Donald Trump and top henchman Elon Musk's assault on the workings of the federal government and their program of economic sabotage that is sacrificing the needs of working families to authoritarianism and the greed of right-wing oligarchs.
Indivisible, one of the key organizing groups behind the day's protests, said millions participated in more than 1,300 individual rallies as they demanded "an end to Trump's authoritarian power grab" and condemning all those aiding and abetting it.
"We expected hundreds of thousands. But at virtually every single event, the crowds eclipsed our estimates," the group said in a statement Saturday evening.
"Hands off our healthcare, hands off our civil rights, hands off our schools, our freedoms, and our democracy."
"This is the largest day of protest since Trump retook office," the group added. "And in many small towns and cities, activists are reporting the biggest protests their communities have ever seen as everyday people send a clear, unmistakable message to Trump and Musk: Hands off our healthcare, hands off our civil rights, hands off our schools, our freedoms, and our democracy."
According to the organizers' call to action:
They're dismantling our country. They’re looting our government. And they think we'll just watch.
On Saturday, April 5th, we rise up with one demand: Hands Off!
This is a nationwide mobilization to stop the most brazen power grab in modern history. Trump, Musk, and their billionaire cronies are orchestrating an all-out assault on our government, our economy, and our basic rights—enabled by Congress every step of the way. They want to strip America for parts—shuttering Social Security offices, firing essential workers, eliminating consumer protections, and gutting Medicaid—all to bankroll their billionaire tax scam.
They're handing over our tax dollars, our public services, and our democracy to the ultra-rich. If we don't fight now, there won’t be anything left to save.
The more than 1,300 "Hands Off!" demonstrations—organized by a large coalition of unions, progressive advocacy groups, and pro-democracy watchdogs—first kicked off Saturday in Europe, followed by East Coast communities in the U.S., and continued throughout the day at various times, depending on location. See here for a list of scheduled "Hands Off" events.
"The United States has a president, not a king," said the progressive advocacy group People's Action, one of the group's involved in the actions, in an email to supporters Saturday morning just as protest events kicked off in hundreds of cities and communities. "Donald Trump has, by every measure, been working to make himself a king. He has become unanswerable to the courts, Congress, and the American people."
In its Saturday evening statement, Indivisible said the actions far exceeded their expectations and should be seen as a turning point in the battle to stop Trump and his minions:
The Trump administration has spent its first 75 days in office trying to overwhelm us, to make us feel powerless, so that we will fall in line, accept the ransacking of our government, the raiding of our social safety net, and the dismantling of our democracy.
And too often, the response from our leaders and those in positions to resist has been abject cowardice. Compliance. Obeying in advance.
But not today. Today we've demonstrated a different path forward. We've modeled the courage and action that we want to see from our leaders, and showed all those who've been standing on the sidelines who share our values that they are not alone.
Citing the Republican president's thirst for "power and greed," People's Action earlier explained why organized pressure must be built and sustained against the administration, especially at the conclusion of a week in which the global economy was spun into disarray by Trump's tariff announcement, his attack on the rule of law continued, and the twice-elected president admitted he was "not joking" about the possibility of seeking a third term, which is barred by the constitution.
"He is destroying the economy with tariffs in order to pay for the tax cuts he wants to push through to enrich himself and his billionaire buddies," warned People's Action. "He has ordered the government to round up innocent people off of the streets and put them in detention centers without due process because they dared to speak out using their First Amendment rights. And he is not close to being done—by his own admission, he is planning to run for a third term, which the Constitution does not allow."
Live stream of Hands Off rally in Washington, D.C.:
Below are photo or video dispatches from demonstrations around the world on Saturday. Check back for updates...
United Kingdom
France
Germany
Belgium:
Massachusetts:
Maine:
Washington, D.C.:
New York:
Minnesota:
Michigan:
Ohio:
Colorado:
Pennsylvania:
North Carolina:
The protest organizers warn that what Trump and Musk are up to "is not just corruption" and "not just mismanagement," but something far more sinister.
"This is a hostile takeover," they said, but vowed to fight back. "This is the moment where we say NO. No more looting, no more stealing, no more billionaires raiding our government while working people struggle to survive."