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gaza
In Trump World, Where Palestinians Call Home Is Just an Abstract Chunk of Real Estate
First you have to sell the concept to the public, then do whatever is necessary—murder-wise—to claim the real estate itself.
Apr 12, 2025
I need some help here. The Trump presidency and the “America only” future he’s hawking to the public like the world’s most arrogant snake-oil salesman feels beyond my ability to address right now, even though I consider doing so my life’s work.
But sometimes the news of the day simply feels too absurd, too strange, to seriously address, like President Donald Trump’s comment the other day as he sat next to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House: “You know how I feel about the Gaza Strip. I think it’s an incredible piece of important real estate.”
Dividing the world into abstract chunks of real estate! This is lethal blather, without which war would be too complex to wage. First you have to sell the concept to the public, then do whatever is necessary—murder-wise—to claim the real estate itself
What does it mean that we live in a world that includes both generosity and greed, both love and genocide? Knowing this, how do we proceed?
Meanwhile, life goes on in minuscule bits for the average person, who is unaffected by (but perhaps in favor of) this war or that war or that war. The minutiae of life—my life, your life—goes on. Sometimes I take it upon myself to notice it. Or even learn from it—dig for the soul and spirit of the universe within it. To that end I welcome “The Cardinal,” a poem I wrote several years ago, in honor of everything that doesn’t matter.
I thank you god
if that’s your name
for the beauty and the trash,
the spill, the vomit, the love and
exhaust smoke of
this new most
amazing day.
Outside my window
a cardinal shocking
as a nosebleed
pecks the raw winter
ground beneath its feet.
I thank you for its
food and mine,
for my coffee and for these
words, these malleable
playthings of awareness,
which still birth
all I think and know.
Let them stroke
the trembling potential
of what I see and what’s
to come.
The cardinal lifts.
I salute it with
my cup
and swallow.
In honor of the cardinal, let me ask: What if he “mattered”—to organized human consciousness, to the global power structure that purports to control the future? What if we valued minutiae—that is to say, basic existence, the actual world we live in—in a way that transcended our valuing of power, dominance, ownership, and control? What if humanity, Planet Earth’s organizers in chief, could push their own evolution beyond exploitation of the planet to... God knows what?
What if those with power actually valued those without power, which includes Planet Earth itself?
Sorry, but here’s more President Trump, continuing to muse about Palestine:
Having a peace force like the United States there, controlling and owning the Gaza Strip would be a good thing, because right now all it is for years and years, all I hear about is killing and Hamas and problems.
If you take the people, the Palestinians, and move them around to different countries—and you have plenty of countries that will do that... you call it the Freedom Zone, a free zone, where people aren’t going to be killed every day. That’s a hell of a place.
Yeah, an “incredible piece of important real estate” shouldn’t have genocide going on. But the cause of the genocide is the victims themselves, apparently, so we just have to move them to wherever. Maybe they’re physically, historically and spiritually connected to that land, which they call “home,” but in Trump World this is real estate—so, sorry, genocide victims, you’ll have to move. The issue here is money.
Pssst... don’t tell anyone, but this is the god we worship, fervently and thoughtlessly.
All of which leaves me feeling as lost as I did when I started this column. As I try to honor the minutiae of real life, I realize that also includes Donald Trump and all world leaders, or at least their flawed humanity, as well as earthworms and cardinals, sunlight, sky, rain and snow and everything else I can see beyond my kitchen window. What does it mean that we live in a world that includes both generosity and greed, both love and genocide? Knowing this, how do we proceed?
Slowly, I’d say, and with minimal certainty; the paradox is within all of us. The best we can do is keep our eyes and hearts wide open.
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Dozens of Israeli Airstrikes in Recent Weeks Killed 'Only Women and Children'
"The international community... must end its silence and inaction as the Palestinian people face mass destruction, torture, forced starvation, slaughter, and ethnic cleansing," wrote one advocacy group.
Apr 11, 2025
The United Nations announced Friday that dozens of strikes carried out by the Israeli military in Gaza in recent weeks only killed women and children as it issued a stark warning about Israel's blockade of essential aid.
"Between 18 March and 9 April 2025, there were some 224 incidents of Israeli strikes on residential buildings and tents for internally displaced people," said Ravina Shamdasani, spokesperson for the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, according to press briefing notes.
"In some 36 strikes about which the U.N. Human Rights Office corroborated information, the fatalities recorded so far were only women and children," she said.
In response to reports of the strikes that exclusively killed women and children, the Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization the Council on American-Islamic Relations said in a Friday statement that "the intentional mass slaughter of women and children further exposes the genocidal intent of the far-right Israeli government."
"The international community—and our own government—must end its silence and inaction as the Palestinian people face mass destruction, torture, forced starvation, slaughter, and ethnic cleansing," according to the group.
According to Shamdasani, Israel's increasing issuance of evacuation orders, which she called tantamount to displacement orders, have forced Palestinians in Gaza into "ever shrinking spaces where they have little or no access to lifesaving services, including water, food, and shelter, and where they continue to be subject to attacks."
Israel shattered a shaky, two-month long cease-fire deal when it resumed strikes on Gaza on March 18. Not long after strikes resumed, local health officials in Gaza announced that the death toll of Israel's deadly campaign on the enclave had surpassed 50,000 people.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health said on Friday that the death toll since March 18 has reached over 1,540 people.
Israel also has imposed a blockade of humanitarian aid into Gaza, leading a top official with the U.N. Children's Fund to warn in mid-March that children in Gaza are "living without the very basics they need to survive—yet again."
Shamdasani said Friday that Israel's closure of crossings into Gaza, which has prevented food, medicine, and other essentials from entering the enclave, is now in its sixth week.
"Israeli officials have made statements suggesting that the entry of humanitarian aid is directly linked to the release of hostages, raising serious concerns about collective punishment and the use of starvation of the civilian population as a method of war, both of which constitute crimes under international law," she said.
What's more, she said, "in light of the cumulative impact of Israeli forces' conduct in Gaza, the office is seriously concerned that Israel appears to be inflicting on Palestinians in Gaza conditions of life increasingly incompatible with their continued existence as a group in Gaza."
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'Very Dark Stuff': Judge Rules Palestine Activist Mahmoud Khalil Can Be Deported
"If Mahmoud can be targeted in this way, simply for speaking out for Palestinians and exercising his constitutionally protected right to free speech, this can happen to anyone," one of his lawyers warned.
Apr 11, 2025
A U.S. immigration judge in Louisiana on Friday ruled that Mahmoud Khalil, a permanent U.S. resident and former Columbia University graduate student arrested last month after protesting Israel's genocidal assault on Gaza, can be deported, a decision that came despite the Trump administration admitting the imminently expecting father committed no crime and was being targeted solely for constitutionally protected speech.
Assistant Chief Immigration Judge Jamee Comans said that she lacked the legal authority to question the determination by Secretary of State Marco Rubio that Khalil was deportable. Earlier this week, Comans gave the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) until Friday to produce evidence that Khalil is eligible for deportation.
No such evidence was provided other than Rubio's assertion that he reserves the right to order Khalil's expulsion under the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, which empowers the secretary of state to expel noncitizens whose presence in the United States is deemed detrimental to U.S. foreign policy interests.
Rubio admitted that Khalil's "past, current, or expected beliefs, statements, or associations... are otherwise lawful," prompting Marc van der Hout, one of Khalil's attorneys, to assert "that this is merely about targeting Mahmoud's free speech rights about Palestine."
Khalil—who calls himself and is widely considered a political prisoner—now has until April 23 to apply for relief, or face deportation to Syria, where he was born in 1995 in a refugee camp for Palestinians, or Algeria, where he has citizenship.
"I would like to quote what you said last time that there's nothing that's more important to this court than due process rights and fundamental fairness," Khalil told Comans after she announced her decision. "Clearly what we witnessed today, neither of these principles were present today or in this whole process."
"This is exactly why the Trump administration has sent me to this court, 1,000 miles away from my family," Khalil added. "I just hope that the urgency that you deemed fit for me are afforded to the hundreds of others who have been here without hearing for months."
Van der Hout said that "today, we saw our worst fears play out: Mahmoud was subject to a charade of due process, a flagrant violation of his right to a fair hearing, and a weaponization of immigration law to suppress dissent."
Khalil—who last year finished his graduate studies at Columbia University, where he helped lead campus protests against Israel's annihilation of Gaza—was arrested at his New York home by plainclothes DHS officers on March 8 before being transferred to New Jersey and then Louisiana.
The 30-year-old's American wife, Noor Abdallah—who is nine months pregnant—has said Khalil's arrest "felt like a kidnapping because it was."
Khalil was targeted following U.S. President Donald Trump's
issuance of an executive order authorizing the deportation of noncitizen students and others who take part in pro-Palestine demonstrations.
Last month, Judge Jesse Furman of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York ruled that since Khalil was detained by DHS in New Jersey when he lodged a legal challenge to his detention, his case should be transferred to the Garden State.
That federal habeas corpus case will continue despite Friday's ruling. Following Comans' decision, the judge in the New Jersey case, Michael E. Farbiarz of the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey, ordered both the Trump administration and Khalil's lawyers to immediately report to his court.
Numerous right-wing Israel supporters—including the White House—celebrated Comans' ruling.
Civil liberties defenders, meanwhile, decried Friday's decision.
"Today, reading from a pre-written decision, an immigration judge rubber-stamped a shameful determination by Secretary of State Rubio stating that one's beliefs can lead to deportation. We should all be deeply concerned," Diala Shamas, senior staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights, said in a statement.
"We will continue to stand alongside Mahmoud in his fight to come home to Noor, and in his determination to keep speaking out for Palestinian freedom," Shamas added. "This is just the beginning."
U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), the only Palestinian American member of Congress, said on social media: "We cannot allow the Trump administration to end our constitutional rights. The right to free speech obviously includes the right to protest the Israeli government's genocide of Palestinians."
"This fascism won't end with Mahmoud Khalil," she added. "It's a threat to all of us."
The new McCarthyism. Violent censorship of left-wing political speech in the name of national interest. And like the Red Scare, these actions were enabled by many Democrats who thought they could do reasonable, managed suppression, until the right inevitably took the reins.
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— Emma Vigeland (@emmavigeland.bsky.social) April 11, 2025 at 1:58 PM
Leah Greenberg, co-executive director of Indivisible, said on the social media site X that "this is an unbelievably dark day and a direct attack on our fundamental civil liberties."
Nihad Awad, national executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relgations, said in a statement that "this Louisiana immigration judge's dangerous, unconstitutional ruling allowing the deportation of a legal permanent resident because the current administration wants to punish him for exercising his First Amendment right to criticize the Israeli government's genocide of Palestinians in Gaza must not stand."
"Although today's ruling is just the first step in a long legal process, it should be alarming to all Americans who cherish the Bill of Rights and basic freedoms like free speech," Awad added. "We are confident that federal courts will see through the Trump administration's lawless attack on free speech and that the movement against the Israeli government's genocide will continue to grow in our nation, despite these Orwellian attempts to suppress free speech."
Former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich
noted that "Mahmoud Khalil expressed his political point of view peacefully."
"That's supposed to be permitted in a democracy," he added. "If this egregious assault on civil liberties stands, what's to stop Trump from arresting American citizens who support any cause his regime doesn't like?"
Chilling. They are saying that simply taking action in opposition to US foreign policy is grounds for deportation. Think of the proud lineage of protests against US-backed wars, coups, torture... BREAKING: Mahmoud Khalil Can Be Deported, Immigration Judge Rules open.substack.com/pub/zeteo/p/...
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— Naomi Klein (@naomiaklein.bsky.social) April 11, 2025 at 1:58 PM
Khalil's persecution is part of a wider campaign targeting noncitizens who protest Israel's annihilation of Gaza and advocate for Palestinian rights.
Last month, the U.S. State Department announced the launch of an artificial intelligence-powered "catch and revoke" program to cancel the visas of international students deemed supportive of Hamas. Rubio said that nearly 300 students have had their visas revoked and could be deported.
"Every time I find one of these lunatics, I take away their visas," he said of the student activists opposing one of the great slaughters of the 21st century.
On Wednesday, DHS announced the launch of a task force to surveil immigrants' social media posts, including those of around 1.5 million foreign students, for alleged antisemitism. While DHS did not say how antisemitism would be defined, critics note that the Trump administration has adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance working definition, which conflates opposition to Zionism—the settler-colonial movement for a Jewish homeland in Palestine—with hatred of Jews.
Khalil's advocates vowed to keep fighting.
"This is not over, and our fight continues," van der Hout said. "If Mahmoud can be targeted in this way, simply for speaking out for Palestinians and exercising his constitutionally protected right to free speech, this can happen to anyone over any issue the Trump administration dislikes."
"We will continue working tirelessly until Mahmoud is free and rightfully returned home to his family and community," he added.
Noor Zafar, senior staff attorney with the ACLU's Immigrants' Rights Project, said, "The fight to bring Mahmoud home is far from over."
"We will continue undeterred to press for his release after this startling escalation of the Trump administration's war on dissent," Zafar added. "We will fiercely defend his and others' right to speak freely about Palestine or any other issue without fear of detention and deportation."
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