So, hear me out…despite the decades of American-defined Middle Eastern conflict as sole terrorist extremism, I was first met with a general understanding of the Palestinian struggle as a fifteen-year-old teenager scrolling internet forums that were commonplace for dissemination of information not highlighted readily or rather fairly by mainstream media. The flutterings of Palestine, a country in the southern Levant region of West Asia, have been defined by its war waged against the region through settler oppression. Rarely has Palestine been allowed to depict its rich culture and beautiful people as continuous obliteration seeks to erase any trace of its history right before our eyes. As it seems not much has changed presently when it comes to the unbiased coverage of the barbarity happening in Palestine, specifically the driving force behind such iniquity, however the nation so far from my physical locale remains close to my heart spiritually in fervor. With history, we must come to understand the gravity of what is happening beyond our borders and also grasp its impetus within them.
Sure, we repost and link clips and articles, but our words, our will to care, and our activism must not fall short of marching the streets, harnessing our power as unified citizens and students to adamantly oppose corporations, businesses, and government leadership in full support of genocidal practices. By way of divesting, protesting, and blocking the venomous rhetoric and action spread by unrelenting totalitarian fronts we press forward in a future where freedom rings for all. In this pivotal presidential electoral year, we are faced with the reinforcement and acceleration of Western policy fueling colonial rule in the Middle East. Palestinian refugees now have nowhere to go as Rafah is shelled by bombs funded by the United States, Britain, and France. We see blood on the hands of attacked protestors rather than on the hands of leaders enacting insidious foreign policy. We are at a turning point in which there is no turning back. Until Palestine is free we all remain buried under the rubble in which imperial powers have built their kingdoms en mass. As the heat of civil unrest increases the intensity for moral demand must remain at our heart's core.
Preface
These thoughts reflect that of my own and are in no way affiliated directly with any other companies, groups, or organizations besides myself. I am not a scholar on relations of the Middle East, a recognized humanitarian, or a decorated civil leader, but I lead with the soul of humanity. An altruist at heart and humanitarian by ethics it is my duty to speak when atrocity eclipses the psyche of humane comprehension. Although it is a necessity that proactivity precedes reactivity I have been birthed into a world in which the Palestinian crisis has progressively worsened before me but hopefully not after me. Thank you to The People’s Forum, Richard Becker, and The Palestinian Youth Movement for providing much of the supplemental information in this newsletter. In the words of Mohammed Nabulsi of Palestinian Youth Movement1 and Layan Sima Fuleihan of The People’s Forum2 “There is no better school than the struggle itself…history is with us”.
Chronology
On October 7th, 2023, the Palestinian people broke out of the concentration camps and bulldozed through the apartheid wall surrounding Gaza – and in the first days after the US and Israeli propaganda machines immediately launched a well-orchestrated campaign to suppress the movement for Palestine. Condemnation and criminalization echoed from the halls of the White House to university classrooms and television sets, denouncing both resistance and all those who dared express solidarity with Palestine.
But despite the billions of dollars circulating between lobby groups, corporate media, and politicians ready to serve the interests of profit, the Israeli propaganda campaign was quickly forced into a defensive position (Becker, 2023, vii)
1894 November Jewish artillery officer Alfred Dreyfus3 is falsely convicted of treason in France. The anti-Semitism surrounding the case convinces Hungarian Jewish journalist Theodor Herzl4 of the need for a Jewish state.
1894 Herzl publishes “The Jewish State” the founding manifesto of the Zionist movement
1897 First Zionist Congress is held in Basel, Switzerland articulating the goal of creating “for Jewish people a home in Palestine secured by public law.”
1905 Seventh Zionist Congress votes against a national home for Jews anywhere but in Palestine. Other sites including Uganda had previously been considered.
1923 Vladimir Jabotinsky publishes “The Iron Wall” arguing that the Zionist project could only succeed through the use of overwhelming force
1933 Adolph Hitler comes to power in Germany. A new wave of Jewish settlers arrives in Palestine.
1937 The British Peel Commission recommends the partition of Palestine and the creation of a small Jewish State
1942 The Zionists shift their organizing focus to the United States and issue the Biltmore Program in New York City calling for the formation of a Jewish state in Palestine
1948 Al,Nakba 750,000 Palestinians expelled from their homeland by means of terror to make way for the colonial-settler state of Israel. Under Ben-Gurion’s administration the implementation of a new doctrine “Plan Dalet” was violence against Palestinian civilian populations taken to the extreme including the execution of all men and boys, rape, and night bombings as civilians slept peacefully
1947 November Without consulting Palestinians the United Nations votes to partition Palestine. War begins in Palestine between Palestinian Arabs and Zionists
1958 Fatah, the Palestine National Liberation Movement, is founded
1969 February The Palestinian resistance assumes control of the Palestine Liberation Organization. The PLO adopts as its objective a “democratic secular state” in all of Palestine
1987 Hamas is formed. It is an offshoot of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood
1993 September The Oslo Accords are signed by Israeli leadership and PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat. They form the centerpiece of the so-called peace process. Under Oslo, the PLO is allowed to take control of small portions of the West Bank, Israel immediately breaks the accords by accelerating settlement construction. Nearly all of the Palestinian left organization oppose the Oslo Accords5
2009 The new Israeli government forms in the spring, led by extreme right-wing prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and his fascist foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman. Labor Party leader Ehud Barak rounds out the alliance as defense minister.
US envoy George Mitchell meets with Netanyahu and Lieberman in April. The two Israeli leaders refuse to make any references to a Palestine state.
In May, the Israeli Knesset and cabinet approve a law that criminalizes any Israeli citizen who denies Israel is a “democratic and Jewish state.” The law targets Palestinians with Israeli citizenship
2011 Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government proposed “nation-state bill” declaring Israel as an apartheid state
2012 African National Congress Nation Chairperson Baleka Mbete asserts the Israeli apartheid against Palestians is “far worse than Apartheid South Africa”
2017 July UNESCO declares Gaza to be “unliveable” after ten years of Israeli siege. Limited electricity, lack of water, food, health care and sanitation, and other factors, the UN representative there say life is “in perpetual crisis.”
2017 December The Trump Administration recognizes Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and moves its embassy there. This is in direct defiance of international law
2018 June The “nation-state bill” is in its final vote. The Knesset6 leadership vote to not allow even the discussion of an opposing bill calling for equal rights and status for “Arab and Jewish nationalities” inside the 1948 borders of the Israeli state. Palestinian Balad party members Jamal Zahalka, Haneen Zoabi, and Jouma Azbarga propose a bill titled “State of All Its Citizens” representing equal rights for 1.8 million Palestinians living inside Israel
2018 July Israeli parliament ratifies into law an apartheid system making the human violations against Palestinians now legal under law. “Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People” was approved as Basic Law. The “basic principles” of the “nation-state law” states:
The land of Israel is the historical homeland of the Jewish people, in which the State of Israel was established.
The State of Israel is the national home of the Jewish people, in which it fulfills its natural, cultural, religious, and historical right to self-determination.
The right to exercise national self-determination in the state of Israel is unique to the Jewish people.
2022 May Well-known Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh7 is assassinated by an Israeli sniper who shot her in the head
2022 December Open fascists are included in a newly formed Israeli government. An Israeli paramilitary National Guard is formed separate from the police under the control of Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir8 who openly applauds the killing of Palestinians. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich9 is given the additional role of overseeing the West Bank in which he has called for the destruction of Palestinian villages and denies the existence of Palestinian people. The government brings in seven hundred thousand Israeli settlers and moves to permanently annex the West Bank
2023 October Palestinians launch Al-Aqsa Flood counteroffensive sending hundreds of armed militants over the illegal border wall via motorized hang glider. Israel responds with their greatest act of violence since the Nakba enacting a blockade of Gaza. Hospitals, refugee camps, and residential complexes are strategically bombed. 20,000 Palestinians are killed as of December 2023. 70% of which are women and children. 100% of whom are human
It is important to note that corporate media and the government have distorted the conflict in the Middle East into an ancient and bitter battle between two religions and two cultures. Widely accepted by U.S. society, the farce conceals the struggle between Imperialist interests – Palestinian dominion under Israeli colonial rule and United States opposition to the liberation of the oil-rich Arab region. Post World War I saw a redividing of the world in which the Middle Eastern and Arab civilizations were on the chopping block. Under the French Empire were Syria and Lebanon and under the British were Iraq, Egypt, Jordan, and Palestine. The British Empire served as a springboard to Israel's sponsorship while the United States who sought to destroy all progressive governments in favor of its monarchy became an important figurehead to Israeli hegemony post World War II. Separately but with great support, all three world powers have been an arms supplier to Israel and a political ally. The relationship between the United States and Israel today depicts the US ruling class and political establishments being empowered by pro-Israel lobbies who are ardently against Arab liberation within the Middle East. Any threat to U.S. markets, resources, and state of power is a threat to the tainted heart of America.
On the opposite side of the gates – the student rebellion
When walking past Columbia University a couple of weeks ago the uniformity of the campus remained tact exteriorally but just beyond my eyeline on the opposite side of the gates was the student encampment. As I am not a student or alumni I was not permitted on the once-open campus but I stood by security as I waited for a friend inside. As I waited patiently, I overheard the conversations of less-than-compassionate security guards.
"Get your identification out!"
"ID's out now!"
Two young women who were also not affiliated with the university walked to the security tent.
"Hi, are we able to get through without IDs?"
"No."
"Okay, is there any way we'd be able to see our friends who are set up in the encampment?"
"Can you not see them from here?
The women and I look to the rolling hill where stairs lead up to the campus center where the encampment lies. The officers laugh at their snarky comments.
"No, we can't."
"You sure you can't? You can walk up to the bars and look"
More laughing occurs. The gates from their perspective represented bars that jailed the students who within under twenty-four hours would face brute police force at the behest of campus leadership.
"To clarify we are just wondering if there is a space in which we can see the center of the campus where our friend is at since we're not permitted on campus."
"Go down the sidewalk and there are some gates there."
"Okay, thank you"
The girls briskly walk away to see their friend and stand in solidarity with the students on the opposite side of the gates with smiles on their faces. To his security counterparts, "Tents? You come here to ask us how you can see a bunch of tents?" The security officers cackle.
Such a statement swiftly exemplifies how out of touch those who enable and actively participate in a police state are. The student consciousness had simply dwindled to tents, an obstruction void of humanity and not much more than an eyesore for authorities serving as watchdogs for corporate interests.
Recently in a public press conference, New York City Mayor Eric Adams stated, “If you only have 18% of young people who love this country that should be a wake-up call.” Mayor Adams is nothing short of a doo-doo bird. He and his ear stud peddle undeveloped grotesque statements that oppose the interests of most New Yorkers of sound minds. Unfortunately, those ignorant of the reality of current happenings hear his words as truth reinforcing the modus operandi of Zionist propaganda that relies heavily on misinformation and lack of information. The continuously boasted vocabulary that describes protesting students and faculties of various universities across the nation as "outside agitators" redirects the onus onto citizens opposing the US’s decimation of Palestinian and Arab civilizations.
To bestow such a title as "leader" to figureheads such as Mayor Adams is distasteful at the least. Young American's disdain for this country should highlight how we look away from its foundation and dedication to imperialism. Young American's outrage is not reactionary indoctrination but a symptom of our plight to quell militarism within the US's global empire which only introduces sorrow, violence, and barbarity. New York City Mayor Eric Adams has conveniently vowed to share skills gathered from the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) with NYPD, just as the White House has pledged to share arms and war weapons with Israel since its inception. What threat does the demand for peace and freedom pose for such weaponry used against American and Arab populations?
At Mayor Adams press conference Columbia Professor Rebecca Weiner stated that the school's reaction and increased presence of NYPD on campus10 “have been and are being influenced by external actors unaffiliated with universities some of whom have been affiliated with dangerous, disruptive and at times criminal activity associated with protests for years. So this is not about what’s happening overseas. It’s not about the last seven months. It’s about a very different commitment to at times violent protest activity as an occupation.”
If the violence over the last seven months refers to the provoked reaction from protesters her point is null. Considering this, for Western Universities the destruction of property supersedes the destruction of Palestinian land and culture. The barbaric attitudes of the security guards mentioned earlier are only a diluted example of police fronts that readily enable the continuation of genocide. Over concern of maintaining property and land over the value of human life is rooted in colonial practice which Columbia University happens to be founded on. This past week several far-right Zionists blocked and destroyed UN food aid dropped into Gaza via airplane. I hesitate to call these Zionists extremists because they are but boys of the teenage/college age exhibiting the simplicity of all evil forms. Inherently evil they are not but through indoctrination of the genocidal pledge in which they live, such attribute can so abhorrently be adopted. In comparison to demonized student protestors, these aggressors here and abroad only get a slap on the wrist for their misdeeds if at all. It is a continuation of the reframing of Palestinian genocide.
For the Western mainstream media there is a set of carefully observed rules when it comes to reporting on the struggle in occupied Palestine. “Gunman” always refers to a Palestinian fighter with a gun but never to an Israeli soldier or settler toting one. Only five-hundred-pound bombs on defenseless people nor the commander who gave the order. And the right to “retaliate” is reserved to the Israeli side alone, thus constantly conveying the false idea that the Palestinians are the aggressors and the Israelis the victims. Reality is turned upside down (Becker, 2023, xiii)
The destruction of Gaza, the West Bank, and the settler state of historical Palestine warrants great outrage internationally including on college campuses. The demonization of civil unrest and the eclipse of “peaceful” protests and its comfortability undermine the fight against genocide. How does an institution equip its students with the education and tools to protest against barbaric regimes only to reprimand them for those very actions that they refined with their resources? Such occasions like commencement are minute in comparison to the stolen occasions of millions of Palestinian lives cut short. I lost my opportunity to celebrate my college graduation in glee with loved ones due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Being humbled by a happening so much bigger than myself has allowed me to visualize the scope of the world outside of my norm. To be frank it’s more honorable to have your graduating class remembered in history books for what you’ve done in opposition to oppression than to opt for a commencement in favor of grotesquely ignoring human atrocities. It is unfair, yes, but the entirety of Palestine’s genocide is unfair and is greater than any institution's unkept promise.
In The Guardian article US students, once again, have led the way. Now we must all stand up for Palestinians Osita Nwanevu proclaims:
Straining against an ancient and immortal prejudice against youth, it has made a habit of telling the American people, in tones that discomfit, what they need to hear before they are ready to hear it. (Nwanevu, 2024)
As college students look to the opposite side of the gates of their encampments, Palestinians in open-air prisons stare back at them as they look beyond the “Iron Wall” of Israel.
One nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice (for some)
I as a Baptist Christian have quite a few conflicts of interest when hearing other Christians support genocide in the name of holy “birthright” or biblical reference without grasping the breadth of God’s word. Often exacerbated by perverse evangelical media many Christians haven’t found a basis for backing the Zionist lead genocide of Palestinians removed from modern Israel’s assumed Biblical “ownership” of the Abrahamic Holyland.
In his article In This War, There Are No Good Guys Mark Wingfield expresses:
Normally, I’m a defender of the so-called “mainstream media,” in part because I am one of that group. However, when it comes to understanding and reporting on Israel and Palestine, almost all media outlets have failed Americans who seek clear understanding of one of the most intractable political and theological conundrums of all time.
To hear most American media tell it, Israel is the “good guy” in this conflict and the Palestinians — particularly Hamas — are the “bad guys.” We long for easy dichotomies, but that’s simply not possible here despite what the U.S. State Department says. What Hamas has done is despicable, but what Israel has done and continues to do also is despicable.
Call Israel the “victim” in the current war between the nation of Israel and Hamas, but do not paint them as wearing white hats. To do so is equivalent to playing Cowboys and Indians the way we did as I was growing up in the 1960s in — ironically — Oklahoma. Those “Indians” were defending territory they had occupied for centuries. The way American history used to be taught — and maybe still is in Florida — we focused on the raids and the scalpings and overlooked the fact that white invaders were driving people from their land and way of life. That comparison ought to give Americans some basic understanding of how to reframe the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. (Wingfield, 2023)
America's inability to find humanity in those separate from their own shared identities, specifically those in the Middle East, is telling. Any glimmer of empathy is reserved when humanity is revealed in comparison to a plight similar to one's own, but we’ll touch on that later. It is important to highlight that there is a great gap in understanding the motives behind Israel’s displacement of Palestinian Arabs. It is not the fulfillment of a Biblical prophecy marking the end of times but rather an imperial quest for Middle Eastern resources and regional dominion. I hope it is not the end of times which the state of the world suggests but let us not subscribe to the doom of humanity's imperial evil as a prophetic happening we have no say in stopping.
Arkansan Baptist preacher and former court judge Wendell Griffin11 states:
“The Biden administration is continuing the decades-long U.S. approach of supporting the Israeli regime,” he said. “That approach disregards the morally indefensible pattern of Israeli aggression against Gaza, Palestine and Palestinians involving Israeli theft of Palestinian land and water, settler colonialism and violence against Palestinians in violation of international law (United Nations resolutions and Geneva Conventions), and decades of genocidal conduct toward Palestinians.
“This war is the latest flashpoint in the 75-year Nakba of U.S.-financed, provisioned and cheered Israeli colonialism, apartheid and genocide against Palestine and Palestinians. Viewed from that perspective, the Israeli regime’s current war on Gaza is worse than lamentable. It is inexcusable.
“It is telling that people in the U.S. who claim to love God and follow Jesus lack the moral discernment and ethical competence to be saddened about the Israeli regime’s war in Gaza and against Palestine, let alone condemn, denounce and protest U.S. support for it.” (Wingfield, 2023)
In June of 2018 Palestinian Balad party members Jamal Zahalka, Haneen Zoabi and Jouma Azbarga proposed a bill titled “State of All Its Citizens” that countered the apartheid “nation-state bill” that would deny equal rights to the indigenous Palestinian population. The speaker of the parliament, Yuli-Yoel Edelstein a Ukrainian immigrant to Palestine “We cannot allow a proposal whose goal is to gnaw away at the foundations the State of Israel is built upon to be on the Knesset’s agenda.” In Point 5 of the bill “In-gathering of the exiles" states, “The state will be open for immigration.” Point 7 stipulates “The State views the development of Jewish settlement as national value and will act to encourage and promote its establishment and consolidation.” As it pertains to religion and the Jewish “right” to the Holy land when European settlers began arriving in Palestine in the early 1880s, Jews comprised about 5 percent of the Palestinian population. About 20 percent of the population was Christian, and 75 percent were Muslim. Regardless of whether their religion was Muslim, Christian, or Jewish, nearly the entire population was Arab (Becker, 2023, pg 24)
The peace the Zionist state claims to seek is ostensible and the marriage the United States has to uphold colonial interests is essential to Zionism's lifeline. Zionism is not concerned with Jewish liberation or reparation but rather Palestinian oppression and the personification of absolute power like any other imperial power. If it were Uganda or Cyprus chosen in place of Palestine as Israel’s homeland the same matters of necessary liberation would still be of concern. Richard Becker posits:
Israel became a satellite for US imperialist interests in the region [Middle East]. Israel’s victory in the 1967 Six-Day War was a major blow to the more progressive nationalist forces, especially in Syria and Egypt. It was after this war that US-Israel alliance became what it is today… “[But] the great powers have no permanent friends, only permanent interests.” (Becker, 2023, 10)
Some additional historical context is needed here concerning the formation of such ideological misinformation. The First Zionist Congress took place in 1897 far from Palestine in Basel Switzerland. As of 2023, it has celebrated its 74th conference. In 2015, its delegates from Israel and Reform Zionism stated:
In this upcoming Congress, there will be 509 delegates representing the Jewish people worldwide, of which 145 are from the United States. We will debate cutting-edge issues confronting the State of Israel and the Jewish people. Your vote helped make us the largest delegation, making up nearly 40% of the delegates from the United States, and we look forward to reporting back to you on our successes.
We are excited to support, among others, resolutions calling for:
Treatment of African refugees and asylum seekers by the Israeli government that conforms to both Jewish ethics and Israeli and international law;
A Truth and Reconciliation Commission to mend divisions between Israeli Jews and Arabs and build peace in a troubled time;
Reforms to the system of national Zionist Federations, to bring them into the 21st century in terms of gender equality, efficacy and transparency, and;
Greater oversight and control by the WZO of the Settlement Division and its activities.
Now is an important time to be going to Israel, and I am exceedingly proud to be joined by our 64 delegates (and alternates) of the Reform and Reconstructionist12 movements, who have not been deterred from joining us in Israel despite the current situation.
Next week, we will stand proudly with the people and leaders of the State of Israel and with Zionists from around the world to say that terror and violence will not lessen our resilience. The body of Israel must be protected, even as we work to mend her soul and fight for peace. We will ask difficult questions, challenge those in positions of power, and be forceful about which Jewish values should be applied to the only Jewish state we have.
In favor of the belief that this Palestinian-Israel conflict is that of religious means rather than secular the United State’s success in the disillusionment of American minds as it pertains to the humanity of Arab people has been its greatest strength in conquering through division. Most Americans see the “Palestinian problem” as a ‘them’ problem that supposedly does not affect us all. Post 9/11 Islamophobia and the conflation of Arab identities with terrorism have shifted the public psyche toward demonization of all who inhabit Arab land. In casting Arabs as the enemy our empathy dissolves into ash along with the bodies of those fallen victim to our “reactionary” bombs and airstrikes. As Becker puts “the brutal invasion and occupation of Iraq was meant not only to subjugate that country and seize its oil – previous to 1990, Iraq was the most developed of the Arab states – but also to have a “demonstration effect.” The invasion and occupation would demonstrate the futility of any attempt to resist.” (Becker, 2023, pg 96) The invasion of the Middle East and its subsequent demonization had and has nothing to do with the implied attack on the Christian or Jewish religion. Additionally, strategic action from the U.S. government like recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Modern Israel instead of Tel Aviv and the subsequent relocation of the American embassy to Jerusalem is strategic in garnering sympathies from followers of the three Abrahamic religions.
The Christian Post’s opinion writer and social commentator Brandon Showalter gathers:
"[Israel] is ethnic, the seed of Abraham. It is literally the seed of Abraham," Land said. "If you're Jewish, you are part of the promise." "Does that involve the state of Israel? Not explicitly," he added. "It involves the Jews around the world, all of them."
Land is among those who, like the Christian Zionist scholars CP interviewed on Dec. 31, regards the regathering of millions of Jews to their historic homeland during the last half of the twentieth century and first part of the twentieth century as a fulfillment of biblical prophecy.
Paul Copan, professor of philosophy at Palm Beach Atlantic University, takes a different view. "When we understand who the people of God are in the New Testament, it does become clear that God's purposes for Israel for ethnic Jews are intermingled with his purposes for the Gentiles as well," Copan told CP in a mid-January phone interview.
"And so that in the fulfillment of the gospel [regarding] the Gentiles, it's the promise of Abraham that comes to fruition through whom all the nations of the earth will be blessed," he said. In Romans 2 Paul talks about who a true Israelite is, which is "one who has the Spirit of God, they have been circumcised of heart," he said. "We also read in Romans chapter 9 verse 6 that Paul says not all Israel are those who are descended from Israel."
"The modern state of Israel may be in a sense a residual blessing that comes but nothing in terms of theology from Scripture to talk about this being predicted," he said, adding that he does not believe the nation-state of Israel born in 1948 fulfilled biblical prophecy. (Showalter, 2016)
Now I think it would be a disservice to cherry-pick the Bible and not understand its scope in entirety which it takes a lifetime to fully grasp. Bigots and aggressors throughout the centuries have used scripture to divulge sinister practices “in the name of God”. I do however find it important to understand the verses used by imperial Zionists whether of Abrahamic religion or secular to unmask the curtain of disillusionment that intentionally confuses the minds of people ignorant to the motives of imperialism.
Furthermore, the conflation of Zionism with Judaism is dishonest and immoral. To withdraw from conversations seeking equality and human rights for all smear campaigns citing anti-semitism are often methods used to change the subject when reputable criticisms are made against Israel. For example, upon publishing former President Jimmy Carter’s 2006 Book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid he was bombarded with claims of anti-semitism just for highlighting the atrocities he has bore witness to under his presidency and those preceding.
It is important to recognize Zionism is not founded in the love of God but rather a menacing colonial regime. In consideration, I often look to this scripture – Galatians 5:13-14 (NIV).
13 You, my brother and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge in the flesh; rather serve one another humbly in love. 14 For the entire law is fulfilled keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
As I once stated in October 2023, in reflection I’ve marked this quotation in my journal: “For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?” In a world in which we try to get justice for an eye for an eye, we are all blind. Let no debt remain outstanding other than the debt to continuously love one another. It is important to recognize our histories not as a bottleneck but in its entirety. When you differentiate the value of man by culture or creed you make way for volatility, unwillingness to understand and breed ground to blind hatred upheld by ignorance. “This could be you and your family” is not a statement appropriate in love. This is us. This is our problem. This is a human problem in which we have all benefited from or fallen victim to under the reign of colonialism. The ethnic cleansing of Palestinians washes away in blood leaving space only for imperialism, extremism and gross miseducation of what’s valued as a human right. Standing idly by to atrocities taking place on the Holy soil of Abraham breeds Antisemitism, Islamophobia, anti-Arab sentiment and abhorrence of man. Be encouraged [to support the plight against the Palestinian apartheid] that disproportionately puts western policy above the lives of innocent people. Although relief funds like The PCRF highlight relief for children know that we are all someone’s child and we are God’s children – young and old, [man or woman]. This brutal restlessness precedes me but I hope to not allow it to follow after me. One life is too many.
To whom it may concern
Let me speak candidly to Americans who have adopted an inconsiderate attitude regarding the suffering abroad… your taxpayer dollars are being funneled to largely wage war and genocide against Palestinians and to deplete oil resources within the Middle East rather than going toward the development of community infrastructure, improving school systems and public transit, enacting prison reform, providing free healthcare and overall improving quality of life here within the United States. Has that got your attention? Unfortunately, for colonial powers in which the United States leads, money talks.
The sponsorship of The British, French, and United States Empires has allowed Israel to thrive as a colonial power over the Middle East. Former Prime Minister of Britain, Arthur James Balfour stated in the infamous Balfour Declaration of November 2, 1917:
“His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country” (Becker, 2023, pg 17)
This was Britain's first of many betrayals of Palestine of which an alliance was never to be formed or true. Not shortly after in 1918 did President Woodrow Wilson call for Israeli sovereignty by stating on July 4th:
I welcome an opportunity to express the satisfaction I have felt in the progress of the Zionist movement in the United States and in the Allied countries since the declaration by Mr. Balfour (Becker, 2023, pg 19)
It is strategic for American leadership to underfund education within the United States to ensure the ignorance of its most exploited. To equip its citizens with the information that would give the incentive to rebel or protest for equity, equal rights, and reform would be equivalent to implosion of the imperial powerhouse that is the United States. This is precisely why the threat of student rebellion is taken more seriously than the threat of far-right organizations, domestic terrorists, and adjacent. They are at the frontier of change and foundational dismantling. Unjaded by the illusion of propagated rhetoric keeping U.S. citizens complacent in their exploitation and dismissal of terror perpetuated and accelerated by American backing, students articulate the misdeeds of our leadership and our land.
Ultimately, the Israeli regime exists as a proxy regime. It is a colonial project inside the borders of historic Palestine, but its stability is sustained only to the extent that it is valued by the US imperialism as an extension of its larger neocolonial aims in the Middle East (Becker, 2023, viii)
United States imperialism retains a heavy reliance on Arab oil. America’s need for foreign resources stems from an inequitable dedication to world domination, undercutting the functionality that could be maintained without an imperial society. The war on Arab nations is a war on Arab country's right to their natural resources. Rather than focusing on utilizing the resources we already have the dispositionally funnel money to waging war and terrorism abroad increasing the internal deterioration of our society while simultaneously destroying societies abroad. There is no winning in this operation of destruction.
Much like the unashamed former Prime Minister of Israel, Ben Gurion, who proclaimed his positioning as a “conquering conquistador”, President Biden remarked in a campaign reception December 5th, 2023:
I got in trouble many times for saying you don’t have to be a Jew to be a Zionist, and I am a Zionist.6 I make no apologies for that. That’s a reality.
With American leadership outright admitting to the dedication to Zionism, it is more than clear that the interest of American well-being takes a backseat to that of international rule and power. Additionally, when we witness articles highlighting Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) printing shifts brandished with slogans like “Better use a Durex [a condom]” next to a picture of a dead baby or fashioning a shirt with a pregnant Palestinian woman with the slogan “1 shot, 2 kills” is it still not our problem? When watching the American Experience documentary Nazi Town, USA1 a particular quote stood out to me, “There is no such thing as foreign fascism. Fascism is always home grown.” This is the very fabric of the United States' power and influence.
We become what we behold – our moral posture
The zone of personal interest and the compartmentalization of evil go hand in hand. Is it only when we reflect on our atrocities in hindsight as we look upon faces plastered on walls that we recognize the magnitude of our doings?
Freelance editor and film critic AA Dowd explains the banality of evil and its functions through the lens of Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone of Interest. Loosely based on the 2014 novel by Martin Amis, the film focuses on the life of Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss and his wife Hedwig, who live with their family in German-occupied Poland, summer of 1943. Although the atrocities of Auschwitz lie right beyond the brick walls of the family's utopia.
In his article The Zone of Interest’s Final Moments Are a Nazi Workaholic’s Nightmare13 AA Dowd posits:
The Zone of Interest is among the most audacious movies of last year — a radical experiment in perspective, limiting the audience’s vantage on atrocities while adopting that of the people perpetrating them. But it’s not exactly an ambiguous experiment, is it? Jonathan Glazer establishes his formal conceit immediately, pushing all the horrors of Auschwitz just beyond the frame line and focusing instead on a blissfully unperturbed Nazi family going about its daily routines in the periphery of the camp. Because the director never much deviates from this approach, his point about society’s ability to compartmentalize evil — and keep its own complicity out of sight and mind — comes through much louder and clearer than the offscreen screams on the soundtrack. It’s a movie that keeps saying one discomforting thing over and over again, which may be why so many reviewers referenced the same Hannah Arendt quote about the banality of evil, inspired by studying a Nazi bureaucrat whose monstrous deeds clashed with how ordinary he seemed.
Only at the end of the film when the German Nazi, Rudolf, peers down a corridor of images and exhibits commemorating the victims of his monstrosities is the zone of Nazi interest broken. He becomes engulfed with the identities he tried to burn the memory of in history and time. When watching this I asked myself what difference was his character as a extremist Nazi living within the comfort of his orchestrated utopia to that of Zionist citizens and leadership living lavishly within their settler state. We are meant to accept the state of Israel as a peaceful homeland of Jewish people looking to live prosperous and quaint lives but it is impossible as the modern state of Israel was founded on the blood and bones of massacred Palestinians and Arabs.
Hajo Meyer, an anti-zionist Jew and survivor of Nazi Auschwitz concentration camp, responded to the law against commemorating al-Nakba:
It’s so racist, so dreadful. I am at a loss for words. It is an expression of what we already know…To forbid Palestinians to publicly commemorate the Nakba…they cannot act in a more Nazi-like, fascist way. Maybe it will help awaken the world.”14
Zionists believe that those who stand against their inhumane regime are attackers of their culture and way of life instead of looking to dismantle the oppression that is at the foundation of its empire. Without Zionism what is their identity, what identifies who they are in clarity? It can be compared to KKK members or Deep South traditionalists who refuse to adapt to societal norms of today that work against prejudice taboos and institutional racism. To be in an echo chamber of privilege is to be one of weaponized ignorance. When listening to a sermon recently it was noted that the attitude of "It doesn't matter what you believe as long as you believe it sincerely" is an anecdote of modernity that is an unchallenged quote of significance. With no objective of reality, it is not foolproof. The allegiance to genocide remains evident through a blind objective that upholds proximity to power and inequity.
According to Apostle James, your actions in life must demonstrate your faith and what you believe. Have words along with your faith. A person is considered righteous by what they do and not by faith alone. Whether religious or secular I invite you all to have faith in the freedom of Palestinian people under persecution. Consider this verse if you please – James 2:14-18.
14 What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? 15 Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. 16 If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? 17 In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.18 But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.”
This is the demand of works.
To the people of Palestine and beyond
So, what was heard? Your cries, your screams, your bearings of souls. In the attempted erasure of Palestinian resilience imperial aggressors would hope the world subscribes to the slogan “A land without people for a people without a land” by burying their voices and forgetting their faces. Still, we must not and will not fall to the sinister callousness of corrupt wickedness. Through divestment, protests, dismantling, and ardent opposition theologically and systemically can we put to rest the quid pro quo between imperial powers that eclipses not only the Middle East but the entirety of the world in the darkness of terror. Apartheid is a crime against humanity under the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid. Those who are alive should have the right to live freely.
Important Stats and figures
2.3 million residents of Gaza have been trapped inside the world’s largest open-air prison for more than seventeen years
U.S. aid to Israel increased exponentially from $151 billion in 1967 to $3.3 billion in 1971 and to $14.4 billion in 1979. Two-thirds of this amount was officially military aid which enabled Israel to become the world’s fifth-ranked military power, despite its population of less than five million people (Becker, 2023, 73)
Israel received $3.3 billion in military aid from Washington, the Biden administration requested $14 billion in aid to Israel following a Palestinian counteroffensive to Israeli violence against Palestinian refugees — The United States government is $33.99 trillion in debt as of 2024 (Becker, 2023, pg 3)
The US military has over 750 bases across 40 countries in which stability in most locations remains unsecure or worsened in their presence
In 1920 historical Palestine, Palestinian Arabs made up 92% of the population even though national rights for the tiny settler minority were being pushed forward
As of 2006, the annual per capita gross domestic product for Israelis has risen to around $25,000, and per capita income is around $20,000. For Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, per capita gross domestic product has fallen to $1,200, and per capita income in Gaza has fallen to $700 (Becker, 2023, pg 117)
With just 0.01 percent of the world’s population, Israel has been the recipient of over 30 percent of all US foreign assistance in that period. (Becker, 2023, pg 131)
A 2023 congressional report reiterated that “Israel is the largest cumulative recipient of U.S. foreign assistance since World War II. In 2016, during Obama’s final year in office, his administration approved a record $38 billion military aid package to last a decade. Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu sent a personal thank you message to president Obama – supposedly a great friend to Palestinians (Becker, 2023, pg 133)
Citations
About. Palestinian Youth Movement. (n.d.). https://palestinianyouthmovement.com/about
The Palestinian Youth Movement (“PYM”) is a transnational, independent, grassroots movement of young Palestinians in Palestine and in exile worldwide as a result of the ongoing Zionist colonization and occupation of our homeland. Our belonging to Palestine and our aspirations for justice and liberation motivate us to assume an active role as a young generation in our national struggle for the liberation of our homeland and people. Irrespective of our different political, cultural and social backgrounds, we strive to revive a tradition of pluralistic commitment toward our cause to ensure a better future, characterized by freedom and justice on a social and political level, for ourselves and subsequent generations.
About. The People’s Forum. (2018, August 28). https://peoplesforum.org/about/
Through methodologies such as popular education, cultural work and media laboratory, The People's Forum serves as a movement incubator for grassroots organizations and individuals to connect and gather ideas for collective action.
Becker, R. (2023). Palestine, Israel and the U.S. Empire. 1804 Books.
Richard Becker is the Western Region Coordinator of the ANSWER - Act Now to Stop War & End Racism - Coalition, and the author of Palestine, Israel and the U.S. Empire, and The Myth of Democracy and the Rule of the Banks.
Carter, J. (n.d.). Palestine: Peace not apartheid: Carter, Jimmy: 9780743285025: Amazon.com: Books. Amazon. https://www.amazon.com/Palestine-Peace-Apartheid-Jimmy-Carter/dp/0743285026
The Nobel Peace Prize-winning former president shares an assessment of what he believes is necessary to bring lasting peace to Israel while preserving Palestinian dignity, in an account that draws on Carter's intimate understanding of Middle East history and his personal relationships with regional leaders and political issues. 300,000 first printing.
Dowd, A. A. (2024, March 11). The zone of interest’s final moments are a Nazi workaholic’s nightmare. Vulture. https://www.vulture.com/article/the-zone-of-interests-vomit-inducing-ending-explained.html
Honorable rev. Wendell L. Griffen: Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference, inc.. Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference, Inc. | Leadership for a Just World. (2019, May 21). https://sdpconference.info/team/honorable-rev-wendell-l-griffen/
Knesset - Gov.il. https://www.gov.il/. (n.d.). https://www.gov.il/en/departments/knesset/govil-landing-page
The Knesset is Israel's house of representatives (the parliament), and has four main functions:To pass laws – the Knesset has the sole authority to pass laws - to supervise government work, to choose the President of Israel and the state comptroller, and to deliberate over state issues through the Knesset committees and the work of the Assembly.
Macfarquhar, C. (2024, May 14). Oslo Accords. Encyclopædia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Oslo-Accords
Oslo Accords, set of agreements between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) that established a peace process for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through a mutually negotiated two-state solution. The agreements resulted in limited self-governance for Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip through the creation of the Palestinian Authority (PA). Although the goal of the accords was to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by May 1999, the complexities that underlay decades of hostilities ultimately derailed the process and left the most challenging issues to smolder in the 21st century.
Macfarquhar, C. (2024, April 30). Theodor Herzl. Encyclopædia Britannica . https://www.britannica.com/biography/Theodor-Herzl
Theodor Herzl (born May 2, 1860, Budapest, Hungary, Austrian Empire [now in Hungary]—died July 3, 1904, Edlach, Austria) was the founder of the political form of Zionism, a movement to establish a Jewish homeland. His pamphlet The Jewish State (1896) proposed that the Jewish question was a political question to be settled by a world council of nations. He organized a world congress of Zionists that met in Basel, Switzerland, in August 1897 and became the first president of the World Zionist Organization, established by the congress. Although Herzl died more than 40 years before the establishment of the State of Israel, he was an indefatigable organizer, propagandist, and diplomat who had much to do with making Zionism into a political movement of worldwide significance.
Macfarquhar, C. (n.d.). Alfred Dreyfus. Encyclopædia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Alfred-Dreyfus
Alfred Dreyfus (born October 9, 1859, Mulhouse, France—died July 12, 1935, Paris) was a French army officer whose trial for treason began a 12-year controversy, known as the Dreyfus Affair, that deeply marked the political and social history of the French Third Republic. The court-martial of Alfred Dreyfus, illustration from Le Petit Journal, December 1894. Dreyfus was the son of a wealthy Jewish textile manufacturer. In 1882 he entered the École Polytechnique and decided on a military career. By 1889 he had risen to the rank of captain. Dreyfus was assigned to the War Ministry when, in 1894, he was accused of selling military secrets to the German military attaché. He was arrested on October 15, and on December 22 he was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. He entered the infamous penal colony of Devils Island, off the coast of French Guiana, on April 13, 1895. Dreyfus Affair Alfred Dreyfus standing before a court-martial at Rennes, France, 1894. The legal proceedings, which were based on specious evidence, were highly irregular. Although he denied his guilt and although his family consistently supported his plea of innocence, public opinion and the French press as a whole, led by its virulently anti-Semitic faction, welcomed the verdict and the sentence. In particular, the newspaper La Libre Parole, edited by Édouard Drumont, used Dreyfus to symbolize the supposed disloyalty of French Jews.
Meyer, H. (2009, June 2). Auschwitz Survivivor: 'I can identify with Palestinian Youth". Electronic Intifada. other.
Nwanevu, O. (2024, May 13). US students, once again, have led the way. now we must all stand up for Palestine | osita nwanevu. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/may/13/campus-gaza-protests-student-protesters-role-history
Public Broadcasting Service. (n.d.). Nazi town, USA. PBS. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/nazi-town-usa/
Showalter, B. (2016, December 31). New christian zionism book makes case for Israel apart from “crazy end-times scenarios.” The Christian Post. https://www.christianpost.com/news/new-christian-zionism-book-makes-case-for-israel-apart-from-crazy-end-times-scenarios-172462/
Tahhan, Z. A. (2023, May 25). Shireen Abu Akleh: Al Jazeera Reporter killed by Israeli forces. Al Jazeera. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/5/11/shireen-abu-akleh-israeli-forces-kill-al-jazeera-journalist
The United States Government. (2023, December 6). Remarks by president Biden at a campaign reception. The White House. https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2023/12/05/remarks-by-president-biden-at-a-campaign-reception-weston-ma-2/
Weinberg, J. (2019, August 21). Reform zionism. ARZA. https://arza.org/reform-zionism/
Reform Zionism accepts and supports the foundational aim of Zionism: the establishment of a Jewish State in Israel, the homeland of the Jewish people. Reform Zionism is a continuation of the early Zionist dream to foster a living, breathing national culture that represents the highest ideals of Jewish peoplehood. Foremost among these ideals is for Jews to be free and liberated citizens of the world who also contribute as Jews to our global civilization. The work of Zionism did not end when the State was established in 1948. As Reform Zionists, we strive to make the State of Israel a true inheritor of the prophetic tradition of the Jewish people: a nation devoted to pursuing justice and creating a complete world. Our love for Israel is channeled into efforts that advance the vision of what we believe Israel can – and must – yet be. We believe that a Jewish state must be a democratic state that celebrates the pluralism of Jewish practice and identity. We celebrate the notion of K’lal Yisrael, the unity of the Jewish people. We seek to integrate Jewish tradition into the realities of the modern world, believing in individuals’ right to shape their own Jewish identity and way of life. We are part of an active, global network of Jews of all ages, united by our love for Israel and our commitment to securing an Israel that fulfills the promise of its founding document: “THE STATE OF ISRAEL will … foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; it will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education, and culture….” In Israel, we are represented by the Israel Movement for Reform and Progressive Judaism (IMPJ), whose work seeks to complete the Zionist dream: a modern State of Israel that is inclusive, moral, and a home for us all.
Wikimedia Foundation. (2024a, April 30). Biltmore conference. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biltmore_Conference
The Biltmore Conference, also known by its resolution as the Biltmore Program, was a fundamental departure from traditional Zionist policy by its demand "that Palestine be established as a Jewish Commonwealth." The meeting was held in New York City, at the prestigious Biltmore Hotel, from May 9 to May 11, 1942, with 600 delegates and Zionist leaders from 18 countries attending. The program has been described by a number of historians as "a virtual coup d’état" within Zionism since the movement's more moderate leaders were replaced with leaders with more aggressive goals.
Wikimedia Foundation. (2024b, May 11). Bezalel Smotrich. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bezalel_Smotrich
Wikimedia Foundation. (2024c, May 13). Itamar Ben-Gvir. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Itamar_Ben-Gvir#:~:text=Itamar%20Ben%2DGvir%20(Hebrew%3A,of%20National%20Security%20since%202022.
Wikimedia Foundation. (2024d, May 14). David Ben-Gurion. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Ben-Gurion
Wingfield, M. (2023, October 9). In this war, there are no “good guys.” Baptist News Global. https://baptistnews.com/article/in-this-war-there-are-no-good-guys/
YouTube. (2024, May 2). Mayor Eric Adams Briefs media on recent protests at Columbia University with NYPD commissioner Caban. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/live/MZV1tCZcrdU?si=iZUyV-77Z9RXuXvf
https://www.gofundme.com/f/tszj7m-my-family-in-gaza?utm_campaign=p_cp+fundraiser-sidebar&utm_medium=chat&utm_source=whatsApp&fbclid=PAZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAaZ4FQeBvbRn-Z1_W15VmuNERoAWWceKO0AJPcW8xkJRAdswxuiHtLdZ4xk_aem_AQmOYke8VwaVgzQcLu0Tw049FaI6WfjTBP9U_RifuvXMXs8PXDxuFeDHdWl2R2vwSxOQ8PhtBRUF3YRyscVfwj3V
https://www.gofundme.com/f/donate-to-abed-family-in-the-north-of-gaza
https://www.pcrf.net
https://www.wfp.org/emergencies/palestine-emergency