Israel isn't just breaking international law. It's creating precedent and changing it to make this violence permissible. What happens to Palestinians matters for everyone, everywhere. It sets a precedent that means no where else in the globe is safe. What more do we need to act?

I actually truly had no idea that Refaat Alareer was killed until I saw the post I reblogged and I sincerely cannot stop crying, and maybe at some point I’ll be able to articulate why it hit me as hard as it did, but this isn’t about that right now.

In the actual world outside of high-level American political rhetoric, Israel could have had peace at many times in the past 75 years. However, such a peace would have required Israel giving up most of the Palestinian land — specifically, Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem — it conquered in the Six-Day War in 1967. Israel has always preferred conflict with stateless Palestinians to that. Amos Malka, one-time head of Israeli military intelligence, explained it straightforwardly in 2004. “It is possible to reach an agreement,” he said, “under the following conditions: a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital and sovereignty on the Temple Mount; 97 percent of the West Bank plus exchanges of territory in the ratio of 1:1 with respect to the remaining territory; some kind of formula that includes the acknowledgement of Israel’s responsibility for the refugee problem and a willingness to accept 20,000-30,000 refugees.” In polite circles of U.S. power, these facts are considered preposterous. Anyone describing them exiles themselves from serious discussion of the issue. It’s similar to the situation before the invasion of Iraq, when there was uniform agreement across the political spectrum that Iraq possessed so-called weapons of mass destruction. Any claims to the contrary were seen as self-evidently ludicrous, as ludicrous as now saying that Israel is a huge obstacle to peace.

to any poets and writers on here: the poetry foundation pulled a review of an anti-Zionist poetry collection because they didn’t wanna “take sides” so writers are calling the poetry foundation and the editors of poetry (magazine) to take an anti zionist stance and support the academic and cultural boycott of israel in a petition linked here. the link to sign is at the top of the document.

The last paradox is that the tale of Palestine from the beginning until today is a simple story of colonialism and dispossession, yet the world treats it as a multifaceted and complex story—hard to understand and even harder to solve. Indeed, the story of Palestine has been told before: European settlers coming to a foreign land, settling there, and either committing genocide against or expelling the indigenous people. The Zionists have not invented anything new in this respect.

But Israel succeeded nonetheless, with the help of its allies everywhere, in building a multilayered explanation that is so complex that only Israel can understand it. Any interference from the outside world is immediately castigated as naive at best or anti-Semitic at worst.

resources to help palestinians living in gaza who will undoubtably be faced with unimaginable brutality in the coming days

Anera is one of the few orgs able to work directly in Gaza, delivering food, blood, and medical supplies, in addition to their regular activities in economic and agricultural sustainability and sovereignty. I’ve worked with them before and highly recommend.

wanted to also add a crowdfund for a mother of two sick children in gaza. her friend is also accepting donations for her through her p*ypal (ayaghanameh)