Albert Einstein, along with other Jewish luminaries, including Hannah Arendt, published a letter in the New York Times on December 4, 1948. That was only a few months after Israel had declared its independence and as hundreds of Palestinian villages were being actively demolished after their inhabitants were expelled. The letter denounced Israel’s newly-founded Herut party.
The power of the Palestinian people, when united beyond factional allegiances, is immense. It disrupts Israel’s political and military tactics entirely, and places Tel Aviv wholly on the defensive.
Palestinian singer Rim Banna passed away at the age of 51. Her death on March 24, after a decade-long battle with cancer, brought grief to Palestinians everywhere. Music unites Palestinians when politicians fail. In fact, while for years the collective calls for 'Palestinian unity' has gone unheeded, Palestinian music has continued to bring Palestinians closer.
Relentless resistance, a notion now embodied in the very fabric of Palestinian society, has denied the oppressor the opportunity to emasculate Palestinians, or to reduce them to helpless victims and hapless refugees. Palestinian culture is rooted, like the olive trees and mountains of Galilee.
Since his arrival at the helm of Greek politics, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has moved his country further into the Israeli camp, forging unwise regional alliances aimed at exploiting new gas finds in the Mediterranean and participating in multiple Israeli-led military drills.
Although the genocide of the Rohingya minority in Myanmar has gathered greater media attention in recent months, there is no indication that the international community is prepared to act in any meaningful way, thus leaving hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees stranded in border camps between Myanmar and Bangladesh.
Copyright Toward Freedom 2019