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Maryla Husyt Finkelstein: “The only fault of Palestinians is being born on their land…”

  In April 1990, on the 47th Anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, Maryla Husyt Finkelstein (1917–1995) spoke to Amy Goodman on WBAI radio in New York. She was not only a Holocaust survivor but also a woman who carried the voices of the exterminated with her —a witness to hunger , confinement, betrayal, and unimaginable loss. Maryla survived the Warsaw Ghetto , Majdanek , and two slave-labor camps. Every member of her family in Poland was exterminated . Her husband, Zacharias Finkelstein , survived Auschwitz and the death march, though his entire family too was wiped out . They were left alone in the world, but they carried their memories like sacred testimony. Maryla was also the mother of Professor Norman Finkelstein , one of the fiercest critics of Israeli policies today. Her legacy and her words live through him —and through us, if we choose to listen. When Maryla spoke that spring day in 1990, she gave a testimony of hunger and abandonment that eerily echoes what...
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In Memoriam: Dr. Omar Harb — Starved by Silence.

Dr. Omar Harb was more than a university professor, poet, and psychologist— he was a pillar of soul and intellect in Gaza. In an interview with Al Jazeera just three weeks before his death , he weighed less than 40 kilograms , a staggering drop from nearly 120 kg before the crisis . He spoke with quiet despair : "I looked at my before and after photos and thought ' this can’t possibly be the same person '. We don’t know why we’ve reached this point . People are suffering , and no one is paying attention to this suffering." Those words—so simple, yet so haunting— echo across Gaza’s hollow streets. Dr. Harb, who lost 26 members of his family , had appealed even for a new wheelchair as his body betrayed him . A Life Starved of Peace, a Death Refused Dr. Harb died not from the debris of bombs , but from the void of life—no food, no medicine, no humanity . His personal tragedy mirrors the broader agony of Gaza, where Category Five famine has been declared ...

Why Hamas Refuses to Give Up: The NYT’s Eternal Puzzle

  By now you’ve probably read the New York Times’ latest masterpiece of balanced reporting: “ Why Hamas Refuses to Give Up .” It’s an old Western genre —call it The Case of the Stubborn Native. Here’s the plot: Israel has bombed Gaza to rubble, killed over 60,000 Palestinians , starved a population , cut off electricity, water , and food , and promised to “ destroy Hamas. ” Naturally, the sensible thing for Palestinians to do is wave a white flag , hand over their weapons , and wait quietly for whatever comes next — exile, mass graves, or both. But alas, Hamas doesn’t follow the script. Instead, the group insists on existing , which, for Western reporters, is the real crime. The Great Mystery of Palestinian Stubbornness The Times frames Hamas’s refusal to surrender as an “ ideological problem. ” As if it’s incomprehensible why a people would refuse to lay down their arms against an army that: Is the best-equipped military in the Middle East , Has the full backing of ...

White Enough to Trend, Brown Enough to Bleed. Kitty O'Brien Irish Pro Palestine Activist

  . The video was short, brutal, and impossible to misinterpret: a Berlin police officer cocked his fist and drove it twice into the face of a 25-year-old Irish activist at a pro-Palestine rally. Blood poured, cameras rolled, and in a few hours Kitty O’Brien had become international news. But as Kitty themself put it: “ The video of me being beaten went viral because I’m white. ” “ What I endured is just a drop in the ocean compared to what my Palestinian, Arab and other racialised comrades have faced at the hands of the German state police over the past two years. ”   Let’s be honest: that’s the real scandal. Not the punch itself—Berlin’s police have been throwing those for years—but the algorithm of outrage. White face, bloody nose? Viral. Brown face, broken ribs? Silence. The Scene: Mitte, Berlin It was late August, near Hackescher Markt. Protesters gathered, chanting against the killing of journalists in Gaza. The rally was unregistered. Police in heavy lines moved...

Docu Drama. The voice of Hind Rajab.

The Red Phone Rings, but the World Hits Mute The world just gave a 23-minute standing ovation —yes, twenty-three full minutes of clapping —for The Voice of Hind Rajab at the Venice Film Festival . Applause so long it could’ve filled Hind’s final desperate phone call to the Red Crescent. Bravo, humanity. We couldn’t save her when it mattered, but at least we can applaud her ghost. This is the new morality play: a five-year-old Palestinian child, trapped in a bullet-riddled car , whispering “please come, I’m scared ,” while surrounded by the corpses of her family. The Red Crescent tried . Paramedics drove toward her and were killed too . Israel buried them in silence . And the “ civilized world ”? It buried her in its news cycle . But now—don’t worry— we have a movie . Starring Hind’s voice. Directed by Kaouther Ben Hania. Produced by an ensemble of Hollywood conscience-bearers : Brad Pitt, Joaquin Phoenix, Rooney Mara, Alfonso Cuarón, Jonathan Glazer, Jemima Khan , and others. ...

Dockers of Conscience: Italy’s Brave Guardians of Gaza

  At a time when most governments avert their eyes , when institutions choose silence over principle, it is often the hands hardened by real work — the hands of dockworkers— that lift the banner of humanity. In Genoa , those hands belong to the members of the Unione Sindacale di Base (USB) and the dockworkers’ collective CALP ( Collettivo Autonomo Lavoratori Portuali ) . These are not new voices. For years they have stood where conscience demands —on the cold concrete of the docks , blocking ships laden with weapons destined for wars , refusing to let Italy’s ports be complicit in bloodshed. USB , born in 2010 out of grassroots struggles , has carried a proud history of international solidarity. Its members have consistently placed labor at the service of justice, from strikes against austerity to protests against militarism . CALP , forged in Genoa’s port , has a more direct history with Palestine: blocking Israeli-bound weapons , organizing boycotts, and declaring, time ...

Netanyahu’s “All-or-Nothing” Circus: Hostages, Gaza, and the Theater of Power

  September 02, 2025 Israel is at war — not just with Gaza, but with itself. Inside the war rooms of Tel Aviv, the debates rage: should Israel settle for a phased truce that could bring home at least half the hostages, or cling to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s “all-or-nothing” fantasy — a comprehensive deal that exists only in his speeches and in Trump’s late-night brainstorming sessions? On one side stand generals, Mossad chiefs, and even Netanyahu’s own national security adviser, whispering what seems obvious to anyone with a shred of sanity: saving some hostages now is better than waiting for them all to die in captivity. On the other side stands Netanyahu, a gambler clinging to an impossible jackpot deal — one Hamas has already rejected, and one the United States is cynically cheering on. A Sick Joke for Hostage Families For the families of hostages, this isn’t some abstract chess game. These are their sons, daughters, parents, and friends wasting away in tunnels. ...

The Betrayal of Palestinian Journalists: Western Media as Partners in Genocide based on Chris Hedges.

  August 31, 2025 Apparently, journalism has been redefined. Once upon a time, it meant chasing the truth through danger , discomfort, and sometimes death. Today? It means parroting whatever the Israeli military WhatsApps into your inbox — preferably before happy hour at the hotel bar. There are, of course, two species of war correspondents. The first is endangered : Palestinian journalists who run toward the rubble, who interview people screaming under collapsed homes, who dare to record the massacres Israel insists never happened . Their reward? Being labeled “ Hamas operatives ” before being assassinated , often with their entire families for good measure . Israel has killed more than 270 journalists in Gaza since October 7th — a world record in media freedom, if “media freedom” means “freedom from living journalists.” Then there’s the second species : the Great Western Press Corps . These are the brave souls who risk paper cuts from press releases. They strap on h...

The End of Zionism? Welcome to the Funeral Nobody Wants to Admit Is Overdue

  Of course. Haaretz recently published an opinion piece by Ithamar Handelman -Smith titled “ Some Say It’s the End of Zionism, and I Say That’s All Right .” And what impeccable timing: as Israel carries out a near-two-year campaign of siege, famine, and bombardment in Gaza — slaughtering families, burying aid workers with their ambulances, and literally starving children to death — someone in Israel finally whispers the unspeakable: maybe Zionism, that 20th-century project of “ Jewish salvation ,” has outlived its moral shelf life. Bravo. The house is burning, bodies are scattered in the street, and the philosopher shows up with a garden hose . Zionism: Success Story or Crime Scene? Handelman-Smith argues that Zionism achieved its success : a Jewish state, a safe haven, a fortress against the ghosts of Europe’s crimes . But like every “ success story ” drenched in other people’s blood , it didn’t age well. What began as refuge turned into domination; what was called “ ...

Ledger of Journalists, Doctors, Athletes, Artists & Public Figures from Gaza Killed by Israel (October 7, 2023 – August 29, 2025)

  In Tribute to Gaza’s Bravest Souls This is not just a ledger. It is a roll call of courage . The journalists who picked up their cameras even as bombs fell around them. The doctors who kept treating patients in collapsing hospitals until the very moment they were killed. The athletes who dreamed of lifting Palestine’s flag on the world stage, cut down before their prime. The poets, painters , and teachers who resisted not with weapons, but with words, colors, and ideas too powerful to silence. They are not collateral damage . They are the heartbeat of Gaza — the healers, the storytellers, the dreamers, the defenders of memory. Each name recorded here is a testament: that Gaza’s spirit cannot be erased, that dignity can outlive destruction, and that resistance sometimes looks like holding a camera, writing a poem, saving a child, or playing a game of football under siege. These were the bravest of souls . They resisted until their last breath — and in their sacrifice, they ...