Category: 6. Opinion

After years of talks, sanctions, and threats, it is possible we have seen the beginning of the long-dreaded war in the Persian Gulf between a U.S.-backed Israel and Iran. 

The threat has certainly never been greater. Israel bombed Iranian sites after midnight on Friday morning. At this writing, an Iranian response is expected but hasn’t occurred yet. Speaking about the attack, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the attack was not over yet, clearly casting this as an…

I was born in Gaza just a year before the Second Intifada. I do not remember a single year of my life passing in a normal rhythm. I remember squeezing into street corners to dodge stray bullets. I remember sitting at my school desk, waiting to hear the bomb fall, because hearing it meant I was not the target.

In 2007, when I was eight years old, Israel imposed a harsh siege on Gaza. I remember times when we had nothing to eat except two cans of tuna. I would go to the nearby…

Over the weekend, my social media feeds were dominated by two sets of images: twelve humanitarian volunteers with their hands raised in surrender on the Mediterranean Sea, and protesters in Los Angeles facing National Guard troops deployed by a president who calls them “violent, insurrectionist mobs.”  

The images revealed a troubling interconnectedness. Both scenes, unfolding within hours of each other, exposed the same imperial machinery: one that responds to moral courage…

In the long and bitter history of Palestine’s confrontation with Zionism, few figures have produced such a deep epistemic and affective rupture as the unit of undercover special forces that pose as Palestinians. Known as the “Arabized unit,” or the “musta’ribeen,” the undercover Israeli agent, often an Arab Jew, operates not as a visible settler but as a native double. Fluent in Palestinian dialect and mannerisms, the Arabized agent moves among Palestinians as a ghostly…

Dear Deen,

Before I knew your name, I knew what my government wanted to name you. Criminal. Terrorist. Problem. A threat to national security. Better off dead. Everything they want to name your father: Mahmoud Khalil. Everything except a precious child of God, which you are. 

When I heard two plainclothes I.C.E. agents abducted your father for protesting the genocide in Gaza, I trembled. When I found out he was captured at Columbia University, where I teach, right in front of…

I am a disabled, anti-Zionist Jew. On my dad’s side, I am the grandson of Irish immigrants and descendent of folks who fought against British occupation. On my mom’s side, I am the descendent of Holocaust survivors and Jews who faced persecution across Eastern Europe. My life’s work is committed to achieving collective liberation for all those impacted by oppression, especially as a lifelong disabled person, and I believe, deeply and without qualification, that we will see a…

The Reuters headline on Wednesday read, “Iran’s Khamenei dismisses U.S. nuclear proposal, vows to keep enriching uranium.”

Reading that, anyone might believe that the region was gearing up for war and that talks between Washington and Tehran had collapsed. But on the very same day, the New York Times ran a story headlined, “U.S. Proposes Interim Step in Iran Nuclear Talks Allowing Some Enrichment.”

This continued a stream of contradictory news stories that have been…

Eid al-Adha was always a sacred ritual for our family.

It wasn’t just a day — it was a season that began months in advance. It started with the purchase of the udhiyah, or the sacrificial lamb, which we’d raise with care — feeding it, brushing its coat, tending to it as if it were part of the family. As Eid approached, our days grew more hectic: the house had to be spotless, the furniture cleaned, sweets prepared just right, and new clothes bought and laid out. The echo of…

As Muslims around the world prepare for Eid al-Adha, during which millions will sacrifice livestock to feed themselves and those around them, we must pause and ask ourselves: what are we truly commemorating this year?

While Muslim families across the world divide meat into thirds—one for the poor, one for relatives, one for themselves—Gaza starves.

In Gaza today, starvation is not accidental. It is an engineered reality by Israel and U.S. complicity. According to Oxfam,…