At the most precise moment in history when it seemed a completely mechanical, vertical and isolated form of existence, the Gaza genocide has sparked a long-forgotten truth: that we (the people) are creatures of community; that we only find true joy and meaning in connecting with other people. That we cannot be happy when others around us suffer. Palestine is an actual and concrete struggle but it is also, and crucially so, an instrument of philosophical liberation of universal importance.

And these kids are holding onto it as a buoy, so as not to drown in an ocean of cold and meaningless rituals that have no resonance with the human soul: be born, learn a craft, accumulate material things, obey the system, have a family, die. They don’t want it. They looked into their screens and there they found life, and what it really means. They want Palestinians to stop being mass murdered, displaced, and dehumanized, and they want the same thing for themselves. They want to feel human, and they reject the system that tries so desperately to humiliate, denigrate, and dismantle them. The Palestinian Revolution may yet prove to be more consequential than the French one.

— Alon Mizrahi

When you immigrated to the holy land, when you were just a tiny fraction of the people there, you could have come with an open hand, ready to share the land with the indigenous people there.

But no. You came with a closed fist.

Yes it was a tough neighborhood; you were not welcome; wars were launched against you. But even still, you could have done it differently. In those all-important early days, when trust is forged or fractured, you drove Palestinians out of their villages, massacring many. That was your original sin — your Nakba.

And then in the years that followed, you closed borders, built walls, expanded settlements, set up two-tiered land and water and justice systems. You persecuted and jailed those who resisted ... “mowed the grass” in Gaza whenever it grew too high. You ignored international law, the Geneva convention and UN Security Council resolutions. And you refused to ever consider the right of refugees to return.

Admit it, O people of Israel: you failed to respect the humanity and dignity of generations of Palestinians. You treated them like subservient, second-class citizens — never as equals.

With the insight of a people persecuted for millennia, exterminated in pogroms and mass-murdered in a Holocaust, you could have found, in your wise rabbinic tradition, a way for Arabs and Jews to live together. But you didn’t want to share the land. You wanted it all. And in the process, you turned your Zionist project into a nightmare; the West Bank into a patchwork of disconnected enclaves surrounded by your settlements; Gaza into an open-air prison — and now a killing field.

It’s too late to rewrite history. But you can change the script you’re holding in your hands.

Show us. The world waits for you to conquer your fears and, in the years to come, emerge as a shining example of peaceful coexistence for the people of the 21st century to emulate.

O People of Israel, the time has come to loosen up and play some jazz.

— Kalle Lasn

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America has never reckoned with the killing of 200,000 people at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

And now that twisted moral calculus is being levelled at Gaza by US senators, who want to send Netanyahu nukes to end their disastrous campaign...

"When we were faced with destruction as a nation, after Pearl Harbor, fighting the Germans and the Japanese, we decided to end the war by bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki with nuclear weapons. That was the right decision. Give Israel the bombs they need to end the war they can't afford to lose." - Senator Lindsey Graham

Hamas, at heart, are freedom fighters.

There, I said it. And now I'll probably pay for it.

Because there are boundaries around how we can talk about Oct 7. You can support the Palestinians: yes. But showing any sympathy at all for Hamas, is beyond the pale — you'll get doxxed, cancelled, vilified as an antisemite and worse.

But fuck it, I'll say it anyway: They're freedom fighters!‍

What these young men actually did on Oct 7 was brutal and barbaric and in many cases impossible to defend. But why they did it, that's easier to understand. When you put a certain kind of person in a chokehold for long enough, they go off in ways you're not going to like. Imagine you — and your people — are fenced in, caged up in an open-air prison for sixteen years. You have no hope, no dignity, no future. You're mowed down by remote-control machine guns if you wander too close to the razor-wire fence. Your daily caloric intake is restricted to near-starvation levels. Your children routinely have suicidal thoughts. And there's no light at the end of this — you're trapped like an animal.

So what do you do? You burst out of your cage with feral ferocity — you're a barbaric terrorist yes, yes, yes — but fuck it, you're a freedom fighter too.

— Kalle Lasn

I am four. A man who is supposed to take care of me touches me in a way that I know is wrong, even when I don't have the vocabulary to explain it.

When my mother, white with rage, complains to my family, she is told off.

In Kerala there is a saying: whether the leaf encroaches on the thorn or the thorn encroaches on the leaf, it's the leaf that tears. In other words, it is not their job to protect the girl; it is the mothers' responsibility to protect her daughter.

I hear what's said about me: Too bossy. Talks too much. Doesn't have enough girlfriends. Doesn't help out in the kitchen.

At a family vacation, a man six times my age puts his disgusting mouth on mine without my consent. My aunts and uncles are in the room just next door.

Many years later, recounting this story to my mother, I realize the violence I experienced was a mere slight compared to what she and her mother and her grandmother were subjected to.

Injustice is passed on generation to generation. If you're lucky, the violence gets diluted a little.