By Faisal Kutty

Mar/Apr 25

The ongoing crackdown on pro-Palestinian campus activism across the United States exposes a troubling double standard in how universities handle free speech. While rhetoric critical of Israeli policies is swiftly condemned and restricted, activism against other regimes, even those with poor human rights records, do not face the same scrutiny. This selective outrage stifles debate, marginalizes dissenting voices, and undermines the principles of academic freedom that universities claim to uphold.

This approach, evident most recently in Berkeley Law School Dean Erwin Chemerinsky’s opinion piece in The New York Times calling on campuses to clamp down on pro-Palestinian protests, raises troubling questions about selective condemnation and the broader implications for free speech on college campuses. By selectively condemning Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation while offering only a muted critique of Israel’s ongoing actions, U.S. universities are, in fact, legitimizing a narrative that selectively applies principles of free speech at various campus events. 

While campus supporters of Israel are right to decry rhetoric celebrating Hamas’s actions, they often only offer a tepid acknowledgement of Israel’s ongoing destruction in Gaza. This narrow focus on protecting the sensitivities of Zionist or even Jewish students while minimizing or ignoring Palestinian suffering reveals a deeper flaw in their argument: a conflation of Jewish identity with Zionism and the resulting repression of legitimate expressions of support for the Palestinian struggle.

One of the most significant issues with this line of thinking is the failure to distinguish between anti-Israel protests and antisemitism. The assumption that opposition to Israeli policies creates a hostile environment for Jewish students promotes the false claim that all Jews support Israeli actions, or the equally flawed doctrine that Israel acts on behalf of global Jewry. This narrative erases the voices of the many Jews who stand against Israel’s occupation and decades-long apartheid regime. Contrary to these faulty assumptions, evidence shows that a  growing number of Jewish students and faculty advocate for Palestinian rights, often from a non-Zionist or anti-Zionist perspective. The failure to recognize this distinction reinforces a dangerous narrative that equates criticism of Israel with hostility toward Jewish identity, a deliberately false premise that weaponizes the horrors of  antisemitism to stifle legitimate, on campus debate.

On October 21, 2024, at the University of Minnesota, for instance, eleven pro-Palestinian protesters were arrested for occupying an administrative building while calling for divestment from Israel. This group were but a few of a much larger punitive push across the country. In just six months, more than 3,000 people have been arrested nationwide for engaging in pro-Palestine advocacy on college campuses. Institutions that once prided themselves on championing free speech have now become hostile environments for those opposing Israeli violence against civilian populations. The U.S. Department of Education (DOE) has further intensified this repression by pressuring universities to take aggressive steps to curb antisemitism. In at least one instance, the DOE  went so far as to claim that anti-genocide protests may have created a “hostile environment,” conflating legitimate criticism of Israeli policies with hate speech. This shift undermines the open debate that universities are supposed to foster, chilling free expression and disproportionately silencing pro-Palestinian voices. 

Meanwhile, the experiences of Palestinian students and their allies are ignored. For example, in the Fall 2024 semester, a leaked recording of Santa J. Ono, the University of Michigan president, revealed a disturbing bias within universities, with powerful groups pressuring administrators to combat antisemitism while disregarding Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian hate. This unbalanced approach results in Arab, Muslim, and other non-Zionist or anti-Zionist students feeling unsafe or unwelcome while universities prioritize Zionist perspectives and silence Palestinian, Arab, and other Muslim and voices.

Across American campuses, new restrictions have been implemented to stifle these protests. Indiana University enacted an “expressive activity policy” that bans protests after 11 p.m., prohibits camping, and requires pre-approval for signs. These measures specifically target pro-Palestinian voices, prompting the question: should similar restrictions apply to protests against Saudi Arabia or Iran because they could be considered anti-Arab hate or Islamophobia? 

There is, of course, an argument that suggests that celebrating violence against civilians is both an ethical and political mistake. Such rhetoric distracts from the legitimate cause of Palestinian liberation and gives opponents a pretext to discredit the entire movement. However, those campaigning to shut down Palestinian activism go beyond condemning extremist rhetoric. Rather, these efforts form only a part of a broader effort to undermine all forms of Palestinian resistance, even those grounded in international law. By focusing solely on those who justify violence, these critics fail to address the root causes of the conflict: the Israeli occupation of historic and contemporary Palestine, systematic state-sanctioned and settler violence against Palestinian civilians, and enumerable methods of inhuman oppression that drive Palestinian  resistance. Their selective outrage paints a one-sided narrative, leaving little room for a nuanced discussion on the ethics and legality of Palestinian resistance.

Ultimately, one-sided condemnations are a danger to free speech on campus. They selectively condemn expressions of solidarity with Palestine while protecting inherently violent Zionist narratives, silencing both Palestinian voices and anti-Zionist Jewish voices. If universities genuinely value free speech, they must condemn all forms of violence – whether it is the celebration of attacks on Israel or the defense of Israel’s war crimes in Gaza. Anything less is an endorsement of selective repression, a betrayal of free speech principles, and a denial of the fundamental rights of the Palestinian people.

Faisal Kutty is a lawyer, writer, public speaker, and human rights advocate. He currently teaches at Southwestern Law School and is an affiliate faculty member at the Center for Security, Race, and Rights at Rutgers University. He also holds the title of associate professor of Law Emeritus at Valparaiso University. Follow him on X @faisalkutty.

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By Luke Peterson

Mar/Apr 25

Though the well-established institutional and intellectual bias shown by Western media and the United States government toward Israel has been entrenched in this country’s psychology for three-quarters of a century, a new facet in the American insistence on the Israeli narrative has recently emerged. This new element legislates that the U.S. government and its myriad of entities and affiliates refuse to accept or endorse demographic statistics produced by the Palestinian government. 

Specifically, according to a brief provision buried within the recently passed National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which authorized a colossal new $895 billion spending package for the U.S. military, the U.S. will not accept casualty figures from the Gaza Health Ministry as it endeavors to keep up with the nearly interminable list of dead, injured, or missing Gazans since the most recent Israeli assault on that population began in October of 2023. 

Ostensibly, this line-item proviso was attached to the NDAA to maintain intellectual balance in U.S. government recordkeeping on Israel and Palestine. Congress’ stance over Gaza works according to Israeli propaganda requirements that, despite the prolific destruction wrought upon that territory by the Israeli military over the course of the last 15 months, is still largely under the official sway of the Hamas government, a political organization founded in the ideology of resistance to the illegal Israeli occupation of Palestine. Rejecting the Gaza Health Ministry’s statistics is therefore a hedging of bets by the U.S. government. They will not trust Gazan health statistics because Gaza is governed by Hamas, and the U.S. considers Hamas a terrorist entity and is therefore not to be trusted. Lawmakers on both sides of the barely visible political aisle when it comes to this topic agreed on this point all while Israeli statistics are naturally not burdened by the stain of partiality for some reason that has never been explained by the federal government. 

This trend mandating that officials reject statistical information coming from the Gaza Ministry of Health is a new phenomenon. In fact, aspersions cast upon official figures provided by the Gaza Health Ministry began only after the widely lauded humanitarian agency Amnesty International (AI) confirmed for the world what Palestinians already knew: Israel’s indiscriminate assault on Gaza beginning in October of 2023 constitutes genocide. 

AI’s established record as an international watchdog has made it into a standard-bearer of fact in reporting on crises and conflicts all over the world. Today, it is a much relied-upon agency informing state governments as well as political coalitions like the European Union, and it has declared statistics from the Gaza Health Ministry to be factual and reliable. Nevertheless, the official U.S. position is to ignore AI’s finding on the ongoing Israeli genocide in Gaza. As it has done for the past 75 years of this occupation, the U.S. government simply looks away when truly neutral agencies like AI clamor for a ceasefire to protect innocent civilians in Gaza.

AI is not alone in trusting the Gaza Health Ministry to report on intentional Israeli efforts to exterminate the Palestinians. Statistics coming out of the government in Gaza are also trusted by the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Further, the World Health Organization and Human Rights Watch cite Gaza Ministry of Health figures in their reporting on the destruction of the Palestinian society by the Israeli occupiers. 

Where Israeli crimes are concerned, however, it seems AI’s word confirming the Gaza Health Ministry’s assessment of the carnage done to their own people by the Israeli onslaught is not sufficient for the U.S. government or media establishment. So, continuously in the throes of the ongoing American love affair with Israel, while at the same time rejecting international confirmation of the Ministry of Health in Gaza, the American news establishment deliberately leaves consumers in the dark regarding Israeli brutality in the Gaza Strip. 

As such, the extent of the Israeli destruction of Gaza since October of 2023 is largely unknown to Americans. A key component within that body of ignorance is a profound lack of knowledge about the number of Palestinian dead in Gaza (at least 45,541 including 17,492 children with an additional 11,160 missing) and the percentage of those casualties that were civilian non-combatants (no less than 70% according to Gaza Ministry of Health statistics and verified by additional, international observers). And there is simply no way to account for the thousands of Palestinians who now lie buried under the rubble, a number which may well escalate the number of casualties in Gaza to between 64,000 and 186,000 dead.

Such deliberate obfuscation of the numbers of dead and missing in Gaza by the U.S. news media is perhaps only the most blatant example of that institution carrying water for the state of Israel since 1948, and especially since October of 2023. In addition to these omissions, analysis of the news covering the genocide in Gaza during this period has demonstrated utterly biased coverage in favor of the Israeli narrative across news media outlets in the U.S. In reputable publications from The New York Times to The Washington Post to the Los Angeles Times, coverage of the war on Gaza has enacted hyperbolic language to describe Israeli deaths while downplaying or omitting the killing of Palestinians, a massacre of citizenry more than 40 times larger than the deaths of Israelis that occurred on October 7. 

In a detailed analysis of more than 1,000 news articles from those sources mentioned above, the independent outlet The Intercept uncovered a glaring bias in the U.S. media’s approach to the ongoing destruction of Gaza. “Highly emotive terms for the killing of civilians like ‘slaughter’, ‘massacre’, and ‘horrific’ were reserved almost exclusively for Israelis who were killed by Palestinians, rather than the other way around,” the report read. “The term ‘slaughter’ was used by editors and reporters to describe the killing of Israelis versus Palestinians 60 to 1, and ‘massacre’ was used to describe the killing of Israelis versus Palestinians 125 to 2. ‘Horrific’ was used to describe the killing of Israelis versus Palestinians 36 to 4.” 

Further, shockingly few stories emanating from these standard bearers of U.S. news ever mentioned the staggering number of Palestinian children and journalists that have been killed by Israel. “Only two headlines out of over 1,100 news articles in the study mention the word ‘children’ related to Gazan children,” the Intercept report stated. “The word ‘journalists’ and its iterations such as ‘reporters’ and ‘photojournalists’ only appears in nine headlines out of over 1,100 articles studied.” 

Much more concern was shown by U.S. news media over child killings and the targeting of journalists in Ukraine during this period of time versus the much more numerous casualties of this type inflicted by Israel in Gaza. In the light of this analysis and others of its kind, it is reasonable to conclude that U.S. news media simply does not want its readership to know about the Israeli slaughter of the Palestinians either in its gory detail or even by description in broad strokes. 

So, we are left with an unclear picture of the damage done by Israel in Gaza, and if we continue to put our faith in the authoritative U.S. news media, we will remain ignorant of the horrific crimes committed by America’s closest ally in the Middle East. 

Worse than the promotion of ignorance about this genocide, though, is the the fact that the U.S. is materially abetting Israel’s actions. With only a few weeks left of his bitterly disappointing presidency, Joe Biden authorized an additional $8 billion in weaponry to Israel. Little wonder, then, that American newsmakers want media consumers to look the other way when it comes to Israel’s mass murder in Gaza. What might an accurately informed citizenry do about a government that actively participates in genocide? 

Luke Peterson, Ph.D., The University of Cambridge–King’s College, is a professor of Arabic and Middle Eastern Studies based in Pittsburgh. He is also the author of The U.S. Military in the Print News Media: Service and Sacrifice in Contemporary Discourse (2024).

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By Abu Ali Bafaquih 

Mar/Apr 25

Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton (R) has introduced a Senate bill mirroring the HR 7552 House bill introduced last February by New York Republicans Reps. Claudia Tenney and Anthony D’Esposito, alongside Randy Weber (R. Tex.).

The bill mandates that all official U.S. federal government documents refer to the West Bank as “Judea and Samaria,” the terminology which they claim aligns with Israel’s historical and biblical claims to the territory. 

In doing so, Cotton has regurgitated what several Congress members on both sides of the aisle have previously stated, “The Jewish people’s legal and historic rights to Judea and Samaria go back thousands of years. The U.S. should stop using the politically charged term West Bank to refer to the biblical heartland of Israel.” 

The name West Bank is a translation of the Arabic term ad-Duffah al-Gharbiyyah, given to the territory west of the Jordan River. Gaza and the West Bank are two Palestinian territories that were a small part of Mandate Palestine and were part of the swatch of territory captured by Israel during the Six-Day War in 1967. On the ground, however, Israel has rendered a two-state solution including the creation of an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel impossible with the establishment of more than 300 settlements with a population of approximately 700,00 on occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem.  

Effectively, this the U.S. congressional move aims to erase Palestinian identity, and cements U.S. complicity in Israeli expansionism. It also gives the blatant greenlight for further, illegal settlement expansion.

Cotton’s interest, however, is most interesting. According to the Jewish Virtual Library published by the American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise, his state’s Jewish population was 4,000 in 1899 rising to 5,090 in 2024, just 0.17% of his state’s overall population. However, his deep interest in Israeli policies should be seen through the lens of his receipts from the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC): Code Pink says that he has received $237,077 from AIPAC. The New York Times announced that the amount of this financial assistance was around $2 million. This is while some informed sources in the US say the AIPAC lobby has spent $4.5 million for Tom Cotton to insure his winning against “Mark Pryor” in the 2014 Senate elections.

Israel is headed by a fragile ultra right-wing coalition that holds 64 seats out of a 120-seat Knesset. The ruling western-armed Israeli junta has, since Oct. 7, 2023, and as always since the British planted this colony in 1948, striven to eliminate all non-Jews, because they claim they have a “birthright” in the territory.

On July 24, 2024, the head of this ethnocracy, Benjamin Netanyahu visited the U.S. Congress where had pledged in a scathing and combative speech to achieve “total victory” against Hamas while denouncing American opponents of the war in Gaza as “idiots”.

Speaking for nearly an hour in which, he was applauded 79 times, 58 of which were standing ovations from sycophantic members of Congress, Netanyahu said, “America and Israel must stand together. When we stand together something really simple happens: We win, they lose.” 

In essence, Netanyahu was verifying that his colonial occupation of Palestine is American made. 

To this end, it serves Netanyahu that those of us watching the release of the Israeli hostages notice the extensive damage all over Gaza, but not the Palestinian jubilation over the release of their hostages, or the surviving strength of Hamas.  

It was ordained that Hamas demonstrate clear control of these scenes while transferring previously held Israelis to the ICRC without any indication that the occupation had caved in.

Netanyahu is banking on a Palestinian revolt against Hamas so that the U.S. and Israel can install a more pliant regime, like the ineffectual Palestinian Authority (PA) in the occupied West Bank.

The Anadolu Agency’s Abdelraouf Arnaout, citing Israeli analyst Avi Issacharoff, wrote in Israel’s Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper on Jan. 20, 2025, “Even after 15 months of war, Hamas remains in place… Although the government of Benjamin Netanyahu said it will eradicate Hamas, the group not only survived militarily but also retained its rule intact.” 

True to their bias, Reuters reported, “But, in the days since the ceasefire took effect, Gaza’s Hamas-run administration has moved quickly to reimpose security, to curb looting, and to start restoring basic services to parts of the enclave, swathes of which have been reduced to wasteland by the Israeli offensive.”

The much-heralded ceasefire between Israel and Hamas (The Islamic Resistance Movement – an Arabic acronym Romanized from Arabic: Ḥarakat al-Muqāwamah al-ʾIslāmiyyah), loudly and falsely claimed by the American president as his own achievement, is merely a 42-day arrangement.

Still, Netanyahu continues his war in Gaza by refusing Israeli withdrawal from the denuded enclave. His coalition partner, Bezalel Smotrich, vows to bolt the coalition if stage two of the ceasefire is agreed upon. Consequently, Netanyahu will likely conduct a provocation, either in Gaza, the West Bank, or East Jerusalem, that could be interpreted as Hamas breaching the ceasefire thereby creating an excuse where Trump would re-assent to Israel’s renewal of the slaughter of innocent Palestinians.  

The Israelis and the American right-wing consider the question of who rules Gaza as the key to ending the war which would lead to the full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. If Hamas remains in control of the Gaza Strip, there will likely be no reconstruction permitted. As it is, both the state of Israel and their U.S. backers have maintained a purely colonial mindset which may well lead to further ethnic cleansing in Palestine. The Trump Administration is very vocally pursuing Egypt, Jordan, and even Indonesia and Albania are being pressed to take in the intended to displace Palestinians from Gaza.  

Foreign ministers of five Arab countries, the PA, and the Arab League (Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar) have issued a joint statement rejecting the forced displacement of Palestinians from their land “under any excuse.”

The statement, released on Feb. 1, 2025, presented a unified stance against Trump’s call for Egypt and Jordan to take in Palestinian refugees from Gaza.

However, Trump reiterated his illegal position on Jan. 30, 2025, saying, “We do a lot for them, and they are going to do it.” This is in apparent reference to the abundant U.S. aid, including military assistance, to Egypt and Jordan, two countries who, along with Israel, have been exempted from the American aid cutoff initiated by the autocratic Trump.

Israel and its western partners envision the Palestinian Authority taking over control of the Rafah crossing, and eventually Gaza. But will Hamas, which survives despite all the propaganda and bombs, agree to the PA taking over a major thoroughfare in their territory?

Gershon Baskin Ph.D., an Israeli blogger and self-styled negotiator, says that the Israelis are banking on creating the facade of a new temporary government in Gaza by some pliable figures such as Dr. Nasser Alkidwa, the former PLO ambassador to the UN and former PA minister of foreign affairs (he also happens to be Yasser Arafat’s nephew). 

For their parts, regional Arab governments have been compliant since the British installed them to replace the Ottoman rule after World War I. To his credit, Trump, who visited the region in October 2018, correctly stated to cheers at a rally in Mississippi on October 2, “We protect Saudi Arabia — would you say they’re rich? And I love the king, King Salman, but I said, ‘King we’re protecting you. You might not be there for two weeks without us. You have to pay for your military, you have to pay. . .”

According to opinion polls published by Gallup in 2009, the presence of the U.S. military in Saudi Arabia was strongly objected to by most of the world’s Muslim population.

This is the reality of the present-day Muslim majority countries, organized under the obviously dormant Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC). Given their compromised position owing to the billions flowing in their direction from the United States, their immoral silence over the Gaza Genocide is understandable.

When will Arkansas, or any constituency of American voters, ask that their politicians focus on the U.S. like they do Israel? In the absence of that call, a joint U.S.-Zionist owned Gaza is far more sacrosanct than any human life, let alone the collection of 7 million Palestinians living on the land between the River and the Sea.

Abu Ali Bafaquih is a freelance writer.

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By S. Amjad Hussain

Mar/Apr 25

After 15 months of relentless bombing of Gaza in which much of the walled-off territory was reduced to rubble and more than 64,000 civilians were killed (as calculated by The Lancet journal in January 2025), Israel has agreed to a ceasefire. In essence, the conditions of this ceasefire render it identical to the proposal that then-U.S. President Joe Biden announced last summer.

Why did it take more than six months to implement a proposal that had already been agreed upon? It seems that Israeli domestic politics got in the way. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing government depends on the support of six extreme right parties that together make up 64 of the ruling coalition’s seats in the 120-seat Israeli Knesset.

These parties were set against the ceasefire and vowed to leave the government if Netanyahu agreed to it. Israel’s avowedly fascist Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir was true to his word in this case and resigned his position in protest, but most of the others within the coalition stayed and saved the government from collapse.

The question remains: What made the Israeli government agree to a ceasefire in the first place? Israel felt pressured by the return of Trump. 

In the final negotiation, Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steven Witkoff (who is not a diplomat, but a New York real estate investor), played a pivotal role in pressuring Netanyahu to accept the deal that he had rejected many times before over the past year. Allegedly, Netanyahu was ultimately convinced to accept the deal when the Trump team also promised to empty the Gaza Strip of Palestinians. 

The ceasefire calls for phased release of Israeli hostages in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners. But Palestinians in Israeli prisons are, in fact, hostages. When innocent men, women, and children are kidnapped from their homes in Gaza and on the West Bank and kept in administrative detention without being charged with any crime, they are hostages held by the occupying state. And when these hostages are “tried” in Israeli military courts, the outcome is a foregone conclusion. Israeli military courts have a higher than 95% conviction rate for Palestinian defendants since 1967.

The ceasefire also calls for an increase in the flow of food into the Gaza strip. During their assault on Gaza, Israel allowed in a fraction of the food that was ready to enter the Strip. In December 2024, Human Rights Watch stated that Israel was using starvation as a weapon. In the first three days after the ceasefire, though, at least 2,400 food and aid trucks entered Gaza.

However, the ceasefire is, at best, a murky arrangement as Israel continues its aggression in what is left to Palestinians in the West Bank. And considering the power held by the Israeli lobby on the American political establishment, it cannot be ruled out that Israel would find some flimsy excuse to restart their genocide against the Palestinians once all of its people have been retrieved. 

One wonders why Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken were not able to accomplish what Trump did even before becoming president? The simple answer is pressure.

Biden refused to use America’s enormous leverage against Israel and continued sending billions in military aid to a state committing genocide until the very end of their administration. But as the left-leaning Israeli newspaper Haaretz put it succinctly, Israel only understands force. By not using political leverage while at the same time repeating the fatuous mantra of two-state solution, Biden and Blinken were really talking from both sides of their mouths. As a result, over the course of the past four years, we have seen precious little accomplished by the Biden administration to achieve any sort of peace in the Middle East.

On Jan. 15, 2025, Blinken addressed the Atlantic Council think tank, stating: “It is time to forge a new reality in the Middle East in which all people are more secure, all can realize their national aspirations, all can live in peace. Is that hard to achieve? Yes. Peace in the region has always been. Is it impossible? No. Is it necessary? Absolutely, yes.”

The ad nauseum repetition of a two-state solution has become a joke, especially coming from the former U.S. Secretary of State. More than any other person in Biden’s circle, Blinken knew that Israel would never agree to a two-state solution.

Trump injected another element into this complex equation when he suggested the idea of having Indonesia take in one million-plus Palestinians. No sooner had he made that ridiculous suggestion than he lobbed another idiotic bombshell, asking Jordan and Egypt to take refugees from Gaza. Upon finding no response, he even brought up the possibility of bringing Albania into the deal.

Trump is parroting the views of Israeli, American, British, and European right-wing politicians. They want to build Jewish settlements in Gaza by “voluntary” repatriation of Gazans to other Arab countries. In common parlance, Trump’s proposal is nothing more than ethnic cleansing.

For Palestinians it is a double whammy. First a genocide with the tacit approval of the United States and now an attempt to ethnically cleanse Gaza for good.

It is said that Arab countries have sold their honor and traditions to the interests of the United States. Following this line of thought, the Jimmy Carter engineered Camp David Accords between Israel and Egypt was the first step in this surrender. Subsequently other Arab countries – typically ruled by despots – have also given up on solidarity with Palestine mostly in exchange for American military products and/or protection. 

And now the Abraham Accords have brought most Arab countries into the United States’ sphere of interest and in turn, into Israel’s. The only notable regional hold out so far is Saudi Arabia.

Considering Trump’s propensity to retaliate against those who refuse to buckle under his dictates, it is not beyond him to issue an ultimatum to his Arab client states to either toe the line or be ready for retaliation.

That is why it is time that all Arab countries come together and devise a common strategy for the future of the Middle East that is based on their shared history and values. Only then Palestine will have a true ally in the region. 

S. Amjad Hussain, MD, FRCSC, FACS, D.Sc. honoris causa, is Emeritus Professor of Cardiothoracic surgery at the College of Medicine and Life Sciences; and Emeritus Professor of Humanities, College of Arts and Letters University of Toledo.

An earlier version was published in The Blade of Toledo, Ohio, on January 29, 2025.

The post Israel Has Committed Genocide in Gaza appeared first on Islamic Horizons.

By Jay Willoughby

Nov/Dec 2024

On Oct. 7, 2023, Christian Zionism once again raised its ugly head in the U.S., this time in the guise of the Biden administration. A self-professed, life-long, practicing Catholic, he seems to have concluded that he can remain as such while violating its core values, such as “love one another as I have loved you” (John 15:12), “Be merciful” (Luke 6:36), and “Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other” (Ephesians 4:32).

As of November 2024, Al Jazeera reports that Israel has killed 41,000+ people, including 11,000+ children. According to Bragi Guðbrandsson, Vice Chairperson of the Committee on the Rights of the Child, “The outrageous death of children is almost historically unique. This is an extremely dark place in history. . . I don’t think we have seen before a violation that is so massive as we’ve seen in Gaza.” There is surely a staggeringly high number of even more dead in the omnipresent rubble.

Perhaps Biden believes that no Palestinian Christian children exist, or that if they do they are “less-than” and therefore unworthy. One wonders if he has even heard of Bethlehem-born Rev. Munther Isaac (academic dean, Bethlehem Bible College), who pastors Bethlehem’s Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church and Beit Sahour’s Lutheran Church. He states that at times the Christians were a majority; however, many of them left, either willingly or not, during the final days of the Ottoman Empire; the British didn’t allow them to return. Israel has only followed London’s example.

Rev. Isaac relates that, from what he has read, the Palestinian diaspora contains 500,000 or more Christians, and that close to 170,000 or 180,000 more live within historic Palestine – close to 130,000 of them in Israel; close to 45,000 in the Occupied Territories and West Jerusalem, and 900 to 1,000 in Gaza. He notes that 17 years ago there were maybe 3,000, but that the blockade made life so tough that they left whenever they could. 

Biden and the rest of us should watch the “Rev Munther Isaac says Palestinian Christians are under attack; that the West Bank is not livable” and “Christian Palestinian delegation describe ordeal of living under Israeli military occupation.” Christian Zionists and perhaps Western Christians in general appear to be unfazed that Jesus’ birthplace and Christianity’s homeland might one day contain no Christians. This unconcern might be generational, but it also reveals the power of ideology over the world’s largest religion.

Definition and a Little History

In her book, “Christian Zionism: Navigating the Jewish-Christian Border”, Faydra Shapiro, founder and executive director of the Israel Center for Jewish Christian Relations, writes, “In [Christian Zionists] reading of the Bible, God has decreed a special role and status for the Jews sealed in an eternal covenant, together with a promise to restore them to their land. Thus, Christian Zionists see their own solidarity with the Jews and the modern nation of Israel to be paying homage to the God of Israel.” 

Genesis 12:3 records Yahweh as saying that He will bless/curse those who bless/curse Israel. Christian Zionists contend that this statement is eternal and unconditional. In short, Israel can ignore its supposedly divine mission or not. Denise Bruno’s Aug. 22, 2024, article for the Times of Israel summarizes Israel’s mission as “to help the world see who God truly is: loving, just, merciful, and holy.”

According to Richard D. Land, writing for www.christianpost.com/ on March 23, 2015, “we are also admonished to support the Jews if we want to be blessed individually and collectively as a nation.” Just an aside to the Biden administration, Land also states that “If we really care about Israel, we are compelled to tell her when we believe she is acting wrongly or contrary to her self-interest.” 

Palestinian-Israeli History Didn’t Begin on Oct. 7, 2023

In fact, according to Netanyahu, it bean thousands of year ago. “You must remember what Amalek has done to you, says our Holy Bible. And we do remember.” According to Exodus 17:8-16, the Amalekites ambushed the Hebrews after they left Egypt. An enraged Yahweh swore, “I will completely blot out the name of Amalek from under heaven” and “Because hands were lifted up against the throne of the Lord, the Lord will be at war against the Amalekites from generation to generation.”

One should ask who the Amalekites are today, for “Forty-seven percent of Israeli Jews said in a poll conducted last month that Israel should ‘not at all’ consider the ‘suffering of the civilian Palestinian population in Gaza’ in the next phase of fighting. Casting the enemy as Amalek reinforces that attitude.” Reporter Noah Lanard uses the following formation as his subheading: “His [Netanyahu’s] recent biblical reference has long been used by the Israeli far right to justify killing Palestinians.”

Rabbi Jill Jacobs (head of T’ruah, a rabbinical human rights organization) notes that “rabbis generally agree that Amalek no longer exists, and that references to it do not provide a morally acceptable justification for attacking anyone.” She further asserts that historically it has been seen as a metaphor commonly understood as to “stamp out evil inclinations within ourselves.” 

And yet, she continues, “it remains common for Israeli extremists to view Palestinians as modern-day Amalekites.” For example, in 1980, “Rabbi Israel Hess wrote an article that used the story of Amalek to justify wiping out Palestinians. Its title has been translated as “Genocide: A Commandment of the Torah,” as well as “The Mitzvah of Genocide in the Torah (Ibid).

Washington’s Blindspot 

According to the Jewish Virtual Library, from 1949-2023 the U.S. has given Israel $160,552.96 billion, $112,277.10 billion of which has been for “military” – the chart’s category – aid. Of course that figure has now increased by a quite a few more billions. 

The Biden administration announced Friday that it was “reasonable to assess” that Israel violated international law using U.S. weapons in its military campaign in Gaza. Perhaps the administration also believes that the best way to “mow the grass,” à la the Zionist entity, is to kill off the mothers so they can’t produce the next generation and to slaughter as many children as possible before they have a chance to reproduce. 

Or maybe this is Netanyahu’s version of the Great Replacement theory so beloved by certain Americans. After all, as Arnon Soffer (professor of geography, Haifa University), points out in the Times of Israel, “When the number of non-Israeli nationals is taken into consideration, it leaves the Jewish proportion at between 46% and 47% of the total.”

Maybe they’ve taken Josep Borrell’s (foreign policy chief, EU) Oct. 13, 2022, comment – since apologized for – to heart, “Most of the rest of the world is a jungle, and the jungle could invade the garden. The gardeners should take care of it, but they will not protect the garden by building walls. . . A nice small garden surrounded by high walls in order to prevent the jungle from coming in is not going to be a solution. . . The gardeners have to go to the jungle.”

Stanley L. Cohen, an attorney and human rights activist who has done extensive work in the Middle East and Africa, identifies  an often overlooked fact: “In accordance with international humanitarian law, wars of national liberation have been expressly embraced, through the adoption of Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions of 1949, as a protected and essential right of occupied people everywhere.” Israel has not signed it; the U.S. has signed but not ratified it.

As University of North Texas professor Elizabeth Oldmixon remarks, “When we talk about the Holy Land, God’s promise of the Holy Land, we’re talking about real estate on both sides of the Jordan River. So the sense of a greater Israel and expansionism is really important to this community.”

Bump mentioned another interesting statistic found by The LifeWay poll: 80% of evangelicals believed Israel’s creation of Israel was a fulfillment of biblical prophecy that would bring about Christ’s return. A 2003 Pew Research Center poll revealed that about a third of Americans hold this view, while more than 60% evangelicals agreed.

Moreover, “What kick-starts the end times into motion is Israel’s political boundaries being reestablished to what God promised the Israelites according to the Bible,” Pastor Nate Pyle told Newsweek in 2018. The previous month, President Trump had recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and ordered the embassy moved there, much to the delight of countless Evangelicals.

A Major Christian Zionist Voice

Evangelical pastor John Hagee (founder, John Hagee Ministries; founder and chairman of Christians United for Israel), is “America’s most prominent Christian Zionist [known] for his controversial and violent views.” After all, how could he not be after making such a sensational statement [recorded by NBC] during the Nov. 14, 2023, “March for Israel” on the National Mall as “‘God sent a hunter’” and that Jews were killed “’because God said my top priority for the Jewish people is to get them to come back to the land of Israel.’” 

This was not just an off-the-cuff remark spoken in a moment of enthusiasm, for in a 1999 sermon he declared, “God sent Adolf Hitler to help Jews reach the promised land” (He apologized almost a decade later, saying that “I grappled with the vexing question of why a loving God would allow the evil of the Holocaust to occur…I regret if my Jewish friends felt any pain as a result.”)

These comments reveal what really drives Christian Zionism: “Evangelicals believe that the rebirth of Israel is hastening not just the second coming of Christ, but a particular kind of second coming, one that includes fire, fury, and war that will consume the Jewish people … Evangelicals support Israel to hasten the apocalypse, while Israelis … humor the Evangelical community and milk that support for tourist dollars and political power.”

Jay Willoughby, former Islamic Horizons copyeditor, has retired to the Virginia Home for the Permanently Bewildered.

The post The Hold of Christian Zionism on American Evangelicals appeared first on Islamic Horizons.

By Samar Majaideh

Nov/Dec 2024

Creating the “Teaching Palestine Toolkit,” which explores Palestine’s history through Islamic values and principles, has been an incredibly fulfilling journey. The goal was to develop an innovative educational resource that deeply engages educators and learners with this land’s history and culture. Rooted in Islamic values and principles, it’s designed to surpass traditional educational methods by offering a comprehensive and meaningful exploration of the Palestinian narrative.

The ongoing genocide in Gaza has moved millions of Muslims and compassionate individuals worldwide to show solidarity and support for Palestine. We have an amana (trust) to expose propaganda and disinformation, counter mainstream media narratives, and correct educational texts. Being originally from Gaza, I feel an added layer of responsibility and a deep connection to this project based on the transformative power of education. It’s a privilege to spearhead this initiative, dedicating my expertise and energy to bring it to life and promote it within Islamic educational institutions for implementation and continuous improvement.

Although the toolkit is still in the research phase, its projects and programs are guided by rigorous research. The focus is on ensuring the it meets K-12 classrooms’ unique needs and bridges the gap between research and practical application. By thoroughly understanding the educational environment and integrating feedback from both educators and learners, we aim to create an impactful and relevant resource.

This project is part of a broader initiative to capture and teach about various pain points and oppression situations within the ummah and beyond. The Islamic Schools League of America (ISLA) began with Palestine due to its profound significance in Islam and to Muslims, its over 75-year-long struggle, and the historic pattern of imperial and colonial forces attempting to control it, from the Crusaders to the present day. This toolkit aims to honor Palestine’s enduring legacy and bring its rich history and current realities into the educational discourse.

One of its main objectives is to strengthen Muslim students’ faith and identity and revive a sense of ummatic connection, underscoring the principle that if one part of the ummah bleeds, we all bleed. By sharing stories that exemplify perseverance, courage, and contentment with God’s decree, we remind students of the sacrifices made by the Companions. These narratives serve as powerful teaching moments for educators to utilize in their classrooms.

Each of us can show support while witnessing the ongoing heart-wrenching atrocities and fight feeling helpless. Everyone has a role to play and needs to be creative and strategic in activating it to stand on the right side of history.

It’s a privilege to lead this effort, knowing that each small step in education can contribute to a larger movement toward justice and understanding. Together, we can leverage our collective skills and resources to create a profound impact by ensuring that Palestine’s story is told with the depth, respect, and authenticity it deserves. This toolkit is not just an educational resource; it is a testament to our commitment to truth, solidarity, and the relentless pursuit of justice.

Vision and Mission

The vision is to elevate Islamic education by using Palestine’s history and its significance in Islam as a central case study. It aims to interweave core Islamic values, among them justice, perseverance, and dignity, thereby strengthening students’ faith, identity, and connection to the global ummah.

Its mission is to give educators a well-founded collection of resources for teaching about Palestine’s past and present, grounded in an Islamic worldview. This underscores the importance of an informative and transformative educational approach to create a more informed, empathetic, and socially responsible generation.

Guiding Principles

The toolkit’s guiding principles ensure that the educational material is both comprehensive and deeply impactful. These principles include:

• Justice. Emphasizing fairness and equity in understanding Palestine’ historical and current realities. 

• Perseverance. Highlighting the Palestinians’ resilience in the face of adversity to teach students the importance of steadfastness and endurance, reflecting on the struggle’s spirit, and encouraging the learners’ own resilience.

• Dignity. Upholding the respect and honor of all individuals involved in the Palestinian narrative. This fosters empathy and respect for all people.

• Empathy and Compassion. Cultivating empathy and compassion by presenting the human stories behind the Palestinian struggle so students can understand the Palestinians’ lived experiences.

• Critical Thinking and Inquiry. Encouraging students to engage critically with the material, question sources, and explore different perspectives to develop analytical skills.

Comprehensive Components

The “Teaching Palestine Toolkit” is built on research and curation, resource evaluation and integration, and training and dissemination.

• Research and Curation. We prioritized conducting thorough research and learning the stakeholders’ insights. Focus groups with middle and high school teachers revealed their views and if they had integrated it into their classrooms, their plans to do so soon, and the expected challenges and limitations.

Interviews with principals and school heads, as well as a gap analysis, gave us some insight into making the toolkit effective and relevant. Consulting seasoned educators, Islamic school leaders, and those directly affected by the Palestinian struggle enables the toolkit to provide a well-rounded educational experience.

The curation process involved carefully selecting and organizing these resources to create a rich content. The research component involved a thorough process of gathering comprehensive and accurate resources. 

• Resource Evaluation and Integration.The gathered resources were subjected to a thorough evaluation process to ensure they aligned with educational standards and met the stakeholders’ needs. This involved organizing the materials logically and making them accessible and relevant for classroom use. The goal was to create a seamless experience for educators so they could easily integrate the materials into their teaching.

The toolkit includes interactive maps that show the historical changes in Palestinian territories, video interviews with Palestinian families sharing their personal stories, and detailed lesson plans that align with educational standards for history and social studies classes.

The integration process also involved ensuring that the resources were structured in a way that encourages critical thinking, empathy, and a commitment to social justice. By presenting the materials in an engaging and user-friendly manner, the toolkit fosters a deeper understanding of Palestine’s historical and current issues.

• Training and Dissemination. To maximize the toolkit’s impact, educators received comprehensive training and ongoing support in the form of relevant workshops, webinars, and interactive sessions. They practiced facilitating discussions about sensitive topics related to Palestine and participated in interactive webinars on using the included digital tools to create engaging lessons.

Educational Philosophy

The toolkit’s underlying philosophy provides an educational experience that is both informative and transformative. It encourages participants to explore the intersections of history, culture, religion, and socio-political dynamics, thereby fostering a comprehensive understanding of the Palestinian narrative.

By addressing the participants’ emotional well-being, this holistic approach promotes a balanced approach to sensitive subjects, thereby enabling users to navigate emotional landscapes and acknowledge the human aspect of the Palestinian experience.

A lesson plan might include students analyzing primary sources, such as letters and diaries from Palestinians, to understand their personal experiences. This could be followed by a reflective exercise of discussing how these stories make them feel and how they can support justice and peace.

The “Teaching Palestine Toolkit” shows that understanding Palestine’s complex issues requires a holistic, empathetic approach rooted in justice and understanding. It is designed to enlighten, engage, and empower users to acquire a nuanced understanding of Palestine and instill core Islamic values. Through this toolkit, educators can nurture informed, empathetic, and socially responsible students who are deeply connected to their faith and committed to global justice.

Our well-researched, carefully curated collection of resources aims to fill educational gaps, counter misinformation, and provide a comprehensive view of Palestine. This transformative educational journey stands as a powerful tool for educators, opening their students’ minds and hearts and empowering them to advocate for justice and peace.

Imagine a classroom in which students use the toolkit to create a multimedia project that showcases Palestine’s history and culture – maybe creating a digital timeline of key historical events, producing a short documentary featuring interviews with Palestinians, and organizing a community event to share their findings. Such activities not only deepen their understanding of the subject, but also foster a sense of connection and responsibility toward global issues.

The “Teaching Palestine Toolkit” embodies a vision of education that is dynamic and deeply rooted in Islamic values. It serves as a comprehensive resource for educators seeking to provide their students with a rich, informed, and compassionate understanding of Palestine, its people, and its significance in the broader context of Islamic and global history. Through this toolkit, educators are empowered to inspire their students to become advocates for justice, peace, and understanding in an interconnected world.

Samar al-Majaideh,Ed.D., is project director, and research project manager at the Islamic Schools League of America (ISLA).

The post Elevating Islamic Education Through ISLA’s “Teaching Palestine Toolkit” appeared first on Islamic Horizons.

By Feryal Aboshama

Jan/Feb 2024

In 2021, I would scroll through social media and watch my people be hurt and bleed for simply existing and standing up for what they believe. Every night tears uncontrollably slipped down my face as I thought about the Palestinians. I would cry silently, feeling helpless and guilty, and constantly wake feeling guilty for being blessed with another chance to wake up, while millions of Palestinians either didn’t or, if they did, woke up orphaned and alone. All I could do was watch the people protecting our Holy Land die gruesome, inhumane deaths that traumatized the children and made them fear for the future they won’t have. 

I constantly questioned myself and wondered what I could do, because a simple social media post that only took a second to upload didn’t satisfy me. And so I turned to doing the only thing I could do at that moment: making protest posters with different sayings, like “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” “75 years is enough,” “Free my people” and plenty of other sayings, all painted in Palestinian colors. I then went on to paint a canvas to donate or sell for the Palestinian cause — but I kept the first one. 

Every Stroke

That painting depicted a tattered Palestinian flag in the background. On top, in bright white, it said “Free My People” with the shape of Palestine as the period. Every stroke of red reminded me of the unnecessary bloodshed. Every stroke of black reminded me of the smoke filling the air and the lungs of innocent Palestinian adults and children. Every stroke of green reminded me of the olive trees that used to stand as strong as the people fighting for their rights. Every stroke of white reminded me of every kafan (the cloth used to wrap the deceased) wrapped around an innocent life that departed too soon. Every stroke filled me with rage and sadness — rage because that isn’t what these colors represent, and sadness because that is what I am now constantly reminded of. 

While I still found myself feeling guilty, I turned to art, and day by day continued channeling that pain and sorrow in my art pieces, converting those emotions into hope … a hope that every Palestinian holds with pride, knowing that one day, with God’s Will, they will be freed.

Now, every day I turn on my phone and go straight to Instagram for real-time information. I would never have done this before, but here I am. Opening the app, I go through different Palestinian journalists’ accounts from Bisan to Motaz to Plestia and so many others who’ve become household names. Constantly praying and making dua for them, I hope that next account won’t be about another 1,000 quickly dismissed deaths.

One quote has stayed with me: “Even if the world was against me, I would still fight for what I stand for, until death.” I’ve always stood with Palestine, and will to the day I die. When I was younger, my parents taught me about Palestine. They told me when I fight for what I believe in to fight like a Palestinian, to have patience like a Palestinian, to smile like a Palestinian and leave it to God. Even back then I knew I had to fight for Palestine because, although I’m not Palestinian, they are my people — not just because I’m Muslim, Arab, Middle Eastern, but especially because I’m a human being who cares for all of humanity. This means that when my brother or sister gets hurt, I feel their pain. 

Today, I live in a constant state of awareness, gratefulness and dua. I’m aware of everything going on in Palestine, as well as everything I’ve taken for granted while innocent people don’t have an ounce of what I do. I’m grateful for every day I get to wake up and be with my family. I make dua that everyone in Palestine continues to fight with the strength provided by God. I pray for the day I get to see Palestine free. 

Feryal Aboshama, the second place prize winner of the Islamic Horizons essay contest, attends Eman Schools in Fishers, Ind. She will soon be going to university to study neuroscience and psychology, with a minor in Arabic.

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By Sundus Abrar 

Jan/Feb 2024

Protests calling for a ceasefire in Palestine are drawing increasing and diverse attendees. As Israeli attacks on Gaza continue with complete disregard for civilians and international law, Palestinians remain committed to broadcasting the atrocities inflicted upon them on social media. For Palestinian journalists, this task of accurately documenting the genocide takes precedence over their own personal safety.

According to The Washington Post (Nov. 14), “At least 42 members of the media have been killed in the Israel-Gaza war since Oct. 7, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, making this past month the deadliest for journalists since it started gathering data in 1992.”

Despite social media censorship and the mainstream media’s blatant efforts to suppress and discredit the content coming out of Gaza, the images and videos of the violence being inflicted upon Palestinians are circulating pervasively. A harrowing narrative is emerging, and the dire conditions are difficult to process. 

Some parents, out of concern for their young children’s emotional well-being, may decide not to share everything about these events. However, Fatmah Muhammad, a Palestinian-American residing in California, strongly encourages parents to involve and inform older children about advocating for the oppressed. “They think they are protecting their children, but who are these children going to be as grown adults? How is the ummah going to change if we are raising our youth to be complicit?” she asks. 

Muhammad grew up learning about Palestine through her parents, who were born and raised there. She participated in protests against Israel’s illegal occupation, but didn’t fully realize the extent of the occupation. When she first visited Palestine, aged 12, she came to an alarming awareness of the extreme restrictions they endure while living under constant surveillance and policing. Her children had a similar experience during their first trip in the summer of 2023. 

Her 10-year-old daughter Kareemah was distraught when their car was stopped at a checkpoint while driving to Ramallah. Israeli soldiers pointed guns at them as they searched the car, before letting them go upon realizing that they were American citizens. “We told our cousins about what happened, and they told us this is the norm. We were so terrified,” shares Kareemah. 

Muhammad’s children feel a sense of privilege compared to their family in Palestine. “When I go there, I get treated nice. I feel that I don’t deserve to go there. I can move around and go places. We can leave checkpoints, but Palestinians who live there can’t go everywhere,” shares 12-year-old Zakariyah. Some people born in Palestine are even prevented from visiting the al-Aqsa Mosque. This imbalance is what propels Muhammad’s children to actively advocate for Palestinians. 

Non-Palestinian Activists

“I don’t care if they become doctors, engineers or whatever they want to become. That’s secondary to me,” said Syed Rahman, an artist and parent of two in Chicago. “My primary concern is that I want them to be leaders in the ummah.”

Rahman, whose family originates from Hyderabad, India, is also profoundly aware of his privilege. Living as expats in Saudi Arabia, his parents couldn’t discuss politics openly or protest. Rahman is grateful for his parents’ efforts to immigrate to the U.S. “They struggled so I don’t have to.” 

A dedicated philanthropist, Rahman is also founder of the popular small business @ModernWallArt, which sells unique Islamic art. Having garnered a significant audience on the business’s social media account, he utilizes his reach to raise awareness and fundraise. Through the contributions from his online and immediate community, he has raised over $1 million for Human Concern International (HCI) for aid in Gaza. 

In collaboration with Jannah Circle, a Muslim women’s nonprofit, on Nov. 4 Rahman hosted an impromptu charity bazaar in his warehouse space in Skokie, Ill. Participating vendors donated all or at least part of their proceeds. Though the event coincided with the largest protest in Washington, D.C., it still drew over 500 attendees and raised $20,000. 

Rahman and his wife Mehreen Bukhari are keen on educating their daughter Ilyana, 6, about Palestine. Bukhari is forthcoming in her unwavering efforts to advocate for Palestinians, “I boycotted Starbucks before and then stopped. I would go to protests, but then when the ceasefire was announced I’d stop following up.” These fluctuations fuel her urgency in involving youth in activism. “I didn’t learn about it growing up. It’s only now that I am in my 30s that I am more aware and able to advocate for oppressed people. We can’t delay any change the next generation can bring.” She believes that their charity bazaar provided an opportunity for young kids to also learn about the situation in Palestine. 

Diversified Activism

In addition, Muhammad has diversified her activism while continuing to participate in protests. She has an immense following on her social media @KnafehQueens, where she markets her business that sells knafeh, a famous Palestinian dessert. On her Instagram account, she has sought to inform her followers and engage those who are new to the cause.

“I am trying to bring up the cause to people at different levels of awareness. Not everyone can talk politics,” says Muhammad. “By taking a public stance, I have lost some customers, but I trust in Allah.” She has encountered abuse and threats online, but remains firm in doing all that she can to raise awareness. “People have told me you should be careful. But this is my duty.” 

Her daughter Rheyanah, 17, is also engaging the community by organizing protests, fundraisers and qiyams. Muhammad cautions her daughter to find a balance between her academics, but is also immensely reassured by her children’s dedication. “It gives me hope. Israelis have said over and over that the kids will forget about Palestine, but Allah wants it in our hearts because there is so much beautiful history [there]. It’s a blessed land, and I hope to see that my kids are in it till the end.”

Like many others, she too draws her motivation from the Palestinians who, while living under the grueling conditions of oppression, continue to be resilient and retain their spirit of hospitality and kindness. She shares the welcome her family received during their trip to Palestine. “How they lead their lives every day is beautiful. The ones who have the least will give you the most,” she said. 

More people are gaining awareness of the severe oppression Palestinians have been living under for the past 75 years. The diversity at protests and the increased conversations online are a reassuring indicator of this. Every parent knows how much to share with each child, but there has to be some level of awareness in all Muslim children. Several parenting blogs and authors like Noor Kids have shared simple ways of explaining the occupation to young children. They don’t need to see graphic, violent images, but they do need to be aware. As parents living comfortable lives thousands of miles away, this is the least we can do.

Sundus Abrar, an undergraduate degree in professional writing, aspires to generate dialog around current concerns within the Muslim community.

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By the ISNA Green Initiative Team

Jan/Feb 2024

Today we are witnessing unjust wars, the degradation and exploitation caused by the Zionist apartheid state, of not only a group of people and their economy, but also the violation of the rights of voiceless nature. This is causing the exponential rise of unsustainable practices, environmental degradation, and biodiversity decline. Further choking the existence of the occupied people and their land is the added layer of climate change. High temperatures, increased rainfall, sea levels rising, and increasing toxic wastes in the land have become unmanageable. 

The dehumanizing and oppression of people deprived of human rights and the right of self-determination; illegal settler colonialism; restrictions on movement; the destruction of farmlands and the native biodiversity of fauna, flora and its pollinators — to the dismantling of renewable energy infrastructure and an agricultural economy — is a direct result of an apartheid state, resulting in an ecocide. Ironically, under the facade of the victim, today the apartheid state is the Israeli occupation of Palestine.

Part of the Fertile Crescent, the cradle of agriculture and civilization, Palestine is located at the intersection of continents and has five phytogeographical areas. Since 1948, those Palestinians surrounded by Israel have been living under its brutal occupation, where uprooting olive trees, demolishing homes (Rebuilding Alliance.org) and marauding Israeli settlers are being used to constrict the Palestinians’ economy and limit their access to food, clean water, hygiene, and natural resources. Uprooting olive trees and choking off the water are tools for the ever-expanding boundaries of the Zionist state, not a “Jewish state,” as stated by Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss, spokesperson of Neturei Karta. 

This is not dissimilar to other stories of land acquisition, in particular apartheid in South Africa, European colonialism, or slavery in the Americas, and the same realities in the Ottoman and Arab empires. Archbishop Tutu said he saw “the humiliation of the Palestinians at checkpoints and roadblocks, suffering like us when young white police officers prevented us from moving about.” 

Zoughbi Alzoughbi (founder and director, Wi’am: The Palestinian Conflict Transformation Center), who once visited a Native American reservation, said, “I found a historical map showing the stages of land dispossession of the First Nation people … To the staff and supporters of Wi’am the message was obvious; both Native Americans and Palestinians were Native to their lands, colonized by another people, told there was a way to live peacefully together, then violently removed from their own land, then forced onto small reservations of land, then slowly had even that land taken away by home demolitions and new settler colonies, only to end up treated by the colonizers as obstacles to peace and not as people.”

The Importance of Olive Trees

Olive trees are a primary source of income — about $12.3 million lost — for over 80,000 Palestinian families who rely on the olive harvest. According to UN figures, approximately 48% of the West Bank’s agricultural land is planted with olive trees. These trees account for 70% of Palestine’s fruit production and contribute approximately 14% to its economy. In addition, 93% of the harvest is used for olive oil production and the remaining 7% for local consumption. Olives, olive oil, and olive wood are used to produce soaps, table olives, and pickles 

Since 1967, 800,000 olive trees and 2.5 million trees have been uprooted — supposedly for security reasons. Since 1995, 60% of Palestinians have lost farmland to Israeli settlements, walls, military zones, by-pass roads and other closures (MIFTAH and VisualizingPalestine.org). Israeli agricultural export companies such as Mehadrin and Hadiklaim are among the primary beneficiaries of the destruction of Palestinian agriculture — they export produce from illegal settlements using stolen Palestinian land and water, as well as profit from the siege on Gaza.

Since October 2007 Palestinians have been unable to access their farmland (BDS & AlJazeera Nov 6. 2023). Israel has denied Palestinians access to their natural resources, including shared water resources, an estimated 1.5 billion barrels of oil reserves in the West Bank and more than $2.5 billion worth of natural gas off Gaza’s coast (UNPress, Oct. 17, 2022).

As the Israeli government cuts off fuel supplies, Palestinians living in Gaza use rooftop solar panels to help access electricity. However, since the Oct. 7 attack Israeli forces have ordered a complete siege of Gaza, which has cut off electricity and fuel supplies and targets hospitals via the solar panels on the AlShifa Hospital (ClimateHomeNews). 

Writing in The Guardian [UK] on July 9, 2019, Miriam Berger reported that Israel sprays the buffer zone to allegedly deprive potential “terror elements” of cover; however, farmers in Gaza say doing so damages crops and livelihoods. Forensic Architecture, a research agency based at Goldsmiths, University of London, stated that over the last five years Israeli planes have sprayed herbicide more than 30 times on the Israeli side of the buffer zone with Gaza. Even private rooftop home gardens are not spared.

Israeli water construction is another way to strangle Palestinian agriculture so that Israel can acquire more land. Tel Aviv builds water pipelines through Palestinian lands that help destroy the land, a practice that constricts the Palestinians’ water use and causes the destruction of olive trees and ends a generational livelihood (Corradin, Camilla. Israel: Water as a tool to dominate Palestinians. AlJazeera News. 2016).

Only an estimated 1% of solid waste is currently being recycled. The Israeli occupation has transformed the occupied Palestinian lands into a landfill for hazardous and toxic wastes and sewage since 1967. In fact, 60% of Israeli waste ends up in the occupied areas. This reality chokes the life of Palestinians while destroying the soil, and poisoning and polluting the groundwater. Israel’s disposal of its wastes is a clear violation of international laws related to environmental protection (MiddleEast Monitor, 2018).

A Solution 

The Olive Tree is a symbol of peace in all Abrahamic faiths. The Torah says, “Even if you are at war with a city … you must not destroy its trees” (Deut 20:19-20).  In Gen. 8:11-12, a dove returned an olive branch to Noah on the Ark, signaling the Flood’s end. Quran 24:35 proclaims, “The parable of His light is as if there were a niche within it a lamp: the lamp enclosed in glass: the glass as it were a brilliant star: lit from a blessed tree, an olive neither of the East nor of the West, whose oil is well-nigh luminous, though fire scarce touch it.” 

The Quran explains that humanity holds a privileged position among God’s creations — vicegerent (khalifa) — and that each person is entrusted with caring for God’s creation. And yet it repeatedly warns Muslims against hubris by asserting that they are no better than any other creature. The Prophet (salla Allahu ‘alayhi wa sallam) acknowledges that God’s knowledge and power covers everything. Therefore, abusing one of His creations, whether it is a living being or a natural resource, is a grave sin. 

Prophet Muhammad was a steadfast advocate of environmental justice, its preservation and conservation and environmental rights. He constantly sought to maintain a harmonious balance between all members of humanity and nature. He was a strong proponent of sustainable practices and equal access by all users of the environment. His words about the environment can be related to contemporary environmental issues.

In closing, the solution lies in the cry of the olive trees. This cry denotes a non-diverse, colonialist worldview, the exact opposite of the Abrahamic traditions. Muslims, as followers of the middle way — as God’s khalifah — are obliged to safeguard the trust gifted by God. Killing innocent women and children is murder, which God abhors. Indiscriminate killing cannot be validated as self-defense by any side. 

May God bless the slaughtered humans– and the destroyed environment. “O humanity! Indeed, We created you from a male and a female, and made you into peoples and tribes so that you may ˹get to˺ know one another. Surely the most noble of you in the sight of Allah is the most righteous among you. Allah is truly All-Knowing, All-Aware” (49:13).

The ISNA Green Initiative Team comprises Huda Alkaff; Saffet Catovic; Nana Firman; Uzma Mirza; S. Masroor Shah (Chair).

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By Muhammad Hadi

Jan/Feb 2024

The death of a single person casts a shadow over a community, drawing people together in shared grief. When a family is lost, the community’s fabric is torn, left with a wound that struggles to heal. Yet, what happens when whole generations are systematically wiped from existence? The pain and loss are magnified, yet the response from those powerful enough to make a difference is often muted, hidden behind justifications and political tapestries. Innocent children, whose only understanding of the night sky was the stars, are now acquainted with the darkness of man’s inhumanity. Their laughter and dreams, once so vibrant, now lay buried under the weight of rubble and indifference. The world, it seems, looks away, unable to face its reflection in the tragedy.

These images and stories haunted me, a relentless stream of what seemed like distant problems. And yet they were all too real for those living them. “We can’t do anything,” becomes a convenient curtain to hide behind. But I saw through it every time I closed my eyes and every time I heard the news. It was a lie told to soothe the world’s disquieted conscience, a shield against the harsh truth that we are all, in some way, connected to these distant tragedies.

As a student in the Bay Area, already immersed in Islamic multimedia and juggling academic pressures, I felt the pull of these global issues. They demanded more than my attention; they demanded my voice and my action. I realized that my daily struggles, exams and projects paled in comparison to the plight of those who had lost everything. The idea of starting a clothing brand had once been a flicker of inspiration for me, a way to express my creativity and individuality. But as I grew more attuned to the cries for help echoing from lands I’d never walked, that flicker transformed into a blaze of determination.

Hobby to Platform

What started as a cool hobby began to morph into a brand in my mind. It was no longer just about fashion or trends; it became a potential platform, a way to merge my creative impulses with my deepening desire to effect change. Between classes, I sketched designs, each line drawn being a silent pledge to the cause I was slowly, but surely, embracing. I found myself staying up late, my mind racing with ideas of how to use this platform for something bigger, something meaningful.

As the months unfolded, LUMOS started to really come into its own. The name, meaning “light,” became symbolic of my aspirations. I wanted LUMOS to be a source of light in the darkness, a spark of hope against despair. It wasn’t just a label; it was a statement, a commitment to shed light on the harsh realities that seemed to be shrouded in the shadows of the world’s attention. The brand began to represent a beacon of awareness, illuminating the stories that were otherwise overlooked.

Infusing garments with stories that matter became my mission. Using the language of design to speak truths that words alone couldn’t capture, each piece from LUMOS was more than just part of someone’s wardrobe. They were conversation pieces, quiet yet powerful advocates for those whose voices were being drowned out. I wanted each design to be impactful, to resonate with the wearer and the observer, to start conversations and challenge perceptions.

LUMOS was set to be a line of clothing that did more than just look good. It was about clothing that felt good — not just in texture, but in the conscience. Every sale, every thread, every color choice was intentional, designed to capture attention, to spark dialogue, to make people stop and think and, hopefully, to act. It was fashion with heart, style with soul, and threads with a cause. The intersection where aesthetics met ethics, where every item carried the potential to light up not just an outfit, but also a path to change.

The rallies — the outpouring of support for the world’s oppressed — were a turning point. It was a global call to action, and it spurred me into motion. LUMOS was no longer just an idea; it had become a necessity. I rallied my friends, classmates and community members. Together, we poured our collective passion into making it a reality. I was inspired to see fellow students, previously uninvolved, dedicating hours to support this cause. They went out of their way to promote our first event, ensuring that our community was aware and engaged.

Our first event was more than just a sale; it was a statement. The community’s response was overwhelming. They didn’t just buy clothes; they bought into an idea, a movement. We nearly sold out what was merely a preview of our brand, and the proceeds — more than $400 — went straight to emergency humanitarian aid. This event was proof that even as students, our actions could resonate. It was a testament to the power of collective action and a beacon of hope for the future.

As we prepare for our official launch, I stand ready to weave our message into the broader tapestry of social consciousness. With designs that champion unity and echo the moral imperatives of our faith, we seek to dress the world not just in clothes, but in hope, solidarity and action. Our upcoming collections will continue to fundraise, educate and rally a community of believers in the power of change. Through LUMOS, we’re not just creating fashion; we’re creating a movement. We’re changing the narrative, proving that even the smallest of voices can make the loudest of echoes. 

The world may whisper, “We can’t do anything,” but through LUMOS, I shout back, “Watch us.”

Muhammad Hadi, first prize winner in the Islamic Horizons “Palestine on my mind” writing contest, is a multimedia content creator based in Bay Area, Calif. For the last six years, he has started and grown projects for youth, including a podcast interviewing Muslims in tech, medicine, animation, education, and more. He is currently a senior in high school, and working as a growth engineer at a Y Combinator-backed startup. His Palestine-themed clothing line is available at https://lumoswear.com/.

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