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Middle East Eye
10-03-2025
- Politics
- Middle East Eye
These four books show how Israeli-American savagery is on the losing side of history
The publication in recent months of four books on the Israel-Palestine conflict has given the world a solid moral platform to begin holding genocidal Zionism accountable for the mass killing and annihilation that has unfolded in Gaza. These books could prove even more important than the judgements of international courts. While they are preceded by countless publications on the subject by Palestinian thinkers in multiple languages and on multiple platforms, these four books have two particular features in common: none were written by a Palestinian, Arab or Muslim, and all were published in the shadow of the Gaza genocide. To be sure, Palestinians themselves remain the principal spokespeople for their cause, providing the most eloquent case against the historic savageries they have endured for generations. The Palestinian people have given the world such brilliant thinkers as Mahmoud Darwish, Ghassan Kanafani, Fadwa Tuqan, Adania Shibli, Michel Khleifi, Refaat Alareer, May Masri, Mona Hatoum, Elia Suleiman, Emily Jacir, Kamal Aljafari, Mosab Abu Toha, Nizar Hassan, and countless others who do not need anyone to speak for them. New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters The preeminent scholar Edward Said alone was an institution who radically altered the whole language of how the world thinks about the savageries of global colonialism, particularly in his Palestinian homeland. Generation after generation, Palestinian artists, filmmakers, scholars, poets, novelists and revolutionary thinkers have turned the Palestinian cause into a global uprising. So if our attention now turns to four non-Palestinian authors, it does not mean Palestinians needed them. But the world needed them, for the globalisation of the Palestinian cause is now a moral imperative without borders. Interrogating Zionism The constellation of these four non-Palestinian thinkers - Rabbi Shaul Magid, American authors Peter Beinart and Ta-Nehisi Coates, and Indian writer Pankaj Mishra - points to the unfolding of a different trajectory that sustains hope amid the terrorising darkness, in which US President Donald Trump sits next to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, claiming that Gaza belongs to them. The sheer obscenity of this scene should not distract from the larger picture, in which a different vision of the world is fast dawning. Follow Middle East Eye's live coverage of the Israel-Palestine war Two of these four books are by prominent Jewish critical thinkers, one of them a rabbi. The third is a by a renowned African American author, and the fourth by a globally celebrated Indian intellectual. No hasbara propaganda machinery, Zionist outfit nor corrupt gang of US politicians can dismiss, deny or demonise their work as 'antisemitism'. Antisemitism is a real western sickness, as is Islamophobia. Jews and Muslims are united in their struggles against both maladies. The first text, Magid's The Necessity of Exile (2023), examines the question of 'exile' in a Judaic context, and uses this to interrogate the entire project of Zionism. He puts the idea of exile in both historic and contemporary terms, for the issues that Jewish communities around the world face are not merely political, but go to the heart of their ancestral faith. Decolonisation is a force of history that will unfold and dismantle the apparatuses of colonial powers - past, present and future How could any decent human being, particularly a moral Jewish person, stand by and witness generations of Palestinians being slaughtered in their name, and remain silent? Magid's book is historic evidence that such principled Jewish thinkers have never been silent. The second book, Beinart's Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza (2025), is a reckoning by an eloquent Jewish American thinker of the dangers facing his faith after it has been used and abused to commit mass murder, war crimes, crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing and now genocide. Central to this book is the fact that it was written by a former committed Zionist, one who was born and raised advocating for the Israeli apartheid state, and who only later in life realised the state and ideology he was rooting for was a murderous killing machine. We might ask how this deeply learned and cultivated man previously missed the groundswell of Palestinian voices crying out for justice, chief among them Said's globally admired scholarship right here at Columbia University in New York. But still, better late than never. Beinart is a widely admired Jewish intellectual, and rightly so. His eloquent words reach far and deep into Jewish and non-Jewish corners of this country. He is a much-needed voice in a global chorus that demands solidarity with Palestinians. Historic uprising As for Coates, I have already written on the significance of his book The Message (2024), though in terms only significant to his own liberation from deceitful Zionist propaganda. Placed in the context of these four books, Coates brings the entire force of multi-generational African American liberation struggles to bear witness to the terror of genocidal Zionism in Palestine. But the real fire comes from outside the US. Entirely removed from the American domain, and thus far more global and liberated in his critical thinking, Mishra puts a radically different spin on the world's defiance of complicity with the Israeli genocide. In The World After Gaza (2025), Mishra shares with readers how he, too, began his political consciousness convinced by his Hindu nationalist household of the righteousness of the Israeli cause, even sporting a picture of Israeli warlord Moshe Dayan on his bedroom wall. He thus begins his book by entering the confessional cabinet and sharing details of his deeply Zionist upbringing. How Ta-Nehisi Coates broke free of liberal Zionism Read More » Anytime I read such confessionals, I wonder: what planet did these dear and learned friends live on before they finally saw the light? But at this moment in history, it no longer matters. What matters is Mishra's astounding ability to be not polemic, but persuasive. He speaks for a common decency based on a shared history, in which both Palestinians and Israelis can find not just a political, but a moral homeland. The sheer magnitude of Israeli savagery in Gaza and the occupied West Bank; the barefaced vulgarities of Israeli warlords and American presidents, capped off with the criminal thuggeries of the Trump administration - these have finally awakened the world, across religious and political divides. What these timely books reveal is a turning tide. From here, the world cannot plunge into another sea of ignorance or apathy. This historic uprising against the vicious recycling of western colonial powers in Palestine will never stop. Decolonisation is a force of history that will unfold and dismantle the apparatuses of colonial powers - past, present and future. The world looks at the ridiculous sight of Trump and his clan of kleptocratic billionaires with contempt and defiance. This is not a battle between Jews and non-Jews, nor even between Israelis and Palestinians. This is a battle between right and wrong, truth and falsehood, fact and fiction. All decent human beings, Jews and Palestinians in particular, are on one side, facing an army of deceit and violence on the other. The battlefronts are crystal clear, and as Martin Luther King Jr once said: 'The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.' Period. The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.
Asharq Al-Awsat
02-03-2025
- Politics
- Asharq Al-Awsat
Hamas Says Ready to Cooperate with Any Initiative that Confronts Attempts to Displace Palestinians
The Palestinian Hamas movement said on Saturday it was ready to cooperate with any initiative that would confront attempts to displace the Palestinian people from the Gaza Strip. In a message to the emergency Arab League summit, which will be held in Cairo on Tuesday, it stressed it was keen on completing the remaining phases of the Gaza ceasefire in order to reach a permanent and comprehensive ceasefire and full Israeli withdrawal from the coastal enclave, ensure reconstruction of Gaza and the lifting of the Israeli siege. The post-war phase has to be 'purely Palestinian' and based on national consensus, it urged. It 'categorically rejected' attempts to impose 'non-Palestinian projects or administrations and the deployment of any foreign forces in Gaza.' 'We are ready to accept any choice that is agreed upon, whether in regard to forming a national consensus government or social support committee that was proposed by Egypt,' said the statement that was released by Hamas leadership council chief Mohammed Darwish. Moreover, Hamas underscored its keenness on 'completely arranging Palestinian affairs, especially the Palestine Liberation Organization so that it can act as a real representative' of the people. It also stressed its keenness on holding general elections to revive democracy and allow the Palestinians to choose their leaders.
Observer
01-03-2025
- Politics
- Observer
Ready to complete Gaza truce deal, says Hamas
GAZA: Hamas said on Saturday it was ready to go ahead with the "remaining stages" of a ceasefire agreement in Gaza, as the first phase drew to a close with uncertainty over the following stages. "We affirm our keenness to complete the remaining stages of the ceasefire agreement, leading to a comprehensive and permanent ceasefire, full withdrawal of the occupation forces from the Gaza Strip, reconstruction and lifting the siege," the Palestinian militant group said in a letter to the Arab League summit due to be held on March 4. "We categorically reject the attempt to impose any non-Palestinian projects or forms of administration or the presence of any foreign forces on the territory of the Gaza Strip," it added. Over the initial six-week phase, Gaza militants freed 25 living hostages and returned the bodies of eight others to Israel, in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails. A second phase of the fragile truce was supposed to secure the release of dozens of hostages still in Gaza and pave the way for a more permanent end to the war. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had sent a delegation to Cairo, and mediator Egypt said "intensive talks" on the second phase had begun with the presence of delegations from Israel as well as fellow mediators Qatar and the United States. But by early on Saturday, there was no sign of consensus, and Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem said the group rejected "the extension of the first phase in the formulation proposed by the occupation (Israel)". He called on mediators "to oblige the occupation to abide by the agreement in its various stages". Max Rodenbeck, of the International Crisis Group think tank, said the second phase cannot be expected to start immediately. "But I think the ceasefire probably won't collapse also," he said. The preferred Israeli scenario is to free more hostages under an extension of the first phase, rather than a second phase, Defence Minister Israel Katz said. A Palestinian source close to the talks said that Israel had proposed to extend the first phase in successive one-week intervals with a view to conducting hostage-prisoner swaps each week, adding that Hamas had rejected the plan. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said that the Israel-Hamas ceasefire "must hold". "The coming days are critical. The parties must spare no effort to avoid a breakdown of this deal," Guterres said in New York. The truce enabled greater aid flows into the Gaza Strip, where more than 69 per cent of buildings were damaged or destroyed, almost the entire population was displaced, and widespread hunger occurred because of the war, according to the United Nations. The Gaza war began with Hamas's October 7 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people, according to official figures. The Israeli retaliation has killed 48,388 people in Gaza, a majority of them civilians, according to the health ministry in the Palestinian territory, figures the UN has deemed reliable. Though the truce has effectively held, there have been a number of Israeli strikes. On Friday the military said it targeted two "suspects" approaching troops in southern Gaza, where a hospital said it had received the body of one person killed in a strike. Meanwhile, Switzerland said it will host an international conference on March 7 on the protection of Palestinian civilians in the occupied territories, as called for in a United Nations vote. The 196 signatories to the Geneva Convention will be invited to the meeting, which will be attended by ambassadors, a spokesperson for the Swiss foreign ministry said. Such "conferences of high contracting parties" cannot take binding decisions but can "reaffirm the rules of international humanitarian law and the obligations", the Swiss government says on its website. — AFP
LBCI
01-03-2025
- Politics
- LBCI
Hamas says ready to complete 'remaining stages' of Gaza truce deal
Hamas said on Saturday it was ready to go ahead with the "remaining stages" of a ceasefire agreement in Gaza, as the first phase drew to a close with uncertainty over the following stages. "We affirm our keenness to complete the remaining stages of the ceasefire agreement, leading to a comprehensive and permanent ceasefire, full withdrawal of the occupation forces from the Gaza Strip, reconstruction, and lifting the siege," the Palestinian militant group said in a letter to the Arab League summit due to be held on March 4. "We categorically reject the attempt to impose any non-Palestinian projects or forms of administration or the presence of any foreign forces on the territory of the Gaza Strip," it added. AFP
Gulf Today
01-03-2025
- Politics
- Gulf Today
Hamas says ready to complete 'remaining stages' of Gaza truce deal
Hamas reiterated on Saturday its readiness to go ahead with the "remaining stages" of a ceasefire agreement in Gaza, as the first phase drew to a close with uncertainty over the next steps. "We affirm our keenness to complete the remaining stages of the ceasefire agreement, leading to a comprehensive and permanent ceasefire, full withdrawal of the occupation forces from the Gaza Strip, reconstruction and lifting the siege," the Palestinian group said, referring to terms of the deal previously outlined by mediators. Hamas made their comment in a letter to an Arab League summit on Gaza due to be held on Tuesday. The first phase of the Israel-Hamas truce is due to expire on Saturday, but negotiations on the next stage, aiming to secure a permanent ceasefire, have so far been inconclusive. The ceasefire took effect on Jan.19 after more than 15 months of war. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had sent a delegation to Cairo, and mediator Egypt said "intensive talks" on the second phase had begun with the presence of delegations from Israel as well as fellow mediators Qatar and the United States. But by Saturday, there was no sign of consensus, and Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem said the group rejected "the extension of the first phase in the formulation proposed by the occupation (Israel)." He called on mediators "to oblige the occupation to abide by the agreement in its various stages." Referring to a post-war Gaza, Hamas said it was "fully prepared to deal with any option that is agreed upon by the Palestinians" but said it "categorically" rejected "the attempt to impose any non-Palestinian projects or forms of administration or the presence of any foreign forces on any territory of the Gaza Strip." United States President Donald Trump has floated an idea for the United States to "take over" Gaza and for Palestinians to be resettled elsewhere, an idea the Palestinians themselves as well as neighbouring Egypt and Jordan have rejected. Former US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in January said Gaza should be under the jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority, which currently has partial administrative control in the occupied West Bank. Blinken said an unstated number of countries had offered to send troops and police to post-war Gaza.
