On Palestine and Islamaphobia
From an exhibit of art by Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip. Courtesy: The Middle East Children’s Alliance (MECA).
The Children of Gaza Have Names
I wake up in the middle of the night to go check on my child. She breathes, she makes little sleep-noises. I leave the room. Again, half-an hour later I go back to check if she is alright. If she still breathes. I go back again and again through the night because instead of sleeping I have been watching the news coming in from Gaza. This is the seventh day of bombing in Gaza, ten children are dead and 140 wounded.
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Rewinding the Battle of Algiers in the Shadow of the Attack on Charlie Hebdo
With Bill V. Mullen
The only way forward is to fight against the realities of Islamophobia by fighting for the realization of a new Arab Spring.
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Mr. Modi– do not court apartheid Israel in my name
I have never quite known the exact inflections to the label “World’s largest democracy” that is accorded to my country, India. Does it mean (a) that the Government is the most democratic? Or does it mean (b) that India is the most populous country that has a democratically elected government? The first interpretation would imply faith in the Indian state while the second interpretation, taken to its logical conclusion, would point to a faith in the Indian people who have over the years continued to opt for this form of government with all the known caveats of such a form being limited, class-based and often ineffectual.
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Why is the American elite scared of BDS?
with Bill V. Mullen
Since the American Studies Association (ASA) voted overwhelmingly to boycott Israeli academic institutions in December, more than one hundred and fifty U.S. University Presidents have come out in support of Israel and condemned the ASA’s vote. Some of these administrators, such as the Presidents of IU and Kenyon College, have withdrawn their institutional membership from the ASA, and all of them have made their public pronouncements without any consultations with their faculty or elected university bodies.
Gazafying Dissent
With Bill V. Mullen
Israel does not want you to talk about the children it kills in Gaza. And neither does your government. Western politicians and media have a long history of ignoring the horrific conditions under which Palestinians live under Israeli Occupation while paying universal homage to Israel as the “only democracy in the Middle East.”
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Is the Firing of Steven Salaita the beginning of a new Blacklist?
With Bill V. Mullen
Steven Salaita, an Arab-American Professor of American Indian Studies, was just fired from his job for tweeting criticisms of the Israeli massacre in Gaza. The University of Illinois, which fired Salaita, will try to tell you his job was ‘rescinded.’ But he was fired. Here’s why the University and mainstream media don’t want to say he was fired.
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Salaita Firing Shows where Zionism meets Neoliberalism in US Universities
With Bill V. Mullen
In the past ten months, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) administration has done two things of note: rejected the American Studies Association (ASA) vote to boycott Israeli universities and fired Arab-American boycott supporter Steven Salaita.
Six months ago, we asked in an essay “Why is the American elite scared of BDS?” — the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement. In the case of UIUC, the answer is simple and clear: deep political and financial ties between the university’s leadership and Israel.
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Five lessons from the struggle to reinstate Steven Salaita at the University of Illinois
With Bill V. Mullen
At around 12:15 p.m. last Thursday word began circulating around the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) Campus that Arab-American scholar Steven Salaita’s appointment to the faculty had been voted down by the Board of Trustees.
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Israel's Fear of Boycott Rooted in Tactic's Historic Victories Against Colonialism
Historically, boycott is a tactic used by the dispossessed against the powerful.
Palestinians stand alongside other anti-imperialist fighters whose rich and fierce history of struggle is worth recalling today — not simply because it ought to be part of our collective historical memory, but also because they won against their oppressors.
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