Sandra Tamari joined a delegation of Palestinian human rights defenders to attend the opening of the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, an ambitious project to give witness to formerly enslaved Black people terrorized by lynching in the South. “Truth-telling about the past is a requirement to finding a path to justice,” Tamari writes. “The Palestinian struggle for freedom, equality and justice is interlocked with other freedom movements in this country and around the globe. We celebrate the National Memorial for Peace and Justice because it brings the the truth-telling within it brings the U.S. one step closer towards finally, truly abolishing slavery and lynching. And we celebrate it because it brings Palestinians closer to our own freedom.”

Nada Elia writes, “Protests, planned and spontaneous, play a major role in that they show popular support for the plight of the Palestinians, but we cannot just protest, then go home.  Just as Al Nakba is ongoing, so our outrage must be sustained, long-term. We must go beyond the anger of the moment, the chants and slogans and pumping fists in the air, to focus on the slow, less immediately gratifying, more tedious work of strengthening the foundation of our better future.”

More than 300 Palestinians and their allies gathered on Tuesday, May 15 in Boston to mark the 70th anniversary of the Nakba, the catastrophic Israeli ethnic cleansing of Palestine, and to protest Israel’s massacre of Gazans participating in the Great March of Return.

Marc Ellis looks at what comes next after the Great March of return and the Gaza massacre: “In Gaza, the end will continue. As it has for decades. But not only for Palestinians. For Jews within Israel and Jews outside Israel, the historical judgment is certain. Let’s be honest. And realize that the Jewish approach to Israel and the Palestinians, improving modestly over the years but severely compromised, will continue to be interrogated by the suffering of Palestinian populations in Gaza and elsewhere in Palestine. Palestinians are trapped. Jews are too.”

Adoration of Donald Trump is nearly universal among Jewish Israelis in Jerusalem. “Trump is an amazing president. What he promises he makes to happen,” says Rami, 45. “He doesn’t’ care about the opinion of other people. This is how the president of the biggest country in the world needs to act.”

Riham Darwish debunks the most common misconceptions , fabrications, and lies she has encountered about Gaza’s Great March of Return.

Ilan Pappe writes: “American peacemakers, whether cynical or genuine in their efforts, have consistently failed to understand the essence of the conflict in Palestine. If they ever want to solve it, they need to revisit the dispossession of Palestinians that occurred in 1948 and understand its significance and the fact that 70 years later, Israel continues to systematically displace Palestinians from their homes.”

Canadian physician Dr. Tarek Loubani was shot in both legs by Israeli soldiers while treating Palestinians injured during the Great March of Return on Monday: “One paramedic, Musa Abuhassanin, was killed while attempting a victim rescue under fire. One hour before he was shot in the thorax and killed, Musa was one of my rescuers when I was shot by live ammunition.”

In their defense of the Israeli military’s recent actions in Gaza, Israeli political leaders and pro-Israel commentators have articulated a belief that guides Israeli thinking: the existence of the Jewish state requires that Palestinians remain locked in their Gaza prison, with all the violence this entails. The sooner Palestinians accept that, the closer we will come to peace.

James Loeffler’s essay, “The Zionist Founders of the Human Rights Movement,” published in the New York Times on the day the U.S. Embassy moved to Jerusalem–the same day Israel killed 60 Palestinian protesters–argues that Zionism and human rights are historically intertwined.  Liz Rose writes, “The only way that Loeffler can justify the compatibility of Zionism and human rights is to ignore Palestine completely.”