Violence is routine in occupied Palestine, as this week’s toll shows: olive trees bulldozed, seven hikers tear-gassed, hundreds of grape vines cut by settlers, a Palestinian boy in critical condition after being run over by a settler, and two 23-year-old men killed.

Soldier’s lives are more precious than civilian lives in Israel, and soldiers’ bodies the most precious human form of all. Which explains what a boost Putin gave to Netanyahu in the last week of the election by providing to him the remains of an Israeli soldier killed in Lebanon in 1982.

Emory Students for Justice in Palestine has come under attack for educational events, flyers, and protests it organized as part of Israel Apartheid Week. “Smearing racial justice advocates as ‘anti-Semites’ is an increasingly visible trend,” the organization writes, and they “reject the notion that challenges to US foreign policy and advocacy for justice in the Middle East are a form of discrimination against our friends in the Jewish community.” Emory SJP also calls on Emory University to cease validating the bigoted smear campaign and to discipline students and other Emory community members that are complicit in the ongoing harassment.

On Monday, Israel doubled the area where Palestinians can fish in the Mediterranean Sea off of the Gaza Strip as part of Egyptian brokered talks with Hamas. The distance fisherman can operate in was extended from 6 nautical miles at the narrowest sea corridor, to 15 nautical miles at the widest. Yet Gaza fisherman say the relaxed restriction has no impact.

Police arrested 15 members of IfNotNow outside Birthright HQ in NY today after 100s of Jews demonstrated against the organization’s propaganda tours of Israel. Protester Yonah said that when he asked questions about Palestinians on his trip, his tour guide sat him down and said, “If you keep pulling this shit, I’m going to have to report you.” Yonah was “terrified” and shut up.

Rasmea Odeh dramatically had her visa revoked in Germany after pressure from the Israeli government grew to cancel her participation in a Berlin event on International Women’s Day. Her would be co-panelist, Palestinian poet Dareen Tatour explains how the events unfolded,”I was also supposed to read some of my poems. When I arrived at the event hall, I was surprised by something else. The venue was vandalized with graffiti.”

The polls from Israel are dispiriting. Netanyahu is the most popular leader, the young adore him; and even if the opposition wins, its government will be rightwing. And the occupation will not end. So the election will challenge Americans to stand up at last for Palestinian rights.

Anti-Palestinian racism is at last moving the needle in US politics. The demotion by leadership of NY City Councilman Kalman Yeger for his anti-Palestinian comments this week sends a message to the Democratic Party nationwide, that the profound political shifts that the left is generating on a host of issues, from sexual harassment to economic inequity, will include Palestine, too.

Sara Burback travels from Washington DC to the West Bank city of Bethlehem to participate in the 2019 Palestine Marathon. Burback says it is a “special opportunity to run through Bethlehem and join runners from all over the world in defense of the basic human right to movement.”

What is largely missing from the discussion on Gaza’s Great March of Return is why it is essential for hundreds of thousands of besieged people to rediscover their power and understand their true position, not as hapless victims, but as agents of change in their society.