I’m Sam Bahour, a writer and entrepreneur from Palestine. I hope you’ll listen to my brief message encouraging you to join me in supporting Mondoweiss.
Mondoweiss covers the movement for Palestinian rights in the context of what’s happening in the United States. Why is this important? Because today, the United States is the front line of this struggle.
As a rare U.S.-based news platform that amplifies the voices of this movement – voices ignored by mainstream media – Mondoweiss is on the front lines of this struggle. And today, Mondoweiss needs our help to sustain this work.
Mondoweiss must raise $30,000 this month to receive the same amount in matching funds. That means your donation today will be doubled!
As a Mondoweiss reader, you know nothing will change as long as Washington funnels billions of dollars into Israel’s coffers and looks the other way as they steal our land and water, kill our protesters, arrest our children and strangle our economy.
Decades of U.S. policy laid the groundwork for four long years of Donald Trump’s unchecked and criminal support of Israeli apartheid. Emboldened by the Israel lobby and an incongruous base of U.S. evangelicals, right-wing extremists and white supremacists, Trump moved the U.S. embassy to occupied Jerusalem, violated U.S. and international policy by recognizing settlements, sanctioned annexation of even more Palestinian land, weaponized the definition of antisemitism and brokered unholy alliances for Israel with Arab and other states.
President Biden’s pledge to make the U.S. a world leader in human rights briefly kindled our hope that Washington would reverse these moves. Unfortunately, so far – nearly 100 days into this administration – we’ve seen few meaningful signs of change here in Palestine. Israel’s carte blanche continues.
The Biden team opposes the International Criminal Court investigation of Israel’s war crimes. The U.S. Embassy remains in occupied Jerusalem. And the State Department has adopted a definition of antisemitism that not only fails to protect Jews, but also compromises the rights of every American.
But there is hope – hope in the growing grassroots movement for justice in Palestine and Israel.
More Americans understand what’s happening and are not sitting idly by. University students and professors are speaking out despite threats to their academic standing. Leaders across movements are finding common cause. And a growing number of Americans from all walks of life support conditions on the billions of U.S. tax dollars in cash and weapons that the United States sends Israel every year.
That groundswell is trickling up. Twelve members of Congress sent a letter to the State Department last month naming Israeli colonialism and calling on the administration to support the human rights and dignity of the Palestinian people. Rep. Rashida Tlaib, the first Palestinian member of Congress, says she has “no doubt that the needle on Palestinian human rights is moving.”
The days are numbered when Washington can stubbornly cling to the fictions spun by apologists for Israel’s apartheid regime. But it will take a strong, sustained grassroots movement to bring about that change. Mondoweiss is a critical part of this movement for justice, publishing the news and analysis we all need to build solidarity, hone our talking points, dialogue with our communities, inform our networks and align our movements.
Justice is embedded in our struggle. Palestinians did not go looking for a conflict; it came to us. For more than 70 years we have been compelled to resist. With your help, Mondoweiss supports our resistance and compounds the strength of our movement where it’s needed most – on the front lines for justice in Palestine and Israel.
