This week, dozens of students were arrested at Columbia University after peacefully occupying a campus library to protest the ongoing genocide in Gaza. These arrests reflect Trump’s escalating campaign against anyone challenging U.S. complicity with Israel’s crimes. But the crackdown hasn’t completely stifled dissent. Students nationwide are responding with greater organization, resilience, and courage. As Michael Arria reported, resistance is not weakening—it’s gaining momentum, forcing a confrontation with institutions that have long been complacent or complicit. Trump’s administration, despite recent legal setbacks, including a federal appeals court ordering the transfer of Tufts student Rümeysa Öztürk, remains determined to criminalize activism. But these young people are fighting back—and starting to win important battles.
Despite his blustery show of power, Trump, like many U.S. presidents before him, seems either unwilling or incapable of confronting Israel’s atrocities. His positions on Gaza are often contradictory, driven more by incompetence than by a clear foreign policy strategy. Trump’s chaotic approach offers the Netanyahu government cover to pursue its genocidal agenda unchecked. Israel’s war cabinet recently approved plans to expand the assault on Gaza and permanently reoccupy the territory, as Qassam Muaddi outlined in a sobering analysis. Trump’s inconsistent and ineffective posture leaves Israel emboldened, knowing the U.S. won’t hold it accountable.
Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has shown a cold disregard even for Israeli lives, openly prioritizing ethnic cleansing over any attempt at negotiation. Rather than seeking the safe return of Israelis still held captive by resistance groups, Netanyahu’s administration has pushed forward relentlessly, creating chaos and intentionally sabotaging any effort to end the violence. Faris Giacaman and Tareq Hajjaj exposed how Israel is deliberately fostering violence and disorder in Gaza by backing armed looters and killing civilians who resist. This is not random violence—it’s strategic. With Gaza’s civil structures deliberately dismantled, Israel hopes to break Palestinian resistance completely.
The international community’s ongoing silence and complicity have allowed Israel to openly discuss its ultimate goal: exterminating Gaza as we know it. In this week’s must-read analysis, Qassam Muaddi says Israel’s plan to ethnically cleanse Gaza is now official state policy, openly discussed and executed without consequence. Meanwhile, global inaction has inspired similar aggressive moves elsewhere, notably India’s recent escalation against Pakistan, modeled directly on Israel’s actions against Gaza, as Maah-Noor Ali reports.
But as horrific as the current situation is, resistance continues to build, from fired Microsoft employees challenging corporate complicity, as Michael Arria recently detailed, to new political realities emerging in Canada with Prime Minister Mark Carney promising to chart a new foreign policy course, though Yves Engler cautions against optimism. The struggle is daunting, but it is not hopeless, and our collective action remains essential.
– Dave Reed, Publisher
Must Read: Exterminating Gaza was always Israel’s plan, but now it’s official
Qassam Muaddi: Israel carried out its plan to erase Gaza over the course of 18 months. Now that the plan has clearly fallen into place, the Netanyahu government is openly discussing ethnic cleansing. And still, Israel enjoys complete international impunity.
Catch-up
✊🏽 Michael Arria: Roughly 80 protesters were arrested Wednesday after occupying a library on Columbia University’s campus. The Trump administration is stepping up actions against student protesters as Gaza encampments are starting to spread once again across the U.S.
🇮🇳 Maah-Noor Ali: India’s May 6 attack on Pakistan shows how the world’s inaction on the Gaza genocide has inspired Narendra Modi to escalate in Kashmir. From New Delhi to Tel Aviv, the ideological affinity between Zionism and Hindutva has never been clearer.
🇮🇱 Faris Giacaman and Tareq Hajjaj: Growing reports show that Israel has been fomenting armed gangs to loot food supplies in Gaza and sow chaos — and it’s killing those who attempt to stop it. But this strategy isn’t new: Israel has waged a war on Gaza’s civil government from the start.
🇺🇸 Michael Arria: In a blow to the White House, a federal appeals court ruled that Tufts student Rümeysa Öztürk must be transferred from Louisiana to Vermont. It was just one of several legal setbacks for the Trump administration in recent days.
🇵🇸 Mohammad Hureini: I met Louis Theroux to share my story as a Palestinian under the constant threat of displacement. While the film is an important look into the Israeli settlers trying to erase us, there is one crucial part of our story that was left out.
🇮🇱 Qassam Muaddi: The Israeli war cabinet unanimously approved on Sunday the expansion of Israel’s war on Gaza, which reportedly includes plans to reoccupy the strip indefinitely.
💻 Michael Arria: Mondoweiss talks to former Microsoft employees who were fired for protesting the company’s role in the Gaza genocide.
🇨🇦 Kavita Algu: Canada’s new prime minister, Mark Carney, has promised to forge a new foreign policy path forward. This must include stopping the atrocities Canada has abetted in Palestine.
🗳️ Yves Engler: The Canadian election results angered the right people. But for Palestine, Mark Carney’s win represents harm reduction at best.
“ The struggle is daunting, but it is not hopeless, and our collective action remains essential.”
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The more clearly the struggle’s objectives are understood to be, and to not be, the more hope is justified. Greater Israel has had a high interest in misleading to obstruct chances of reconciliation and to justify ethnic cleansing.
Mondoweiss is well positioned to advance discussion, debate and understanding.