This week, I’m in Detroit for the second annual People’s Conference for Palestine, along with a few other Mondoweiss staff members. If you are in the Detroit area, you can still attend, and we’d love to see you at our table. If you are not in the area, BreakThrough News is live-streaming many of the sessions on YouTube. Click here to visit their conference playlist, which includes the upcoming live-streams.
Today, I spoke to young people whose college graduations are being held up as punishment for protesting the Israeli genocide in Gaza. I talked to organizers from all over the country who were desperate for other people in other communities to know about their efforts and were looking for validation and encouragement. I reconnected with movement leaders who are still putting in the long hours building the movement for Palestinian freedom. There is a real sense here that something is shifting in the struggle against Israeli apartheid.
We’ve also met many people who depend on Mondoweiss to bring them accurate news and analysis about Palestine that mainstream media ignores. We always love to meet our readers in person. It’s energizing and reinvigorating, and it reminds us of the critical role movement-centered media plays in these struggles. Mondoweiss is a key outlet for news and analysis that activists and leaders depend on. It’s humbling, and we take this work very seriously.
The movement for Palestinian freedom is growing and changing the political landscape. One day soon, politicians will have to campaign for Palestinian freedom, and that day is coming sooner than anyone may think. The size, commitment, and passion of this event are proof of that.
We’re gearing up for our most important fundraising season, and I want to tell you about a new program we’re building to help us strengthen our financial sustainability. Frontline Funders is our new matching donor program. We’re looking for a core group of supporters to help raise $200,000 to fuel Mondoweiss campaigns over the coming year. This fund will incentivize others to become donors by matching their gifts. If you’re interested in learning more or joining our Frontline Funders, send us an email. We’d love to talk.
I’ll be back next week with more reflections on this weekend. For now, please take a look below at some of the key stories we published over the last several days.
– Dave Reed, Publisher
Must Read: Airstrikes, explosive vehicles, and bulldozers cause ‘insane’ destruction in Gaza City, eyewitnesses and civil defense say
Tareq Hajjaj: The Israeli army is using airstrikes, rigged explosive APCs, and bulldozing operations to level neighborhoods and displacement centers in Gaza City. Eyewitnesses and local officials say it is to cause mass flight and prevent residents from returning.
Genocide in Gaza
🇵🇸 Amena Al-Ashkar: Hamas’s effort to gain Western sympathy by comparing the Gaza genocide to the Holocaust is understandable but ultimately shortsighted. Instead, putting the genocide in the larger context of colonial violence could build genuine solidarity.
🇺🇸 Mitchell Plitnick: The denial of the Gaza genocide has been echoed from the mainstream media to the White House. While reminiscent of Holocaust denial, today’s denials have deadly consequences as they are used to justify the very genocide that deniers claim isn’t happening.
🇺🇳 Craig Mokhiber: As a key deadline approaches in the United Nations General Assembly, a little-used UN mechanism, immune from the U.S. veto, could bring military protection to the Palestinian people – if we demand it.
🇵🇸 Tareq Hajjaj: The Israeli army carried out a ‘double-tap’ strike on the Nasser Hospital in Gaza, killing at least 20 people, including five journalists who worked for Al Jazeera, Reuters, and the Associated Press.
Catch-up
🫏 Phil Weiss: The Jewish community and the Democratic Party are being torn apart over their complicity in the Gaza genocide and decades of supporting Palestinian oppression. This overdue reckoning will only be resolved by abandoning Zionism.
🇩🇪 Shir Hever: While Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s announcement that Germany is stopping arms deliveries to Israel made international headlines as a shocking policy reversal, the details tell a different story.
🇮🇱 Qassam Muaddi: Israel uprooted 10,000 olive trees in al-Mughayyir during a three-day siege of the West Bank Palestinian village. The Israeli army stated that uprooting the trees was intended to “deter” village residents and make them “pay a heavy price.”
🫏 Michael Arria: Democratic National Committee members rejected a resolution calling for an arms embargo on Israel, but pressure continues to mount on party leaders to adopt a stronger stance against the Gaza genocide.
🇮🇱 Qassam Muaddi: The Israeli army carried out one of its most extensive raids on the city center of Ramallah in years, firing at civilians with teargas, stun grenades, and live ammunition.
America is “Israel”
Gaza is Free and Does Not Bargain
On December 30th, an ‘Israeli’ soldier being held by the Martyr Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades (the armed wing of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine) was killed following a failed rescue attempt. In an official statement, the group described the “many human losses” they inflicted, and how “dragging behind the tails of disappointment and defeat…the zionist enemy in its stupidity and arrogance, targeted that location with its air force to cover the retreat of its defeated soldiers which led to the killing of the prisoner”. The Martyr Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades have also reported that they are in possession of IOF laptops and a set of flash drives, which were seized “during the heroic Al-Aqsa Flood battle” and through which they have “obtained… valuable and precious information, military plans, and private data… [from which] our fighters are now benefitting.”
On January 4th, US and “coalition” forces, quite possibly including Britain, assassinated Iraqi Popular Mobilisation Forces commander Taleb Al-Saedi in Karbala. The Popular Mobilisation Forces are part of the Iraqi Armed Forces and were cohered predominantly to fight ISIS. The PMF’s role as part of the Iraqi state, albeit with considerable autonomy, gives their position a contradictory character with regard to the US and Britain. They are among the most effective forces fighting ISIS, but, at the same time, elements of the PMF are designated by the US as terrorist groups. On the most basic level, the irony of assassinating a commander in a serious anti-ISIS military force, when fighting ISIS is the justification for the ongoing US and British presence, should be obvious. On top of this, the assassination of a figure who is, essentially, a senior commander in the Iraqi Army is a grotesque violation of sovereignty. In response to the assassination, the Iraqi government have opened talks aiming to set a timetable for the total withdrawal of US and coalition forces. The US has not accepted this demand, though it seems possible that their military presence will be reduced.
The wider context for the assassination of Al-Saedi is the extent of Iraqi solidarity with Palestine..
https://newsocialist.org.uk/gaza-is-free-and-does-not-bargain/
The remains of two murdered hostages have been found and brought back from Gaza: Ilan Weiss, 56, from Kibbutz Be’eri and Idan Shtivi, 28, from Ein Hayam( murdered at the Nova festival).
The updated list:
Matan Angrest, 21, from Kiryat Bialik
Gali Berman, 27, from Kibbutz Kfar Azza
Ziv Berman, 27, from Kibbutz Kfar Azza
Elkana Bohbot, 35, from Mevasseret Zion
Rom Braslavski, 21, from Jerusalem
Nimrod Cohen, 20, from Rehovot
Ariel Cunio,27, from Kibbutz Nir Oz
David Cunio, 34, from Kibbutz Nir Oz
Evyatar David, 24, from Kfar Saba
Guy Gilboa-Dalal,23, from Kfar Saba
Maxim Herkin, 35, from Tirat Hacarmel
Eitan Horn, 38, from Kibbutz Nir Oz
Bipin Joshi, 24, from Nepal
Segev Kalfon, 27, from Dimona
Bar Kuperstein, 23, from Holon
Omri Miran, 47, from Kibbutz Nahal Oz
Eitan Mor, 24, from Kiryat Arba
Tamir Nimrodi, 20, from Nirit
Yosef Haim Ohana, 24, from Kiryat Malachi
Alon Ohel, 23, from Lavon
Avinatan Or, 31, from Tel Aviv
Matan Zangauker, 25, from Kibbutz Nir Oz
Deceased:
Tamir Adar,38, from Kibbutz Nir Oz
Sgt. Maj. Mohammad El Atrash, 39, from Sa’wa
Sahar Baruch, 25, from Kibbutz Be’eri
Uriel Baruch, 35, from Givon
Amiram Cooper, 85, from Kibbutz Nir Oz
Sgt. Oz Daniel, 19, from Kfar Saba
Ronen Engel, 54, from Kibbutz Nir Oz
Meni Godard, 73, from Kibbutz Be’eri
Police Sgt. Maj. Ran Gvili,24, from Meitar
Inbar Haiman, 27, from Haifa
Tal Haimi, 42, from Kibbutz Nir Yitzhak
Col. Asaf Hamami, 40, from Kiryat Ono
Staff Sgt, Itay Hen, 19, from Netanya
Guy Ilouz,26, from Tel Aviv
Eitan Levy, 53, from Bat Yam
Eliyahu Margalit, 75, from Kibbutz Nir Oz
Joshua Loitu Mollel, 21, from Tanzania
Capt. Omer Neutra, 21, from New York, USA
Sonthaya Oakkharasri, 30, from Thailand
Dror Or, 48, from Kibbutz Be’eri
Capt. Daniel Perez, 22, from Yad Binyamin
Sudthisak Rinthalak, 43, from Thailand
Lior Rudaeff, 61, from Kibbutz Nir Yitzhak
Yossi Sharabi, 53, from Kibbutz Be’eri
Arye Zalmanovich, 86, from Kibbutz Nir Oz
Some notes regarding the list of hostages:
Among the hostages are a pair of twin brothers (Berman) and one more pair of brothers (Cunio).
At this point, all the live hostages are men. Among the murdered hostages there’s one woman.
US citizens: Itay Hen and Omer Neutra, deceased.
BRING THEM HOME!