On May 24, Karam Ismael received a phone call from someone identifying himself as an Israeli army officer ordering him to evacuate his home in 20 minutes before they bomb it. Tareq S. Hajjaj reports on Israel’s resumption of large-scale bombing of Gaza’s remaining residential blocks — buildings that had been left standing through the ceasefire — displacing dozens more families and making fear a permanent condition of their daily life.
The Israeli Knesset voted on May 20 to dissolve itself in a move that could bring elections as early as September. Qassam Muaddi explains why a change of Israel’s government will not end the genocide. Israel’s operations in Gaza, its ethnic cleansing of the West Bank, and its wars against Lebanon and Iran have broad support across the Israeli political spectrum. Even if Smotrich and Ben-Gvir lose their seats, the project they represent is still in power.
As U.S. public opposition to military aid for Israel reaches an all-time high, Netanyahu has proposed replacing formal Foreign Military Financing with co-production agreements between U.S. and Israeli arms manufacturers, a move backed by pro-Israel think tanks close to the Trump administration. Josh Ruebner argues that this restructuring is a bait-and-switch designed to sustain the weapons relationship under a different label, and that the political conditions now exist for a full arms embargo.
Robert Kagan, whose advocacy helped build the intellectual case for U.S. wars in the Middle East across three decades, published a piece in The Atlantic this month declaring that the United States has already lost its war against Iran. Bill Kristol, his co-founder of the Project for the New American Century, called it a humiliation. Michael Arria examines what it means when the architects of American militarism begin criticizing their own creation, and whether their disillusionment amounts to anything more than strategic repositioning.
Five years after announcing her boycott of Israeli publishing, Sally Rooney’s novel Intermezzo will be published in Hebrew, in a deal brokered by +972 Magazine and certified as compliant with PACBI guidelines. Susan Abulhawa argues that the deal’s technical compliance misses the point of the boycott.
📺 Watch: What Gaza does with the rubble, with Bisan Owda
🇵🇸 Gaza
This week’s reporting from Gaza covers renewed displacement, the families still searching for loved ones taken during Israeli detention sweeps, and a third Eid al-Adha spent in tents and rubble.
READ MORE → Despite the ceasefire, Israel resumes bombing entire residential blocks in Gaza, displacing dozens of families — Tareq S. Hajjaj
READ MORE → The families of Gaza’s disappeared are still looking for answers — Tareq S. Hajjaj
READ MORE → Palestine Letter: Eid in a tent — Tareq S. Hajjaj
READ MORE → ‘Life itself no longer feels the same’: Gaza faces another Eid al-Adha amid genocide — Khaled Al-Qershali
🇮🇱 Israeli politics
The Knesset dissolution and growing European pressure on Israeli far-right figures are being presented as signs of political change but they are not. The genocide enjoys cross-party support in Israel, and European governments are singling out figures like Ben-Gvir to avoid dealing with the underlying reality of the Israeli colonial state.
READ MORE → The Israeli Knesset just voted to dissolve itself, but this won’t end the Gaza genocide — Qassam Muaddi
READ MORE → Europe’s new strategy to hide the rot in Israeli society is to scapegoat Itamar Ben-Gvir — Qassam Muaddi
🇺🇸 United States
U.S. support for Israel is under strain from multiple directions, but it’s not shifting policy yet. The weapons and money fueling Israel’s apartheid system and genocide in Gaza keep flowing.
READ MORE → The time for a U.S. arms embargo on Israel is now — Josh Ruebner
READ MORE → Are neocons turning on the Iran War? — Michael Arria
READ MORE → Trump wants the Palestinians to pay for the U.S. occupation of Gaza — Ahmed Alqarout
READ MORE → The Shift: Josh Shapiro says pro-Israel advocates are having their ‘voices silenced’ by AIPAC critics — Michael Arria
🚨 Repression and resistance
This week, a psychiatrist whose Humanitarian Award lecture on trauma in Gaza was canceled under pressure from pro-Israel groups describes what happened. And from South Lebanon, a report on what Liberation Day means when the occupation has returned.
READ MORE → Why did the American Psychiatric Association cancel my Humanitarian Award Lecture on Gaza? — Mansoor Malik
READ MORE → On Liberation Day, South Lebanon marks the return of the occupation it once defeated — Ali Awada
🇵🇸 Palestinian voices and culture
Two pieces with Susan Abulhawa on Palestinian cultural life and the politics of who gets centered in the movement for liberation.
READ MORE → On +972 Magazine, Sally Rooney, and the centering of Israelis in an anti-colonial movement — Susan Abulhawa
READ MORE → Honoring the stories and inspiration of Gaza: an interview with susan abulhawa — Adam Horowitz
