Palestinian courage this spring has stunned people across the world. At home and abroad, the US and Israel can kill, and for the moment, this cannot be stopped. But they can also be made to lose the war of ideas that makes the killing sustainable. We have no right to ask that the Palestinians stand alone in this fight.

Today marks 70 years since the massacre at Deir Yassin. The latest repression in Gaza is a reminder that the spirit of this massacre lives on in Israel. In 1948, as today, massacres to push and keep Palestinians off of the land were dictated by core Israeli policies. It is past time to confront the Western part in this tragedy.

Dan Freeman-Maloy writes, “The worsening crisis in Palestine reflects more than a local record of colonial crimes, severe as these have been. Responsibility for it is global. Arundhati Roy was right to describe the Palestine tragedy as one of “imperial Britain’s festering, blood-drenched gifts to the modern world.” It is also a product of a history of racism and empire that extended across most of the West. On this centennial of the Balfour Declaration, reflection on this shared culpability should serve as a reminder of the responsibility for the political action that comes with it.”