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Brian J. Brown, a Methodist minister who was banned in his native South Africa in 1977 for anti-apartheid work, writes that apartheid in Israel/Palestine is in many ways more brutal than it was in his country, including checkpoints and barriers and expulsions. His new book says that recognition of that apartheid and total opposition to it is mandatory for any person or church that claims to follow Christian teachings.

A Palestinian boy rides a horse near the separation wall during an equestrian training at the Palestinian Equestrian Club, in Rafat near Jerusalem on February 3, 2019. Photo: Shadi Jarar'ah/APA Images.

In his new book, “The State of Israel Vs. The Jews,” Sylvain Cypel paints a too-hopeful portrait of the anti-Netanyahu wing of American Jewish life as a virtuous broad tent united in their opposition to racism. What actually exists is a hodgepodge of intercommunal bickering, toothless fingerwagging, and hand-wringing– and this against an ever growing backdrop of Jewish only roads, deliberate bombings of civilian infrastructure and Associated Press offices, as Cypel himself meticulously documents. And in assigning importance to that Jewish argument, Cypel fails to treat Palestinians as autonomous political actors in the struggle.

Installation shot of If only this mountain between us could be ground to dust, 2021. Image courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme’s “If only this mountain between us could be ground to dust” is the artists’ first exhibition in a major US museum, and the first Palestinian exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago. “It is hard to put in words what we experienced while being there and how powerfully Palestinian voices were being amplified and empowered,” writes Malak Shalabi.

A still from Ahmed Mansour’s film "Angel of Gaza"

Palestinian filmmaker Ahmed Mansour’s new film, “Angel of Gaza,” tells the story of a Gazan family’s experience with war, separation, and diaspora through a focus on the family’s young daughter. Nadia Yaqub writes that the film raises troubling political questions about the steadfastness which for decades has been a cornerstone of Palestinian resistance. What does it mean for the Palestinian struggle that families like Malak’s must leave Palestine to survive?