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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?

The cover of RIFQA and it's author Mohammed El-Kurd.

Susan Abulhawa reviews Mohammad el-Kurd’s stunning debut poetry collection, Rifqa: “Letting my eyes sweep over lines just once wasn’t nearly enough to take in the unbearable beauty of this book. The words that Mohammad assembles in his poems aren’t pulled from books or dictionaries.  They are snatched from clouds, excised from his bones, excavated from Jerusalem’s fabled tales and the inscriptions on her storied stones, plucked from the creases in tank treads and history’s smoke.”

Israel Independence Day 2020 flyover (Photo: Israel Defense Forces/Flickr)

Marcelo Svirsky says Zionism is not a political ideology or movement in the narrow sense but a way of life that permeates all spheres of Jewish-Israeli culture and society. It can therefore be overcome only by means of a deep cultural transformation.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets with Senator Kamala Harris in Israel, November 20, 2017. (Photo: Amos Ben Gershom/GPO)

Many progressives in the Democratic Party have been celebrating the “return to normalcy” in US foreign policy represented by President Biden’s electoral win. This ignores the robust bipartisan consensus under both Democratic and Republican predecessors that laid the foundation for Trump’s openly hostile policies toward the Palestinians. It is this contradiction that lies at the heart of Marc Lamont Hill and Mitchell Plitnick’s new book, “Except for Palestine: The Limits of Progressive Politics”.

Jerome Slater’s new “Mythologies Without End” is an indispensable, compelling guide to the truths behind the myths in Israel, Palestine and the Mideast.